Fated To the Alpha by Jessica Hall
Chapter 254
The moment we clashed, all hell broke loose. All of them began shifting and attacking. My focus is solely on this giant directly in front of me. It became clear he was the one in charge. Were-bears, who the hell would have thought those existed, and what were chances of us stumbling upon them. Trust Rose to find the only other monsters beside us.
His paw swiped at my face, and I sank my teeth into it, which made him roar as Jax’s teeth sliced through the pad of his paw, his claws scratching out tongue as he waved his arm. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eziah taking his sweet-a*s time as he got undressed.
Folding his clothes while the bears circled around him, he kept at his leisurely pace of getting unchanged. Casen was fighting two and had a spear stuck in his side while the rest spun around, watching with their spears ready.
The bear roared as he swiped at my back, his claws raking through my fur to our tail before he grabbed it and flung me across the tiny clearing. We hit a tree, and Jax got back to his feet and shook out his fur, spraying blood everywhere as we turned back toward our target.
The bear stood up on its feet and snarled before dropping back down and charging at us. Jax growled, rushing at it before springing off his feet and onto its back, tearing into his neck.
“f*uc*ker’s got thick skin,” Jax growled at me.
“Make a good rug. We need a new one,” I told him. But one thing was not on this bear’s side. We had speed he could never match, and years of handling Kaif, this was child’s play for us. He tried to toss us off, but Jax sank his teeth deeper, making him whine and try to rip us off, and swiped over his shoulder at us.
He abruptly stood up, leaving us hanging from his neck by our teeth, while he flung his arms blindly, trying to get us off. Jax snarled before he was f0rced to let go or lose a tooth.
He slid onto his feet across the gr@ssabout 10 meters away from the f0rce of being tossed off. Casen had K*lled a smaller bear, but had a huge bite in his back leg and fought another while three stood around Eziah’s n@ked form. His hands were glowing and they stared, mesmerized.
“What the f*uc*k is he doing, showing them a magic trick?” Casen snarled through the link at me. The bear I was fighting also turned to look at Eziah before c*oc*king his head to the side. The light in his hands grew more extensive and the bears backed up, Eziah smirked at their obvious fear.
“Always enjoyed hunting, and I must say, you have a lovely pelt,” he said while looking at a malted-colored one. They backed up some more, staring at his hands as he rolled the sphere between his hands, letting it grow bigger as his power surged through it. The gigantic bear I was fighting against suddenly roared and ran at him. Jax was quick on his heels, about to rip into him when Eziah raised his hand before slamming the ball of light at the ground.
The ground lifted like a wave, and my eyes widened when I was blasted backward. All I saw was black fur coming at my face. I was about to attack the bear when it flew towards me. It smashed against me and we hit the ground in a heap.
The air was expelled from our lungs in a quick wheeze, and I felt some of Jax’s ribs crack as its weight crushed us. The bear landed on top of us, and Jax struggled to get out from under the big bastard, squirming when the bear suddenly got off us and shook himself out.
With a glance around, the other bears started charging at Eziah. He was tossing a sphere of gold in the air like he was about to play
dodgeball. Trees around us were fallen or wholly uprooted, except for the spot where Eziah stood, which was perfectly intact and looked untouched.
The rest of the place looked like a tornado had passed through. He smiled and the beast charged at him, snarling and growling all claws and teeth. Eziah raised his hand when he suddenly disappeared as fur engulfed my vision of him, and all I could see was the black bear.
The enormous black bear roared and stood up, raising its paws, and the other bears slid across the ground and came to a halt at their leader’s order. The bears shoulders dropped in what looked like submission, and the black bear turned to face Eziah, who waved to him.
“Do you mind stepping aside? I don’t want you as rug. I want that one?” he said while peering around the giant bear and pointing to a malted brown one; he sent him a wink. The black bear suddenly shifted, turning back to his human form before dropping on one knee.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were the Moon Goddess’s kin, your Majesty,” he says, and all the bears drop on their paws and bow to him. Eziah huffed and tapped his foot, clearly annoyed. Whatever, for I did not know, we were nearly
made into a bear snack, so I had no idea why he was upset.
“Mum always ruins my fun; I was really looking forward to skinning that one,” Eziah pouted before winking at the bear he liked, who shuddered and backed up, bumping into another. Well, this is fresh development, and how did they know about the Moon Goddess?
Casen shifts back, drenched in blood, and huge claw scratch down the center of his chest. He rips the spear out of his side, blood gushed down his abs and leg as he covered it with his hand while it healed. He snarled, stalking toward us.
“Web I then, you best show me to my mate,” Casen growled,
gripping the leader’s shoulder and turning him to face him. The man glared at him, but Casen flashed his canines at him.
“My mate, where is she?” he growled angrily with rage. Yet, I was still trying to get over his confession of K*lling his brother. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
Eziah also stared at Casen, and I had no idea what to think of anything anymore. I just wanted this sh*t over so I could go home to my mates. However, I wasn’t sure the sickly feeling in my stomach was caused by all this drama, or Kyan, maybe a mix of both. Yet as I shifted back, the first thing I did was double over and threw up next to the tree. I clutched my stomach as pain rippled through me.
“Jonah?” Eziah called out to me, and I shook my head and gasped. I felt like something was crushing my chest, and I found it difficult to breathe.
“I will take you to her?” The man said. Casen shoved him forward with a snarl. The man got to his feet, and those with him shifted back. I tried to catch my breath.
Everything suddenly ached. A dulling throb resided behind my eyes, and I staggered, clutching a nearby tree trunk.
“Can your friend walk?” the leader said. I waved him off and f0rced myself upright. Turning, vertigo washed over, and I suddenly saw double before everything went black.
Kyan POV
A few hours earlier,
Marabella struggled to contain the shadows. We had created a dome shield so they couldn’t escape while I tried to coach her to pull them back in. Her hands glowed a smokey gray as the shadows engulfed her.
“Just draw on it,” I told her, walking around the dome of my magic to see her better thro ugh the transparent shield I created. “Kyan, I can’t,” she cried as frustration set in.
“You did it before. Just focus on them and try to pull them back, feel for their energy and will it to draw toward you,” Sweat beaded on her forehead as she concentrated. The do me surrounding her filling with mystical mist. “Kyan!” She shrieked as panic set in before she unleashed them completely.
“Ella, I need you to calm down. Don’t panic, just breathe,” I told her. Kaif’s unease settled over me as we watched the shield obscure her and go completely dark. Black as coal when I heard her cough.
“Ella?” I called to her, all I got was a shuddering rasp of a response. Kaif shoved forward with me, reinforcing the shield. It shudders as the darkness swirling inside tried to break out, her own power mingling with it, and she made the same choking noise.
“Kyan, this shield won’t hold much longer,” Kaif warned when pain sliced through my neck; Kaif quivered inside me as the bond to her faltered. “Ella?” I rasped out. Kaif, in a panic, dropped the shield.
“Kaif, no,” I screamed as the shadows burst free. Kaif recognized his mistake threw my hands out, trying to pull them, and I let go of control, letting him take over. His hands glowed a silvery blue as he tried to place the surrounding shield again. It was like grasping air in your hand, near impossible as they swirled like a tornado above.
Marabella gasps, and he turns his head toward her to see her clutching her neck. As if she had been ch*oked. She crawled to her hands and knees, and her eyes blazed white for a second.
“She hasn’t let go of them,” I murmur to Kaif, and we glanced up. The shadows were swirling above but not unleashing. Marabella raised her hand, and I could see the black tendrils around her throat from where the shadows had tried to K*ll her.
Marabella gritted her teeth before she screamed, trying to draw them back and thunder and lightning suddenly cracked across the sky. A storm came out of nowhere, and the winds picked up, blowing her hair across her face.
“They’re fighting her,” Kaif whispered.
“What?”
“The shadows. They don’t want to go back to her, so they are fighting to break free of her,”
“You are making no sense,” I tell him as I watch, horrified. ” They belong to the Octavian bloodline Kyan, now out they want to go home,”
“But?” He glanced at Marabella when she fell backward as if the rope to her shadows suddenly snapped or gave way. Kaif looked up to see them suddenly whisking with alarming speed directly at her. It all happened so fast, and I screamed in horror as they flew toward her just as she sat up.
She shakes her head, her eyes returning to normal, and Kaif moved as the shadows rushed toward her. He tossed himself in front of her, and he tensed as they smashed into him.
So cold and loud. I could hear the dying screams of those trapped there writhe through my soul. Icy cold, and Kaif jolted as he took it, absorbed it. He gasped and stumbled forward, and I peered out his eyes to see Marabella cup her mouth with her hand as he stead*ied himself on his feet.
“Thank god,” I murmured to Kaif, but I got no answer. I pushed on the barrier separating us, but he seem locked in place; the barrier was rock solid.
“Kaif, give me back control,” I said, pushing on it when his back arched before he collapsed. Darkness swallowed me, and yet I could hear my own heart beating, the sound hollow before flickers of light.
No memory flashed through me, only they weren’t mine. The shadows were angry, and I first, I didn’t understand what was happening as I watched. I was a bystander.
A woman stood by a cradle humming when the door opened, and I looked over at it. I recognized this room. It was one upstairs in the house only different, like I was transported back in time. Their clothes were not suited to this time period either.
The woman was wearing a puffy dress with shoulder pads, her hair curled down her back. Whereas the man had brown pants and a white shirt, and suspenders. The man says something to her, but the woman doesn’t turn. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I could hear the tune she hummed, which I thought was peculiar. Her voice clear, rings loudly on echo.
“Do you know what creates a monster?” She murmurs as she leans into the cradle. I looked at the man, who seemed confused.
“Another monster,” she says before turning with the baby in her arms. Little black tufts of hair showed on his little head.
“Monsters create Monsters, Kaif. I won’t let you make him one,” she whispers, looking down at the baby in her arms. She brushes her finger down his nose and black tentacles rush under her skin, making it ripple.
“Mummy won’t let him ruin you, isn’t that right sweet boy?” she says, her lips turning up in a snarl. She raised him above her head, and the man I now knew was an ancestor, one that contained Kaif, rushed forward, hands out. His eyes were on the baby in her arms.
“I won’t let you turn him against me. I won’t allow him to be a monster,” she sneered, her eyes turning black. The man shifts, and Kaif rushed forward just as she went to throw the baby.
Kaif’s hand sn@ked out just in time to grab the bundle of fabric while his fist connected with the side of her head. He clutched the baby to him while the woman went sprawling before smashing her head on the corner of the dresser.
I watched as he soothed the screaming baby, and my eyes moved to the woman. Blood started pooling around her and across the floor. Kaif looked down as the trail reached his feet. He jerked, stanled, before glancing over his shoulder to see her bleeding on the floor. He appeared to scream, before placing the baby in the cradle and rushing toward her.
Clutching her and trying to wake her. Her body was floppy in his arms. The memory fizzles, and I am tossed into another one and another, the same cycle repeating as I watched them all try to K*ll his child. Then, those he didn’t K*ll tried again and again until he was f0rced to K*ll them.
I closed my eyes, unable to witness the horrors each woman tried to do to their own young as the shadows overtook them all. Changing them and destroying them.
I couldn’t take it, feeling sick to my stomach when Kaif growled menacingly, and I opened my eyes to see Kaif was now standing. He growls at Marabella, who looks at him horrified.
“Kaif?” she whispers, but he wasn’t seeing her. He was seeing someone else. His last mate, as she tried to drown their 4-year-old son in the bath, thought he broke the curse with her. He had marked her the night before his burning anger vibrated through him, and I tried to shove through the barrier.
Screamed to him, it wasn’t her. Marabella scrambled backward on her hands and feet, trying to escape him. Kaif slashed the air, narrowly missing her face with his claws, and she shrieked before scrambling to her feet.
He growled before giving chase as she shifted. My surroundings blurred as she raced toward the forest, everything turning into a blur as Kaif chased her. Kora darted among the trees, and a sense of Déja Vu washed over me.
The trees zipped by in a blur as we chased her. Kora daned between the tombstones and along the track, trying to remain on the narrow path, but Kaif was faster, and she diverted away from it.
Marabella was f0rced to flee into the thick brush, but it was no good as Kaif lunged forward. Her loud scream infuriated her more and Kaif commanded her to shift back.
“Shift,” he yelled into her face as Kora squirmed in his arms, trying to break free. Her body tensed in his arms. Her body shudders and her ribs crack as he squeezes while she tries to fight his command. Eventually her bones snap, and she is f0rced to shift in his arms.
His grip never lessens and Mara’s scream rattling off words that would disable me if we’re used on just me, but a monster like Kaif. One that held the power he has, and filled with rage he felt, they had no effect.
The shadows of our ancestors weren’t the Octavian bloodline at all but his mate’s ghostly shadows. Now I know why they refused to return to her.
They knew he would protect her, and instead of K*lling their offspring, they wanted to K*ll the source, which was Mara. His mates wanted revenge, and using Kaif, they would get it. Ending the blood lines, ending our mate.
Kaif laughs and squeezes her. She thrashes, gasping while she tries to break free. I scream, shoving forward as he aims to rip out her throat to K*ll her.
“Kaif No!” I screamed before smashing my hands against the barrier that separated us. He jolts. His teeth, missing their mark, and instead of K*lling her, he marks her.
His teeth slashed and tore through not only her neck but also her chest and shoulder blade. She screams loudly, and blood runs down her body before she goes limp in his arms just as I smashed through the barrier.
Her head falls forward. I scoop her. Marabella’s body is all floppy, and I notice I am in Kaif’s body, not my own. I sniff her, and her head rolls back in his furry arms.
Blood drenched her, and her marking looked more like a bear had mauled her. Blood oozed out of her, dripping off our arms, and the color drained from her face. Her heart rate slowed to a deadly beat as I looked on, horrified at what he had done.
I shake her, but she doesn’t wake when I notice the markings around her neck, thick lines etched into her skin from the shadows, and I look around when I feel Kaif surge to life and stir within me. “What have I do ne?” he gasps as the shadows evaporate and fizzle.
An icy feeling seeps out of me and down our arms, forcing me to shift back into my human form. I grit my teeth, not wanting to drop her as the shadows leave me and seep back into her.
“The ruins! Get her to the ruins,” Kaif screams at me. I look up the hill before I take off running.