Filed to story: Owned by the Alphas Novel
I shook free of his hold. “And if it was me out there, would you listen to those rules?” I argued.
He growled again. “The humans are attacking them. I can’t let you walk into that. I won’t.”
“I wasn’t asking,” I bit back, and stormed out, clutching my stomach as it ached with the emotions and pain bleeding in through the mating link.
“Spitfire. Stop.”
“If you’re that worried then come with me,” I urged, but he winced.
“I can’t. I’m bound to my word with Galen. I have to stay with your mother until he returns,” he said under his breath, anger falling off him.
“Then I’m sorry, Brax, but I have to go. He’s in pain. He needs me, I can feel it.”
I grabbed my skirts and ran toward the door of the mansion, my mind on Kai and how much he needed me, how badly his soul was crying for mine, the burning pain that was filling me.
Tears streamed and I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t get to him in time. That poison they had was working faster and faster, and I had no idea what that meant for an alpha.
I did know that if I could get to him, I could draw that poison from him.
I had done it so many times for the ones that had made it back the other times, my magic beating the humans easily, but not if I wasn’t there.
“Lorelai!” Kai’s voice screamed in my head, and I dropped to my knees at the door.
“Kai,” I cried, blinking my tears away.
Dizziness consumed me, and I opened my eyes again.
The doors to the mansion were gone, Brax’s growling was gone, even my mother’s soothing influence was gone.
Instead, I was in the middle of a forest. There was screaming in the distance, crying out, howling, and growling. The ambush.
I ran toward the noises as fast as my pregnant-as-hell body could. I didn’t know where Kai was, but I was following the pull in my mating link. I was guessing that was what had brought me to him.
I was concentrating on not tripping on roots and trees when my spine tingled, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
I was being watched. And by the warning in my shadows, I knew they were getting ready to stop me from getting anywhere near the fight.
Humans.
I sensed the poison in the arrow they sent at me, turning right as it reached me and grabbing it. I snapped it in two and chucked it to the ground, glaring at the figure between two trees behind me.
I recognized him from my luxurious stay in the men’s village and wasn’t prepared to grant him any kind of mercy.
Magic warmed my hands, and I knew it was with me. I knew it would bend to my will; it would let me use it for what I needed.
I aimed it at the vines of the forest, bringing them down around the figure, and before he could cry out or react, he was wrapped in vine.
I covered his mouth and kept them tight on him. As much as I wanted to go over to him, say what I wanted to him, get a message to my father, it would have to wait because I couldn’t.
I had to get to Kai. He didn’t have the time for my revenge.
I took off running again, leaving my human vine burrito wriggling like a worm on the forest floor, but I’d cook him later, or I’d give him to my alphas, who did revenge so much better than me.
I felt more humans getting closer and I knew I didn’t have long, so I threw up a shield around me and ran straight through the carnage to where Derik had hauled Kai behind a huge boulder.
His arm had a gash through it, bleeding black ooze, the edges sizzling, eating through more of his flesh.
“Kai,” I breathed, bending down to him, puffing as Derik nocked an arrow and let it fly out from our spot behind the boulder, wincing against the following consequential scream from the human it hit.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Kai breathed, flinching as he gripped his arm.
“I heard you scream. I can help,” I said.
Derik growled. “You should be at the mansion.”
“Well, I’m not,” I snapped, and grabbed Kai’s arm. “I’m helping.”
I held my hand over his arm. It was a bigger arm than I’d ever drawn poison out of, but I loved that arm and all the other body parts too much to let it be a problem.
I healed him fast, our mating bond glowing inside me, the poison dissipating, leaving a tiny scar across his skin. He let out a breath, then grinned.
“My little human, saving the big bad wolf,” he teased before pulling me in and kissing me.
I laughed against his kiss despite the screaming and roaring that was raging on the other side of the boulder.
“Derik, cover us,” Kai teased, and I laughed as Derik huffed.
“Celebrate the nonending of your life once we’re back in the city and our pregnant mate isn’t surrounded by enemies, hmm?” Derik said.
He was right, I was getting distracted, but Kai was hard to resist. So was Derik, especially when they were all sweaty and dangerous.
I was so damaged to be thinking it, but I wouldn’t mind taking a little time-out for some better ways to spend time together.
“Don’t tempt us, beautiful. You being here is already a distraction we cannot afford,” Derik said, then reared up and jumped onto the rock, howling up into the air.
An arrow came flying up at him, but I saw it in time, throwing my magic at it, dissolving it midair.
He looked down at me, then winked. “Stay with Kai, beautiful,” he said, then leapt from the rock and burst into his giant-ass wolf.
It was impressive, and I licked my lips, peering over the boulder. Bad idea.
The sight pierced my heart. Blood covered the trees, the forest floor. Dead bodies littered it. Human and wolf.
It was the bloodbath my mates talked of, but seeing it in person was harder than I thought it would be. I had been so focused on Kai before I hadn’t taken it in, but I was now, and I hated it.
We needed to stop this. It wasn’t doing anything but getting both sides killed.
“I hate this,” I whispered, and Kai came up behind me.
“So do we, but we can’t back down or they will end us,” he said, and I knew that, but it was harder to see in person than know the truth of it in theory.
I stood up and shook my head. I had power literally at my fingertips. I had to use it.
“Don’t be a hero, Little Human. I’ll spank your ass raw,” Kai warned, and I grinned over my shoulder.
“You and I both know that is no threat because we would both enjoy it. You know I can’t sit back and let this happen,” I said, and he nodded once.
“I know. I just had to say it so Derik wouldn’t bite my head off once we’re back home for not trying to stop you.” He grinned.
I laughed, then walked into the middle of the wolves fighting, swords and arrows flying, my shield strong, rebounding everything that came at me.
I had been practicing with Cain, I had just had Brax’s bite, his toxin strong in me, our connection still ripe in my blood, I had the favor of the border magic. The humans were not getting through what I had.
At least that is what I told myself.
Until my father rode in on a horse, holding his hand up, ceasing his men’s part in the fight. The humans all stopped, falling back as the arrows stopped flying.
The pack growled and sneered, panting in their wolf forms, lining up behind me, flanking me, Derik as a wolf on my left, Kai on my right in human form. But my shield separated us all.
I wasn’t sure if I could use my magic on him yet, but if he was retreating, I would let him. Or I’d lose my shit and kill him, destroying whatever hope I had for the goodness inside me to win.
But maybe that innocence wasn’t worth it.
Because staring at my father’s stoic face made me see red, his entire demeanor one of arrogance, like he still believed what he was doing was right despite standing on the blood of his own, not just his enemies.
I curled my hands into fists as he curled his lip back.
My next move depended on the poisonous words that were about to fall from his lips. If they weren’t what I wanted to hear, then I couldn’t promise I was going to hold back.
I had no idea whether that was a good thing or not anymore.
28. The Mark
LORELAI
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?