Chapter 238 – Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel PDF Online Free

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Things couldn’t be too bad if our daughter was rebelling against her mom in such a normal way.

Lanie went to the sideboard and piled a plate with rich-looking desserts. “You don’t even have to eat your veggies. Have some sugar.”

Stella laughed, her eyes aglow as she looked around the table at all of us. She reached to take Xander’s hand, since he was the closest to her. Then she stretched to take mine too.

“I know you’re all doing your best to look out for me. I love you,” she said.

“We love you, too,” Zane replied.

After a few bites, Stella got some color back in her cheeks. She laid out the plans for us heading to the island and what to expect after. She told us several times that anything could change at any time, based on what the High Council decided to do or how other choices led to different outcomes.

No matter what happened, we were looking at a battle. First, against the undead or living dead or spirit dead or whatever the hell occupied Fallen Crest. And of course, the High Council themselves.“It’s Grammy!” Stella gasped in the middle of her sentence. “The High Council’s scrying tool has been destroyed! Her third eye is closed!”

Zane–

At Stella’s words, Xander was instantly on his feet. Stella took his hand again. She tugged it gently to get him to look at her.

“Daddy, she’s fine. She’s got a man with her.”

Xander scowled. “What man?”

“He’s a doctor.” Stella tilted her head, her gaze going far away. “He’s an eye doctor. She was sensing that something was using her vision, and she stopped it by shutting her own eyes down.

He’s helping her. She’ll be fine. The twins are fine, too.”

“And the High Council? What are they doing?” Xander demanded.

“They already knew we’re gone and where we’re going. They…” She paused. “When she refused to let them see through her third eye any more, they destroyed the scrying device, hoping it would kill her. But it didn’t! She’s free!”

“Won’t they be attacking Brightsky, then?” Mason interjected.

Stella laughed, bubbling with joy. “No! They don’t care now! They’re so focused on us, they’re all coming. Every last one of them is set on destroying us!”

“They’re cutting off their noses to spite their own faces,” Lanie said.

“They have no choice but to do their best to annihilate us,” Stella said. “Not after they’ve spent so much time working everyone into a frenzy about vampires taking over and hybrids being at the root of the wars. All of their lies need to be supported, or they’ll find themselves destroyed.”Brightsky’s safety was good news, but I couldn’t get too jazzed about us being the sole targets.

Nothing had changed except the number of people on our trail, but it still felt worrisome.

Lanie had fallen asleep, and I didn’t want to disturb her. Xander and Mason were silently playing a game of cards that neither seemed interested in winning. My Beta senses told me I’d done all I could for them so I decided to take myself up on deck.

I spotted Stella at the back of the boat, sitting on the small lower deck used for swimming. For now, the sea was calm enough that she was in no danger…well, other than the danger we were already in.

“How close will he be able to get us to the island?” I asked her as I approached.

She jumped at the sound of my voice and let out a gasp. “Oh! Papa! You scared me!”

It seemed strange that I’d been able to startle her. Maybe she wasn’t so all-seeing and all-knowing as I’d thought. Or, more likely, she had so much on her mind that she hadn’t been paying attention to me.

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.”

I sat down next to her, our legs dangling over the back of the yacht’s swim deck. The water was cold on my bare feet. I imagined something coming up from the depths to nibble my toes. If I was lucky, a nibble was all I’d get.

“I was Seeking,” she said. “We’re close to the island. We’ll get there tomorrow.”

She leaned against my shoulder but said nothing for a few minutes. The water slapped at the sides of the yacht. It stretched out beyond us into a vast blackness even the light of the stars could not cut.“When the sun rises, I’ll know more,” she said. “Fallen Crest is hidden by a fog that stretches for miles, all around it. So long as we stay just outside that barrier, I think our captain will be okay.”

Something in her tone sounded off. I didn’t think she was lying to me, but I did suspect there was something she wasn’t telling me. I gave her another minute to decide if she was going to or not.

“Papa,” she said quietly, then stopped.

“Yes? What is it? You can tell me.”

She hitched in a trembling sigh and pressed her face to my shoulder. Her hand sought mine and took it. I linked our fingers, squeezing, and brought her knuckles up for a kiss.

“Tell me,” I urged her. “We can help.”

“I’m afraid I’ve made some bad choices. Choices that can bring harm to people. But I have no choice. At dinner…” She drew in another shaky breath. “The captain dropped his knife. It landed point down. Stuck in the floor.”

“I remember.” I’d wondered at the odds of that happening.

“He was meant to have it stab his foot,” she said. “So he couldn’t stand. It would take him longer to move around the wheelhouse. And he’d be fine. We’d get to the island, and he’d leave. He’d survive.”

A cold fist squeezed my heart. “But the knife missed his foot.”

“Yes.”

I thought of what she’d told us. How every small action or inaction affected the future’s course. How every path branched a myriad of times, and not all branches led to the same conclusion.“What happens now that he’s not injured?” I asked her.

“He dies before we get to the island.”

Xander–

All of us had found spaces to sleep in the tiny cabins belowdecks. We had all wanted to be together, but there was no bed big enough for the four of us. Also, Stella had told us that she’d seen us sleeping in our own beds, and so we had agreed.

Exhaustion claimed me right away, but my sleep was fitful. I tossed and turned until finally, I sat straight up in bed and grazed the ceiling with my head. For a second, I didn’t know where I was.

I wasn’t tossing and turning. The yacht was. Without any windows in the cabin, the room was pitch black, but I felt the boat rolling from side to side. I put out a hand to feel for the wall, suddenly afraid I was not in a boat, on the sea, but in space, floating without protection. Maybe dreaming. Maybe transported to some far off place I’d never heard of.

The second my fingers brushed the wall, I felt solid, anchored, and myself again. I shook off the fears trying to consume me and fumbled for the light switch. The lights wouldn’t turn on, even though I flicked it several times.

My wolf took over.

He didn’t take my body, just my vision and instincts so I could make my way to the door and the hallway beyond. It was dark there, too, but a faint strip of emergency lighting led me to the stairs so I could get up on deck. Zane and Mason were right behind me. Lanie had beat us there. I couldn’t see Stella.

“She’s up there!” Lanie pointed. She had to shout over the sound of the lashing winds pushing waves up and over the deck.The sky was light overhead, but not from the sun or the moon. An eerie green glow crackled with electricity and showed off rolling clouds of billowing fog.

“That is not normal,” Zane thought-shouted to me.

The fog made a wall. It was hard to see if it was solid, as in if the yacht would crash into it or go through it, but it was definitely not moving the way fog was supposed to. The wall stretched from the roiling ocean all the way up to the skies and beyond.

As we all gathered on the foredeck in front of the wheelhouse, I turned to look up into the windows for any sight of the captain. His silhouette lit up in another flash of lightning. He looked scared out of his mind. His eyes were wide. His mouth, gaping open in a scream I couldn’t hear over the rush and roar of the storm.

All of a sudden, his gaze locked onto mine. He disappeared from view. Moments later, he was on the deck, plunging toward us. He slid on the slick wood and fell to one knee. He struggled to get up, but the yacht was riding a tall wave that pitched us up at an angle so sharp he couldn’t get his footing.

Zane lost his balance and slid down the deck to collide with a large box labeled with emergency gear. Mason managed to grab onto the railing and stop himself from falling, and he reached out to grab Lanie and hold her close to stop her, too.

I staggered back, arms pinwheeling, as the yacht’s position shifted and then sent me forward again.

The captain grabbed at my arm and hauled himself upright. His eyes blazed with fear.

“What is this? What is happening?” His lips shaped the words, but I could still only barely hear him.

If he wasn’t at the helm, were we going to crash? I didn’t know shit about how boats worked. The captain grappled with me, clutching at the front of my shirt. He was still shouting, but I couldn’tunderstand him. I felt his terror, all right. Sour and stinking even over the electrical scent of the storm.

Stella appeared like she’d been there all along and we simply hadn’t seen her. Maybe she’d been invisible. Maybe we were all hallucinating.

Maybe we were all going to die.

The yacht bore down on the wall of fog at top speed. Every second it seemed like we’d burst through it, but it remained the same distance away. And then, a hand curled out of the fog. It was made of the fog itself. Long-taloned fingers clawed.

It grabbed the captain and lifted him into the air, squeezing as his arms and legs flailed. He was shrieking. The phantom fist crushed him and began to draw him into the wall of mist.

Stella held up both her hands, then slammed them down. The giant hand dropped the captain into a boneless heap on the deck. I could tell by the way he landed that he was already dead.

The hand disappeared. Was that a scream? An endless, ageless howl of rage? Or was it the storm, still rising?

Stella worked her hands again, moving them. The captain got to his feet. He lurched toward the wheelhouse.

He was dead, all right, but Stella was moving him. The rest of us fought to keep our feet as the captain reappeared in the wheelhouse windows. Stella turned and jumped up on the front of the boat, holding onto the railing as though she meant to go over.

Lanie–

On deck, I clung to the railing with every bit of strength I had or could steal from my wolf. The yacht pitched as each wave took us higher Than the one before it. Up, up, up, and then down, we’d plunge into the well left behind by each crest.

I thought I might be screaming, but I couldn’t hear my own voice above the sound of the storm. Rain slashed at my face, cutting into my cheeks and forcing me to close my eyes. My feet slid out from under me.

With determination, I redoubled my efforts to get to my daughter. Hand over hand, I hauled myself along that railing, getting closer an inch at a time to where Stella stood at the front of the yacht. I could hear my mates shouting through our mind link, but their voices sounded so far away I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I knew they would be fighting to get to her the same way I was, though.

This yacht might sink, but we’d swim, if we had to.

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