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CHAPTER NINETY EIGHT
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The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER NINETY NINE
“Let’s go, Nash,” I say, taking him by the arm. The San Diego shifters seem to all get the message and collectively form a protective group around me, Nash, and Ayala. We hurry back into the pack house, leaving a few guards outside to stand watch.Isaac adn Regan remain on the beach, unable or unwilling to fight us, but also unable or unwilling to leave.As soon as the patio door slides closed behind the last member of our pack, and we’re all safely inside, the entire pack erupts into questions.“What could possibly be going on?”“Why are they back?”“Is Juliana okay?”“Do you think there could be more of them coming?”“Quiet, please!” Nash puts up both his hands, silencing the crowd. My heart swells with pride in my mate - he’s a good leader, and a good Alpha, even when things are especially confusing or difficult. “The issue we have is that there are two shifters here who seem determined to kidnap Ayala, but we don’t know why, or what they intend to do with her w
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
I blink my eyes, trying to make sense of the scene unfolding before me. A strange man appears, then, stepping gracefully down the moonlight staircase. He’s tall, with pale blonde hair and perfectly straight white teeth. He seems handsome, but when I look at his face too long, it seems to shimmer into something so grotesque I have to look away. Once I look back, he’s a handsome, normal looking man again.Who is this?“Hello, good Luna,” the man says. He walks up to me and bows low. When he does so, I can see that his hair is incredibly thick, more like an animal’s fur. Like the moon rabbit pelt.“You’re the Moon Rabbit,” I say. He ignores my statement, only smiling again. His front two teeth are larger than usual, and when he pulls his lips back into a smile, I can see the rabbit like features as plain as day.“My name is Coello,” he says, in a deep, rumbling voice. “I am the mate of the shifter wolf woman Ayala, and I have come to retrieve her.”“No, you’re n
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
I wake up early these days, as soon as the first rays of sunlight start to come through the curtains of my new room. Today is no different. When my eyes open, it’s only dawn, and the rest of the place is completely silent.So I stay in bed, knowing there’s no way I’ll be able to go back to sleep, but letting my body rest as my thoughts run wild.The reason I can’t stay asleep as soon as the sun comes up is probably because my eyes still aren’t used to sunlight. Not the way it looks here on earth, at least. I’ve spent the last few centuries living in the celestial realm, a strange, magical place that only barely overlaps with the earthly realm. And before that, I only spent a few years on earth, having arrived as a seventeen year old when my Star Twin conjured me forth as part of a rare, powerful spell.So in all, I’ve only lived on earth for a few years. Which would explain why my eyes aren’t used to sunlight, and why I’m always the first one awake.I put my feet on the
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWO
The mall is a wild maze of loud sounds and bright lights. Sarah brings me first to a little shop that sells tiny electronics.“We’ll get you a phone,” she tells me, “and that way you can stay in touch with everyone, and do whatever you want online. If you want to learn about the modern world, this is the best way to do it.”“Okay,” I say. Sarah buys me one of the devices, a rectangle that fits perfectly in my hand. It lights up with words and images from all over the world, and I get lost in it, a wide grin breaking over my face as I see pictures of far off locations and incredible animals.¶Earth is a wonderful place. I’m so glad I get to explore it. It’s a good thing I feel this way, too - because I’m going to need to get out there and start exploring, sooner rather than later. I need to find my mate. That’s the only way I’ll be free of the Moon Rabbit, who has vowed to take me as his mate and keep me forever under his spell in the celestial realm.Plus, based on Layla’
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE
My heart pounds in my chest. I know exactly what that “grave danger” might be.Coello, the Moon Rabbit, is coming for me.He said he would, and his threat has been hanging over my head ever since. Now, this human fortune teller has shown me a card with a white rabbit under a full moon, and told me that I’m in danger.I can hardly breathe. Sarah, too, seems to be as freaked out as I am. She grabs my hand, pays the fortune teller, and yanks me out of there.I hardly remember the car ride back. The next thing I know, I’m back at Layla’s, in the downstairs part, the spa, with candles burning and bubbling hot tubs. None of it relaxes me, though. It feels like my lungs are collapsing, and my mouth is full of the tangy taste of fear.¶“What happened?” Layla asks, rushing over. “Is she okay?”“We saw him,” Sarah says. She and Layla lead me to one of the couches and make me lay down.“What do you mean, you saw him?” Layla’s voice is clipped and nervous. “Coello? The Moon Ra
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR
I fall into my sister’s spell, losing myself in the aromas of the incense and Layla’s magic. I find myself drifting through memories.First, it’s the easy ones to access. The ones I’ve made since coming back to earth. I see Sarah, and her daughter Stella, the Crescent Child whose birth heralded the ending of my contract with the Moon Rabbit.I remember being in the car with them, its engine rumbling beneath us, suddenly back in my true, earthly body, aware of my bare feet, the ends of my long hair.I remember seeing Layla for the first time, the way she shrieked with joy and pulled me into a sisterly embrace.¶“Go deeper,” Layla murmurs. She stands over me, waving her hands through the incense smoke, directing its shapes and curls with her magic. “Remember your time before this. Before here.”I close my eyes. I have to go back. I have to remember what it was like, living in the celestial realm.“He took me…” I mumble, trying to find the words to tell Layla and Sarah w
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE
Layla lets the incense burn out, and the spell winds down. I open my eyes and go to sit up, but there’s a bone deep weariness in me that I wasn’t prepared for. I exhale and lay back down.“You’ve got to be exhausted,” Sarah says gently. “After all that.”“Why don’t you two go have a soak,” Layla suggests. “I want to make some notes about what we’ve just seen.”“Sure thing.” Sarah reaches for my hand, letting me lean heavily on her as she lifts me off the massage table. We stumble toward one of the spa’s hot tubs, and Sarah helps me take off my dress and lower my worn out body into the hot water.It feels so good. I can’t help but lean my head back and smile.Sarah clambers in after me, splashing a bit as she settles in to the water. Layla tosses her a sachet of fragrant herbs, floral and light, completely different from the scent of the incense. Sarah lets the sachet float in the water, and soon all I can smell is lavender and jasmine. The experience of the incense and t
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIX
As badly as I want to stay at the San Diego pack house, Greyson insists that it’s not safe. Nash and Sarah agree, springing into action to help me pack.“The problem is,” Sarah tells me as she shoves all my new clothes into a suitcase, “that Regan used to belong to this pack, and she’s known Nash since they were children. And now they’re members of my old pack, so they have plenty of information about me. If anyone is able to identify our weaknesses and successfully execute an attack on this pack, it would be those two.”“Not to mention,” Nash says, “they’re working with the Moon Rabbit, so who knows what kind of extra powers or magic they might have.”“Especially after that message from the fortune teller,” Sarah agrees, “our best bet is to keep them from ever getting close to you in the first place.”I feel miserable about it, but I do trust everyone here, and they know what they’re talking about. If they say it’s not safe for me to stay at the San Diego pack house, then
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The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED
Damian is a healthy baby, well loved, and by the time he’s a few months old, it’s obvious that Jasper and I don’t need to stick around in Serpent’s Creek. The mansion is nearly full to bursting with wolf and bear shifters excited to be part of this new family and to dote on the precious baby whose existence symbolizes a fresh start for everyone.Jasper mentions going home to Santa Cruz a few times before I’m happy about it, though. I tell him that Orsina could still use my help, or that there’s still some magic I want to learn from Clara. He sees right through my excuses, though. “Are you nervous and going back to live somewhere with those guys in the basement?” Jasper asks me one evening, sliding his hands around my waist to nibble at my earlobes as he asks. “Maybe,” I say. “Now that he’s not a rabbit anymore, and he’s seen me and spoken to me, and he’s already gotten out once -”“He didn’t get out,” Jasper reminds me. “We let him think he escaped.”“I know, but he th
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE
My eyes fall shut easily, after such a long day. But I don’t sleep very deeply. Instead, I get caught up in a long, complex dream.In the dream, I’m back in the celestial realm, standing in the same dungeon cage that Coello used to keep me in. Sterling is there, too, walking up to me with those piercing gray eyes and that familiar smile. “Hello,” he says. He leans in to kiss me, and I think that the bars will prevent him from being able to, but he just passes right through. I feel his hands on my face, his lips on mine, and he kisses me for a long time.When I open my eyes after the kiss, I’m no longer in the cage. Now, Sterling and I are standing on top of the massive tower where we found him, high up above the rest of the celestial realm. But when I look out, I don’t see the rolling, starlit darkness of the celestial realm. I see the golden yellow plains of Montana, the valley that stretches out around Serpent’s Creek.“Where are we?” I ask, feeling strangely dizzy.
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY EIGHT
Clara and Zach arrive soon enough, and we all go careening up the mountain. With Clara behind the wheel, we get back to the house in record time. Orsina is sweating now, her breaths coming heavy and hard, and Zach has to help her out of the truck and into her room.“Can you shift?” Clara asks her, gently lowering the laboring mother down into her bed. “It’s so much easier if you shift.”“I think so,” Orsina says. She squeezes her eyes shut, holding her breath. It takes a few tries, but soon she’s a bear, curled up on top of the quilts in her bedroom.“Perfect, perfect,” Clara coos. “There you go, mama bear.”“Could that cause a problem for the baby?” Zach asks, hovering in the doorway. Clara asked him to bring towels, and he’s already brought twice as many as we’ll need, but he has yet another armful. I don’t even know where he’s getting them from, at this point. Even a mansion like this can only hold so many towels.“What do you mean?” Clara asks, her voice calm and unf
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY SEVEN
When we call home to let Regan and Isaac know what’s going on, they’re thrilled to hear that Barrett is okay and that Zach and Orsina have a safe place to land. They tell us that Howling Wolf is doing amazingly well - after so many volunteers and friends came to help us with the battle, we’ve gotten tons more clients in the shifter world, and we’ve been able to hire a handful of new employees.Since they seem to have things well in hand, Jasper and I decide to stay in Montana. We set up in one of the westward facing bedrooms, next door to Zach and Orsina. Clara and Bennett take an upstairs bedroom, smaller but cozier and with more privacy. With Weston defeated and his supporters scattered after our Santa Cruz victory, the rest of the bear clan needs a leader and a place to stay. Through a peaceful process, Clara and Barrett become the Alpha and Luna for the bear clan. Bear clans don’t typically refer to their Alpha’s mates as a “Luna,” but Clara is a wolf, and the title just see
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY SIX
“Barrett!” Orsina rushes to his side, laying a hand over his forehead. He lifts his head weakly at her voice, then his eyes spark with recognition.“Orsina…” he croaks, his eyes fluttering shut again. “Help…”Everything then happens in a flurry of activity. Clara sends everyone but Orsina out of the room, giving each of us specific directions. Jasper is sent to get a bowl of hot water and towels, I’m supposed to find a medicine kit under the sink in the kitchen, and Zach is told to go secure the perimeter of the house, especially the rear door.I return with the medicine chest in my arms. It smells familiar, full of the healing herbs and magical potions Layla often uses. It’s also got modern medical stuff like clean white bandages and stitching kits.Clara instantly sets about getting Barrett to sit up. She holds a glass of water to his lips, encouraging him to drink and take a handful of pills and capsules she’s picked out of the medicine chest. She works on Barrett fo
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY FIVE
We barely have time to process everything Clara has told us before she’s packing us a picnic dinner and ushering us out the door. We pile into her battered, ancient Jeep, which is almost definitely running more on shifter magic than gasoline at this point, and she heads out toward the mountains. “So, uh,” Orsina asks, after a bit of silence, “does that mean this is, like…you?” She rolls up her sleeve to show the tattoo mark of the wolf that appeared on her arm after the spirits from the carving gave their blessing.“It is perhaps an image of me,” Clara says in her cryptic way as she careens up the switchbacking roads. “Or, perhaps it is another manifestation of my spirit. There have been many over the years.”“What about your beloved?” Orsina asks. “The bear shifter you fell in love with. Where is he?”“That is a lovely question,” Clara says softly. “At times, we have found each other. At other times, our spirits have been far from one another. Since the curse took a deep
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY FOUR
It takes Malcolm and Coello a little while to accept the reality of their new situation - that Malcolm is irreversibly bound to Coello, and that Coello is bound to us by virtue of some very powerful magic Layla cooked up for us. They snarl and fight, argue and wheedle, and even try to bust out of their chains by brute force. But nothing works. We’ve won. Malcolm and Weston are both banished to cells in the basement, very far apart to prevent them trying to scheme together. Maybe someday we’ll have another use for them, but for now, it’s a breath of fresh air to know that my biggest enemy, and the biggest enemy of my pack, are both completely neutralized. I had hoped that we would be able to relax and settle down for a bit now that this problem has been solved. In fact, we had a lovely day after the battle, with all our friends and volunteers and former trainees lounging on the beach and splashing around in the cool water.But something is bothering Orsina. She paces, agitate
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY THREE
The Moon Rabbit doesn’t waste any time once Malcolm agrees to the binding spell. With quick, almost spider like hands, Coello spreads the stalks and herbs out on the rocky beach, fluttering them into complex shapes. I stand on my tiptoes, peering out from behind my hiding place. Coello’s form of magic is rough and brutish, nothing like the delicate work Layla does. But it does the job. Malcolm steps over the edges of the intricate shape Coello has created on the ground, and even I can feel the burst of intense magic that snaps through the air as the spell takes effect. “I look forward to having you in my service,” Coello says with a low bow. “For now, however, I must depart. Do enjoy your newfound power.”Malcolm smiles, flexing his hands like he can somehow feel himself getting stronger. Then the two separate, Coello sneaking back into the tree house before anyone catches him outside.I’m surprised, but not entirely so. Some of us thought Coello would try to get as far a
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY TWO
The various wolf shifters staying with us to help out have been instructed not to speak with the Moon Rabbit, but to keep a close eye on him. Coello soon gives up trying to draw them into conversation and instead just wanders around the busy tree house, doing what he clearly thinks is subtle reconnaissance in preparation for his escape attempt. What he doesn’t know is that his ability to slip out of here isn’t going to be the result of his own careful cleverness. It will be perfectly engineered by me and my team, right down to the very moment. It’s early afternoon when we get the signal. We’ve had scouts placed in inconspicuous locations all around the forest and the town of Santa Cruz watching for any sigh of Malcolm or Weston. Sure enough, they roll into town with a huge entourage of bear shifters and werewolves. Our scouts say that they’ve set up a campsite near the beach about a mile south from our location, and that Malcolm is heading our way on his own, apparently to chec
