Filed to story: Owned by the Alphas Novel
“A rogue witch?” Galen asked, sitting straighter in his chair.
“It explains the prophecy and the magic.” I shrugged, and Galen nodded, deep in thought.
“Then let the witches handle it. It is their rogue, why should it be our problem?” my mother snapped.
I wished it was that easy. “The witches don’t exile their kind easily, and when they do, it is complete. I was under the impression that they were all dead by now, but maybe not.”
“The witches are the balance. How do they exile each other?” Tatum scoffed.
“Witches are forbidden from interfering with humans. Forbidden from directly affecting the balance. If a witch broke those rules, they would be exiled, the others coming together to do so.
“The last one I heard of was a witch falling in love with a human who was fated to die. She used necromancy magic to thwart that fate.
“It took many sacrifices, one of every race, every full moon to keep him and the spell alive, and then that magic turned inside him and he became a monster. He tried to kill her. Clawed at her until she managed to crawl away.
“She begged the witches for help, forgiveness, but they shunned her, let her live out her consequences. They bound her to a shadow realm with the creature she had created.
“I assumed she had been killed, but maybe that isn’t possible there.”
I thought through the possibilities in my head when Lorelai was there in the link, her curiosity shining through the mating. She had been listening the whole time, which I should have expected.
“Derik. If she was bound to this shadow world, would that count as a contract?” she asked in my head, and I frowned.
“I suppose so,” I admitted, but I wasn’t entirely sure until the thought in her head locked in mine.
“Fractum,” I whispered, my face draining. It broke all contracts.
Galen sucked in a breath. “She was released.”
He was quick on the draw, and I nodded. The rest of the council were frowning, and I hated to be the one to drop the bomb on them.
“That witch and her creature were bound to a shadow realm, and that contract was with the witches.” I took a deep breath. “Until Fractum. It broke the contract.”
I let out my breath with the words and the entire table stilled, the words out loud hard to swallow. Not even Tatum had a fighting word to say.
“How do we kill a witch? They have magic. And what of this creature?” my father asked quietly.
I didn’t have those answers.
“We are waiting to hear from Tabby. She is going to see the witches,” I said, hoping like hell she had the answers for us.
“So the humans are working with the witch and have a creature of destruction up their sleeve?” Tatum arranged the conclusion for me, and I nodded.
“So it seems.”
I had nothing more to add. Dread and horror were consuming me, and I had to get my shit together. The humans were not our only issue.
“If the humans attack, we fight as a pack. It’ll be hard since we cannot turn, but we have an armory of weapons underground and we will use every damn one of them if we have to. Cain and Lorelai will help with the magic side of things.
“The humans can trap us in here, but we survive months every year isolated with no moon, and we will do the same this year,” I vowed, needing to uplift the wolves, needing to help them see hope despite the trickling feelings of doubt leaking into me.
“We’ve got this, Derik. You’ve got this,” Lorelai whispered down the link, and I closed my eyes at her voice, the comfort and caresses through the link pushing away the darkness.
I looked over the council and cleared my throat. I’ve got this.
“We’ll wait for word from Tabby. In the meantime, I will keep the humans as far from the wolves as possible to help with their instincts, but I want every single member within the city to be training. Fighting, archery, swords.
“I want experts by the time we break through this barrier,” I said, ready to organize the chaos of our city.
We had to, especially if the humans were the least of our adversaries.
“Should we tell the vampires about what is going on? They will be affected.”
“They made it very clear they weren’t willing to help us, and even if we wanted to, we have no way to communicate with them. They are the least of our worries.”
“What about my brother?” Lorelai asked.
I sighed at that. It wasn’t something I could say out loud. Only Galen knew.
“He is already here, beautiful. He was visiting, waiting for you when the barrier went up.”
“It means he is stuck here, but we have made him comfortable. You can go see him tomorrow after you’ve had some rest,” I said to her, then faced the council again.
“And you think being aggressive with training will stop the wolves from losing their shit?” Mother asked.
I nodded. “It will give them focus. Between that and fucking, they should be able to control themselves.”
I hoped.
“I’ll run point on training. I’ll have groups and times organized by the end of the day.
“I’ll try to keep the less aggressive wolves together so the others don’t feed them their hostility. Then I’ll train longer with them so they can get up to the other levels.
“The more aggressive wolves I’ll have fight each other bare-knuckled, no rules, then put them on guarding the walls to work out that aggression before they hit the pubs and Juniper’s place,” Tatum said, and I was reminded why he was one of my favorite council members. He understood my need for structure.
I nodded in thanks to him, and he returned the gesture before scribbling notes down.
I turned to Carden, Anetta’s mate, one of the few survivors from Kai’s rampage when he got back from his time with the vampires.
He was strong, but he was even smarter, and he used those smarts to keep our crops and gardens alive.
“Carden, the food storage and crops, how are they faring?” I asked, wanting to hit all the points before going back to my room and crawling into the arms of my mate.
Carden winced, and I clenched my teeth. Another problem incoming. Not surprising, but still just as irritating because I just needed something to go our way, something I didn’t need to sort out.
“They’re…faring. We may need to look at some fertilizer from Galen to keep the crops growing. The barrier is somehow leeching our magic and stopping them from growing.
“The livestock are still breeding and we have meat to sustain us, but without wheat, grain, and vegetables, food may get scarce,” he said, looking through his papers.
I smirked; my wishes had been answered.
I just happened to have a magically overloaded luna sitting in my room, and if pushing that magic into the soil was going to solve two of my problems, then I was damn grateful for it.
“I can do that,” she said in my head, and I smiled.
“I’ll escort Lorelai to the gardens every day if you can make sure the wolves clear those paths. She’ll use her magic to keep the food sources healthy.”
“Will do. Midday?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Done.”
“And what of the attacks? The humans haven’t attacked since the barrier went up, but are we going to look for any weaknesses or organize lookouts in case they do?”
Mother asked.
“We’re going to patrol. I’ve given each of you a roster and a section of the city.
Those are your wolves to account for and the times you are on watch for. You can organize your group accordingly.
“If the humans attack, send out a howl–I don’t trust the link at the moment–and then we’ll all move on that signal. I want the wall covered, the mansion guarded, the arrows in the middle, shooting from rooftops, the swordsmen at the wall.
“The humans will be sent down into the armory, locked in where there is a stash of supplies and an underground system that leads to Tabitha’s.
“Until that warning sounds off, I don’t want a single wolf or soul to know the existence of that tunnel.
“We don’t want that information in the wrong hands, and I haven’t gone down there to check the state of it since Fractum, nor whether it is covered by the barrier.”
“If it’s not, why don’t we get out?” Father scoffed. “Then we can attack the humans, surprise them.”
“Because the barrier is for the wolves. The humans have been able to touch it, which means only they can escape that way,” I snapped, sick of being the brain for them.
They were still trying to run things like they did last time, and it wasn’t how we were doing it.
Kai, Brax, and I wanted more for our wolves and the humans that we had protected. They were the reason we were even fighting this battle.
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?