Chapter 239 – Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel PDF Online Free

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I couldn’t Seek the way Stella could. I had to open my eyes despite the cold, icy slashes of rain. I squinted against the harsh pellets of hail now pelting me. They bounced off the deck and made it even more slippery than it had been before. My feet tried to go out from under me again. My hands slipped off the railing. I went to my hands and knees on the slick wood. The boat rocked, up and down, worse than a roller coaster.

“I will crawl to you, if that’s what it takes,” I sent to my daughter, not knowing if she could hear me.

Praying to the Moon Goddess and to whatever deity would listen that the sound of my voice would reach Stella. That she knew her mother was coming for her.My nails duck into the wooden deck, swollen with saltwater. The boat pitched, and I fell forward, hitting my face against the deck. Pain flared, but I fought it. My wolf didn’t try to fight for control, understanding that this was not a battle she could win. She sent me her strength, though. Her wolf’s stamina. Without it, my exhaustion would have sent me into unconsciousness.

I forced my head up. I could see my daughter’s dark shape, still at the front of the boat. I thanked the Goddess that Stella hadn’t been swept overboard. Even as I watched in horror, another immense wave rose up like some great beast and swept over her. I held my own breath as the water cascaded toward me. It buffeted me against the deck, slamming me against the side of the cabin where the captain sat to navigate. As the wave receded, I was pulled toward the back of the yacht again. The water sucked at me like a greedy mouth trying to draw me into a monstrous gullet.

It was alive, I thought. The water. Alive. Hating and hungry.

I slammed into the back of the boat, no longer even trying to remember the nautical terms. My hip and back screamed with excruciating pain as I hit the table secured to the deck and bounced off it.

Blackness tickled the edges of my vision, trying to get me to succumb to it. To sleep. Sleep would take away the pain, and the water could swallow me whole…

“No!” The shriek erupted from my throat. Tearing. I tasted blood.

As the boat tipped forward again, I pushed off with my knees. The timing was just right. Luck or skill? It didn’t matter. I was on my feet, the soles of my boots gripping as my toes pressed against the deck’s sharply slanted angle. It was like running uphill, but I put everything I had into it.

The rain hadn’t eased, but I was able to see Xander’s massive shape on the other side of the cabin.

I didn’t see Zane or Mason, but they’d be close by. All of us were fighting to get to the front of the yacht.The boat slammed nose-down into the emptiness left behind by another greedy wave. Now it was like I was facing downhill. I plummeted forward, skidding past the cabin. I managed to stop myself by grabbing the railing again.

I could see through the cabin window. The captain stood at the wheel. His face bore no expression.

His mouth hung open. Nothing held him in place…nothing but the force of Stella’s will.

I knew nothing about how to steer a yacht, especially not through seas like this. This dead man, puppeteered by my daughter, would have to get us safely to shore. As the boat slammed through another wave, I managed to get beyond the cabin to the empty deck beyond. I tore open the locker holding the life jackets and pulled one over my head. I kept the other held tight in my grip as I fell onto my knees again.

I crawled toward Stella.

Another wave crashed over us, and for a moment when it passed, I thought she was gone. Then my vision cleared. She was still there. Not safe, but still alive.

And then, she began to sing.

Lanie–

The waves did not calm, and the storm did not cease. The wall of fog in front of us had looked like it was getting farther away, but now it stayed in place…and we got closer. We were heading right for it. We were going to collide, and yet I wasn’t afraid.

With every note my daughter sang, the fog shifted and changed in time with her melody. It was like no song I’d ever heard, and her voice was also not quite her own. She sang with a thousand voices, all at once, none I’d heard before. And yet, I would’ve known the sound of her singing anywhere. In any time, in any life.

The Moon Goddess had told me to TRUST. That was all I could do. Everything I must do.

I joined her. My mouth opened and filled with the slashing salt of rain and waves, but a song came out of me that could not be drowned, no matter how fiercely the water tried. It joined with Stella’s, the melody rising and falling as I harmonized. There were words, in a thousand or more languages I didn’t know and would never learn.

The song filled the air and blocked out the sound of the storm. As we sang, the fog began to thin. I could see the edges of what looked like land. For a second, my voice faltered.

The fog wall slammed back into being totally opaque. The yacht veered along it instead of going through. I fell onto the deck, hitting it with my face. My mouth filled with blood, but I spit it out, over and over, until I could sing again.

My first notes were low and soft and broken, but I let my heart lead. Soon, the song flowed out of me again with a force greater even than the storm. Lightning flashed and struck the deck inchesfrom my face. The burning smell of electricity crackled through my nose, but the strike didn’t even leave behind a mark on the wood.

Strong hands yanked me up to my feet. Xander and Mason held me up between them. Their mouths moved with words I couldn’t hear over the sound of the song I shared with our daughter.

They were shouting encouragement at me.

Zane joined them, all three of my mates supporting me and keeping me from flying backward as the yacht rose and fell. It hit the water with the force of a boulder hitting concrete. My teeth slammed together, and my scream of pain mingled with the sounds of our song.

Their love surrounded me with an almost physical force. It was as much a wall as that fog had been, but it didn’t hide or obscure anything. The love of my mates made everything stronger. More clear.

The four of us turned to face our daughter, still at the front of the boat. The wind and rain had drenched everyone else, but she looked as though not even a drop had touched her. Her hair flew around her, individual strands lighting and flashing with each similar flash of lightning. When the thunder rumbled and the hail battered us, her song got louder.

My mates helped me forward. I didn’t try to stand next to her, but instead kept my place behind her.

Ready to catch her, if she fell.

Stella didn’t fall. She faced forward, and the prow of the yacht parted the water as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. Then, it nosed the wall of fog. It split it like a curtain, or a bride’s veil being lifted.

A single fist had crushed the life out of our captain. Now a multitude of hands formed out of the mist.

Fists, and clenching, clutching talons. Hands the size of berries and some bigger than the entire yacht. They all reached for us as we slipped through what had been a solid wall. Hands at the ends of long, snaking arms, attached to nothing.They yanked at our clothes and hair and tried to grip our arms, legs, any part they could reach. Tiny hands tried to slip inside our mouths and nostrils, into our ears. They tried to poke our eyes. Bigger hands tore at the yacht’s rigging. Claws dug into the wooden deck.

A piece of the railing flew away, clutched in a phantom hand. The wheelhouse windows shattered under the pounding of a hundred ghostly fists. Deck furniture flew past us to shatter on the water when the foggy hands dropped the pieces, like once they discovered the chairs and tables weren’t alive, they didn’t want them anymore.

The yacht lurched with a horrible scraping noise as we hit the shallow water. Me and my three mates fell onto our knees as the boat went ashore. Stella collapsed and fell off the deck and onto the sand.

Both of us had stopped singing. I was already forgetting the tune. The words. Only the soreness in my throat remained.

My mates helped me off the boat and onto the beach. I ran for our daughter and gathered her into my arms. I rocked her, desperate to make sure she was alive.

Stella turned her exhausted face toward us.

“We’re here,” she said in a voice as dusty as an attic. “Welcome to Fallen Crest. The island of the dead.”

Zane–

As soon as the boat landed, the fog wall went back up. I could see it behind us, but I couldn’t figure out the distance. It looked like it was inches away, and also miles at the same time.

The five of us stood on a narrow beach scattered with shells. They were all bone-white and worn.

Here and there, I thought I caught a glance of what looked like skeletal remains also sticking out of the sand, but it was impossible to tell what kind of bones they were.

“It’s quiet,” Mason said. “Too fucking quiet.”

Even the sound of the waves crashing was dim and far away, like a radio with the volume turned down way too low. I went to the water’s edge and dipped my fingers in it, thinking of how hungry the water had felt on the boat. Now it was the land behind us that seemed like it was ready to eat us.

“We need to find shelter,” Xander said. “Stella needs to warm up. To rest. We need food.”

She shook her head. “Daddy, we won’t find anything like that here. We need to get into the trees before the High Council gets here, but…we aren’t going to find anything here that will help keep us alive.”

“Island of the Dead,” Lanie said softly. She shaded her eyes to look into the trees that lined the sandy shore. “Those trees aren’t even alive.”

“Nothing here can stay living for very long. The dead here, they…want us. They need us. We have to stay vigilant. Strong.” Stella drew in a long, deep breath. “I’m holding them off for now. I’ve got a bubble of protection around us.”

“How long can you keep that up?” Xander asked.“Long enough.”

Lanie pulled Stella close to her side. “When the High Council gets here, will they be able to reach the island? They’ll be able to get through the fog?”

“Oh, yes. They’re all so angry, it fills them with…” Stella gestured. “Think of a juicy steak. Of how your mouth waters just thinking of it. That’s how the residents here feel and think about grand emotions. Love, hate, fear, anger. None of them can feel anything for themselves anymore. They lost the ability so long ago, all they can do is remember how being alive felt.”

I moved to the edge of the sand. The trees reached leafless branches toward a dull sky, bright enough to see by but without even a hint of sun, moon, or stars. The fog had made this place a tomb.

That seemed fitting.

“How long do we have?” I asked Stella.

She shook her head. “I can’t tell. The council members are fighting amongst themselves at every turn. The only thing they have in common is their desire to see us all dead.”

***

Lanie–

We didn’t need shelter, and there was no food. The only thing we could do was fight our way through the grasping fingers of the dead trees and get to the center of the island. There, we found a small hut made of leaning timbers. We stepped through the door and into a vast, cavernous space so big I couldn’t see the end of it. Carved columns held up a ceiling dotted with what might have been stars, but so far away they were only pinpoints.All around us, soft sighs and whispers tempted our little group to break apart. I swatted away a vision of my mother and sister reaching for me. My heart pounded.

“Are they dead?” I cried.

Stella put her arm around my waist. “No. It’s a trick. Please, none of you let what you see pull you away from us. I can only protect us within this space, and you can’t see the borders of it. Stay close.

Touching one another.”

“Should we leave this place?” Xander asked boldly.

“This is where we have to wait for the High Council. It’s the only place I can defend us while putting them in danger.” Stella drew in a breath. Her voice rasped, hoarse and gritty. “They’re coming for us, but the dead are going to find them first. Any who make it through to here, I’ll take care of.”

More figures appeared. Some I knew. Some I could tell my mates knew by the way they recoiled or muttered. The specters screamed, wailed, berated…pleaded, flattered, and cajoled.

When Orion appeared in front of us, both Mason and Xander tensed. Stella did, too. She put her arms around both of her fathers.

“He’s more powerful than the others, because he’s real,” she said. “Stand strong!”

Orion let out a string of garbled curses and dove at our little group. We couldn’t see the protective barrier, but he clearly bounced off it and fell back.

“She should be mine!” He howled, pointing at Stella. “My plans…the stakes…the council…”

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