Filed to story: Owned by the Alphas Novel
I let a wince loose and clenched my jaw against the pain tightening across my stomach.
“Oh, I see. We’re about to have the little demon, are we?” my father taunted as Vaughn held me, the knife still threatening.
“I don’t get it. Vaughn, why are you doing this? Ryleigh is going to have your baby.
You’re her mate!” I demanded, and Vaughn laughed in my ear.
The sound was hollow, almost an echo, and I frowned. It didn’t sound like Vaughn, or even feel like him. Something still wasn’t right, but I had no more magic left to investigate, only an instinct.
“Shhh, enough. Turn your beast back or I gut you.” My father nodded toward Galen, and I smirked.
“Nobody controls him. The only person who has a hope of getting him back now is the woman you threw away,” I spat, and my father scowled.
“He can have the whore. She was no good to me outside of the bedroom anyway,”
he bit, and Galen roared, charging, but my father pulled out his sword and held it at my throat.
“She won’t appreciate you getting her daughter killed, beast. If there is one thing I know about that woman, she cares about her daughter more than anything in this world,” he said.
It was the truth. Even Galen’s beast knew that. He stepped back, and my father dropped his sword.
I breathed hard against the tightness that kept going before my knees gave out.
“Let her go!” Derik demanded.
“Or what?” My father laughed as Vaughn hauled me back up, but his grip loosened, and I took the only opportunity I had.
I stomped on his heel before grabbing the blade and twisting it out of his hand. I spun, about to shove it through his stomach when he grabbed it back and put it against my throat.
My father laughed again. “Okay, I have had my fun. We need to get this over with so I can take over the mansion and retrieve my wife for the dungeons.
“Along with the spawn that we can cut from your loins once your throat is slit,” my father said, then looked to Vaughn as my alphas roared at him.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“The second that blade cuts her is the second you lose your life.”
“I’m really going to enjoy picking your flesh from my teeth with your own bones.”
They all yelled threats in frustration, but my father just laughed.
“Do it. Kill the bitch.”
He gave the order, and I thought I was done for. I waited for the moment the warm blood would seep down my chest a moment before it went black.
But it never came.
Instead, Vaughn stepped back, a creepy chuckle falling from his lips that sounded so distorted.
“Vaughn. Kill her,” my father bit, glaring at him, but I was already backing up.
Brax’s shadows met my fingers, and I was quiet as I let him pull me back slowly, discreetly.
“No.” Vaughn grinned, his smile stretching up his face.
His head lolled to the side, and he crept toward my father, his fingers growing talons that were black, long, and pointed.
“Silly little human,” Vaughn said, but his voice was no longer there. It was an echo, a creepy, raspy voice that fell from his face.
My father looked horrified as Vaughn slowly turned into the very witch we had been guessing was behind everything.
She ran her fingernails over my father’s shoulder ridge. “A little whisper here,” she said by his ear, then switched to the other shoulder, “a little nudge there.”
She chuckled, then stepped in front of him. “And you were the perfect little human to do my dirty work.”
“What? What’s going on?” he demanded.
I curled into Brax, and Derik stepped slightly in front of me, holding my wrist as Kai got ready to fight, but I had a feeling that was not her goal here.
She had already gotten what she wanted.
My magic was tapped out, Cain’s healing and magic were out of commission, the humans were slaughtered, and now that I was in labor, the wolves were going to be very distracted.
“You thought I manipulated you into uttering the forbidden word because I thought it would make you equal, but really, I wanted out of my cage, and now you have done everything I wanted.”
She cackled, her skin flaking a little as she did, like she was withering, but her fair skin kept her together.
Her white hair was piled high on her head, and a fancy dress in black silk and lace covered her slight body. Her pointed boots made her even scarier, but it was the sharp teeth that drew my attention.
“I… But we had a deal,” Father sputtered, and she laughed.
“I don’t make deals with vermin. Now, thank you for your services. Send my regards to the reaper; I have no more use for you.”
She grinned maliciously, then pulled out magic, black sand-looking stuff that was about to attack my father when Kai ran at him.
He went to attack when the witch snapped her head to him, her eyes black catching Kai with her sand, freezing him in place.
“Uh-uh, pup. Stay,” she ordered, and shoved Kai to the ground, pinning him with her boot. It looked like nothing, but it had Kai sputtering and coughing.
“Stop it! Let him go,” I said, stepping forward. That drew her attention.
“I will, but he wants my kill, and I am a little territorial. Everyone just be patient, and I will get to taking your souls in a moment,” she said, then turned to my father, who looked like he was going to cry.
He didn’t get a chance because in the next second, all that magic sand was pouring into his mouth and he was choking on it, blood pouring out his eyes, his nose, his ears until he collapsed onto the ground.
His clothes crumpled, his body turning to dust. No, to sand, black sand that swirled out and joined the rest of her magic.
I sucked in a breath, my eyes wide as I looked down at Kai beneath her boot. She turned to us, her magic swirling, threatening, her grin sliding up her face.
“Your turn, little winter born.”
36. The Truth
LORELAI
“How long have you been pretending to be Vaughn?” I demanded, stepping forward again.
I needed to distract this crazy witch from hurting Kai.
Just seeing him under her foot, struggling, his pain writhing inside me through our link was enough to have me clutching my fists, my magic balling there despite it being weak and trying to crawl back inside me.
“Hmm, intermittently for a while, but then he started to figure out that he was being seen in two places at once, and his annoying little soulmate was starting to clue on to when I was there and when he was.
“Couldn’t have that now, could I?” She sneered.
“So you poisoned her?”
“Yes.” She chuckled. “Just enough to dull her senses when it came to him and make her feel awful enough not to raise suspicions. Clearly it worked.”
“And Vaughn?”
“I have no use for the human now. He can rot in the human dungeons.”
She laughed, then shook her head like she was telling a cosmic joke, but it just made me want to kick her cosmic ass.
“Your father didn’t even realize it was me. He thought he had Vaughn as a spy in your midst, but really his Vaughn was dying in the dungeons while I fed him whatever information I needed him to know.
“He really is dull for a human, isn’t he? Your father, that is. Vaughn is a little tastier, but his blood is annoying. Just screams for that woman of his all the time.”
She rolled her eyes, and I gripped Derik’s arm, pulling strength from Brax’s shadows, my heart racing even more.
I owed Vaughn, I couldn’t let him die, but we couldn’t leave. I was about to have a baby. Sweat dampened my forehead as my body reminded me of that fact.
“Why? What is the point in any of this?” I snapped, my hand holding the bottom of my stomach as another pain assaulted me.
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?