Fated To the Alpha by Jessica Hall
Chapter 272: Eziah POV
Ah, Marabella and her odd requests, I think as I f0rce myself out of bed. My wolf stirs angrily, not wanting to wake from his slumber. Malachi growls; he had become a temperamental b*****d lately. He even tried to take on Maddox last night, and mum only just wrangled both of us under control.
We had been clashing something shocking, so it was no surprise that my wolf growled when I opened the door and spotted my father walking past my room.
Malachi was good at holding grudges, and when Maddox and he clashed, it was like a war of gods. “F*****g stop it,” I snarl at my wolf, and my father stops. His back tenses as he looks at me over his shoulder, stopping at the landing by the stairs.
“You good, son?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at me with a cross look. Clearly, he was still angered over last night, too.
“Sorry, we just woke up. Have you seen mum?” I ask him.
“If this is about yesterday Eziah-”
“No, something else. I need her to take me to the Moon Goddess realm,” I admit. Maddox presses forward as I approach my father. His warning was clear as I stopped beside my father. We were now the same height, same build, and as each day passed, I could see the similarities between my father and me. Looks-wise, Marabella looked more like mum and my father, Ezra. While I looked more like my other father yet, I was undoubtedly built like the monster of a man I stood before.
Features similar though my hair was darker, my features not as sharp as his, but both of us equally matched now in height and bulk. For now, and my father knew it. Maddox only just restrained us last time, and soon he would be no match for me.
“Why do you want to go to the Moon goddess Realm?” he asked.
“Marabella needs something from there.” My father’s face instantly softens at the mention of her name. “How is she?” he asks, draping his arm across my shoulders as we head down the stairs.
“She is fine; I know she has marked Kyan and Jonah now. I can feel her. She feels stronger,” I tell him, and he lets out a breath, nodding his head while he leads me toward the kitchen where I could hear Mum laughing, and my father’s deep baritone voice reached my ears.
We stop in the doorway to see my father chasing my mother around the kitchen. Cream smeared across his face. She squeals as he catches her, spreading a ma*s*sive glob of cream on hers while she cringes, trying to get out of his grip while he laughs before licking her face, making her cringe more as she tried to shove him away.
“Ah gross,” I mutter, averting my gaze at the public displays of affection. My father laughs, and they both freeze, not having heard us come in. Mum straightens up, and dad wraps his arms around her waist and rests his chin on her shoulder.
Walking to the kettle, I turn it on, needing coffee, and grab a mug down when dad sets another beside mine before messing with my hair, making me swat his hand away.
“You’re up early,” Mum says, grabbing a tea towel from the oven door to clean her face. I could tell dad was in the middle of making pancakes by the huge stack on the bench, and I reached over to steal one of the top. He clicks his tongue at me.
“By wait, geez, you are so much like your father, impatient!” he says just as I watch Maddox come forward and lean over the bench to steal one of dad’s giant fluffy pancakes. My father slaps his hand away, and Maddox pouts at him. Seeing my father’s wolf act like a puppy around his mates was always odd. It was easy to forget the monster he could become.
Anyone dares touch one of his mates; it was almost certain s***e? God help them, for not even Marabella and I are safe from him. Sure, my father would k**l for us, yet he nearly k***d me when I lost control of Malachi the other day and challenged mum. His claw marks still marked my ribs.
No doubt mum would have kicked my a*s if it came down to it, but dad didn’t like the disrespect of how I spoke to her, sending Maddox flying forward to try to put me back in place.
I wondered if I would have a mate bond like my parents or if I was destined to just watch her in my dreams and listen to her screams.
Mum watches me carefully. She was pretty observant. Lately, her sole focus had been on me, and Marabella; I had caught her more times than I could count watching Marabella in the fountains.
My parents felt guilty for not noticing her depression. However, I didn’t even see how bad it was, and I am her twin. I could feel her, and I know she could feel me too, linked as Gemini twins. Mum said her depression was what was affecting me, and in turn, my anger was causing her depression.
However, that excuse could only be used for so long; my anger became uncontrollable of late. Malachi was turning savage, and at first, I believed her when she said maybe it was our twin connection. Her depression bled into me coming out in rage, and my anger had the opposite effect on her.
Our energies constantly feed off each other, two halves of a whole, yet opposites. I was fun and outgoing, and Marabella was quiet and reserved. It made sense to some point, but now she was marked.
I noticed I was feeling her less and less like she was no longer feeding off my aura and me hers.
How had I not noticed before what she was suffering was beyond all of us, me the most? I was so consumed with my dreams. And the girl in them I had forgotten Marabella also needed me. I was focused on my own feelings and not watching her as I should? I failed my sister, and that guilt gnawed at me. Gnawed at all of us! We a*s*sumed it was darkness, the madness we both knew could come for us.
“You want to ask me for something?” my mother says, her eyes watching me, and I know she was scanning my aura. I look at hers in return. The gold was bright, the edge of darkness tainted the edges, but she seemed curious, and her eyes bled white, something I know over the years as her visions.
Her lips part, and my fathers watched her. My father stepped behind her and pressed against her back. Trapping her between the counter and himself. It wouldn’t be the first time mum had fainted from her visions.
“Come back to me, Kitty,” my father purred, and moments later, she did, blinking rapidly, and her lips tugged at the corners.
“What did you see?” my father asks, scooping another pancake from the frypan before sighing. Mum rarely spoke of what she saw, but I could tell whatever it was made her happy.
It was rare that you would see mum smile after a vision. Usually, they only meant a warning of something terrible.
“That sly wolf,” she chuckles.
My father purrs into her neck, kissing her mark, and I pull a face. It was bad enough to hear them from the floor below; I didn’t need to witness how they melted into each other, especially before coffee.
I shake my head, turning back to the coffee I was making, when mum comes over to me and grabs my arm. I felt the pull of her dragging me to the moon goddess realm.
“My coffee!” I gr0@n as the room fizzles. My father picks up his already made mug to sip it, but I reach out, plucking it from him. I laughed at his outraged face before being s****d into the moon goddess realm with my mother.
I was still laughing as I materialized in the fountain’s room. Mum moves around the vast room, moving behind her huge gold desk to the bookshelf at the back.
“Grimoires?” she asks.
“You saw?” I ask her.
“I saw what you needed, and I saw something else, and for once, I hope what I saw is true,” she says, scanning the shelves.
“Dagger is in the top drawer,” she says, pulling books down.
“None of these are it,” she murmurs as I retrieve the dagger.
“Can I take them? They might come in handy for whatever Marabella has me doing,” I tell her, and she places a stack on the desk. I look at the leather-bound covers and shake my head.
“Don’t suppose you have a bag?” I tell her, looking at the stack before I gr0@n, dreading having to cart them around.
“Ah, I need some shovels,”
“And a picnic,” she laughs. I had never seen my mother look so excited about something, and I knew she wouldn’t tell me. She always kept her visions close to her, only letting slip what she could, not wanting to alter the future.
“You aren’t going to tell me anything, are you?” she smiles brightly.
“Nope, this is one future I would never tamper with, even slightly,”
“Why?” I asked, still a little annoyed about our argument the other day. Her smile falters.
“Eziah,”
“I know, you can’t meddle, but-” I shake the thought away, knowing it was no use, and I didn’t want to argue right now.
“Tell me why you are excited then.”‘ I ask her.
“I have many skeletons, son, but one has haunted me the most.”
“And that excites you?” she shakes her head, moving toward the fountains. She gazes into one; it is the same wolf I have seen many times before.
Always floating aimlessly. Mum and I had tried to put him in the fountain of life multiple times, but he always eluded us. We have wanted to set him free for so long, yet he refused like he was waiting for something.
“Because he has a chance to go home,” she whispers, touching his dark little blob. A tear slips down her cheek. “You’re going home; I promise. No matter the cost, I owe you this much,” she whispers to him.
She gazes at him at him a bit longer and I know mum loves all her Lycan blobs. Sometimes she seemed almost crazy with how she spoke to them as if they were her children.
“Right, shovels, picnic, dagger, and books,” she counts on her fingers before disappearing, and I gr0@n. “Clothes, get me clothes,” I call after her, hoping she heard, or I was going in my boxer shorts. I shake my head, hoping she doesn’t take too long.
I stare at the Lycan in the fountain, floating in the abyss of mist, flickering and moving in its shadows. My brows pinch, trying to remember who mum said it belonged to or if she ever told me.
Shaking my head, I go to the other fountain and wave my hand through the strange murky mist, clearing it away to see mum rushing about in the other realm. My father asked her why she needed a shovel before asking if she was trying to bury a body.
I shake my head but am relieved when she sends my father up to my room to retrieve some clothes for me. Turning from that fountain, I move toward the fountain of bonds.
Moving the mist again, I spot Marabella’s, Jonah’s bond had fully merged with her and Kyan’s, and I was glad I was right in the feeling I picked up earlier when I spoke to her. However, her aura was no longer pitch black. It had lightened as Jonah’s bond bled into both Kyan and hers?
“Jonah marked Kyan?” I gasp, shocked. Neither of them was g*y or bis*e*xual. I shake my head but am happy to see a change in their auras. I scanned for mine, moving the auras just as mum appeared, her hand catching my wrist as it waded through the mist.
“Eziah?” she says, dropping a bag at my feet, the shovels hitting the marble floors with a clang.
“Please, I just want to see,”‘ I tell her, and she looks at the fountain.
“It could alter her future,” she whispers.
“It can’t get much worse than it already is because right now, my mate has no future, not one worth living, please mum!” mum bites her lip, staring at the fountain before looking at me.
“You would risk losing her?” she tells me.
“I wouldn’t be losing her. I’d be setting her free. The things I hear!” Malachi growls angrily. The noise emanating from me and echoing off the walls.
“It’s so dark. She doesn’t like the dark,” I tell my mother. Mum nods, her eyes softening, and she smiles sadly. She washes her hand through the mist. My bright gold aura floated in the fog, and for the first time, I saw hers attached to mine, only it was blood red.
“Why is she red?” I ask her.
“It’s why I didn’t want to tamper with her fate, why I have kept her from you. Your mate is fragile,” my mother says. I stare at her, confused.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I get when I see her bond with yours. I don’t know what it means, but the colors usually mean something. And I have never seen an aura quite like hers.” she tells me. Mum washes her hands through the bonds, and mum was right. There were no bonds the color of my mates.
“Why do you think hers is red?” I ask, staring at her glowing aura, fighting to get inside mine, wanting to merge with me completely.
“Mathias and I discussed it. He helped me go over some old books looking for answers,” she murmurs. I turn my head to look at her, and he eyes glisten with tears.
“What did you find?” I ask her.
“Not much, but there was a mention of red aura meaning not of sound mind,” she tells me. I think of my dreams, the way my mate screams, and how she talks to herself in the dark.
“So you mean fragile like Sage?”
“No, Eziah. I mean fragile as in crazy, asylum crazy. Barely functioning,” she answers, and I gape.
“That’s all you found,”
“We aren’t sure it was the only mention we found of a red ambiance. It could be wrong, though. The person who wrote it wasn’t of sound mind himself,” she shrugs.
“What do you believe? I mean, when you feel her aura?” I ask my mother. My mother looks away and bites her lip to stop it from quivering.
“Mum! Please, I can’t keep living with not knowing.”
“You don’t want my answer,” Malachi growls at her.
“Eziah? Just”
“No, for once in your goddamn life, don’t hide this, don’t hide her from me,” I growl.
“She can’t be saved. You can’t save her, not from herself. Liora is not of sound mind. She is too far gone and,”
“Liora?” I ask.
“That is her name,” my mother tells me. I go to ask something else, but my mother waves her hand at me.
“I can’t tell you anything. It is all I know. I don’t get to see your futures, not like everyone else’s, and after getting Marabella’s wrong from the dribs and drabs, I did receive. I am choosing not to judge what I have.” my mother tells me.
“Seline really messed everything up,” I mutter.
“We all did, me especially. But right now, you need to get to your sister and maybe fix her future. For now, focus on that. Marabella needs you. It is about time we put her first.” I nod, I let her down and now I would at least attempt to make it up to her.