Fated To the Alpha by Jessica Hall
Chapter 50
‘Sorry Kat but you’re just going to have to endure it, I wanted to prepare you before this happened’ Kora says, her voice floating to me in the darkness.
I tried to ask her what she meant, but I couldn’t speak through the pain. My nerve endings felt like they were on fire.
Her voice drifted away from me, out of reach. Pain similar to the curse ravaged my body only it didn’t end. I saw no end to it when I was suddenly drifting, floating in the abyss.
Before the darkness ripples, like a stone skipped along the water. A picture flickering in front of my eyes before I was thrown into it, becoming part of it.
It was the same place, the place with wolves dying in the field, I knew because I recognized the man’s eyes, it was the Black wolf that she saved first.
“Marabella,” he says cupping my face, his hands warm as he sits me up. He had long dark hair that hung to his shoulders.
A large scar that went from his hairline to his jaw that made his eye crinkle, even with the scar he still looked beautiful, it just made his features more prominent, manly. I looked around wolves that were healed, shifting back, yet I felt heavy, my limbs not cooperating.
Men and women screaming for their loved ones who couldn’t be saved, children clutching the dead bod*ies of their parents. “I tried, I tried but I couldn’t Micha, there are too many” I tell him. Though I know the words aren’t mine as they leave my lips but that of the woman I have become.
“I know my love” he tells me cupping her cheeks. Her sadness bleeding into me.
“She’s awake!”
“She’s awake!” People start murmuring rushing toward me, crowding around.
“Tell her to save them, tell her Alpha, she needs to bring back my son” A woman in her thirties says, clutching the man’s arm.
I shake my head, “I can’t, I can’t save them all” I tell the woman clutching his arms. Micha shoves her off before scooping me up. People crowd around trying to grab and pull on me, but he starts walking but they don’t stop, their hands grabbing and touching while they scream for me to save them, I feel my head ripped back as someone grabs my hair. Micha growled before spinning around and kicking the man in the chest with me still clutched in his arms.
He starts running. Zipping through the trees and into the forest. They gave chase, trying to catch us. Yelling and screaming enraged that their loved ones wouldn’t be saved. The picture ripples before I feel a rush, the vision flickering ahead pulling me into a new vision.
Pain, intense pain making me scream. My abdomen cramping and I look up, a scream leaving my lips and I see that I am in a cave as I look around disorientated. A fire off to the side and bear skin under my hands as I clench it before screaming through the pain again.
“That’s it my love push, push” Micha says pushing my legs wider. I scream, gritting my teeth and pushing, panting through the pain before I hear a cry. A baby’s cry of life.
“It’s a boy, it’s a boy” Micha says, holding the baby up to show me, he places it on my chest and I stare in awe of it, when the pain starts again and I scream, gritting my teeth with a violent urge to push.
“What’s happening?” He asks as I scream.
“There’s another one,” I scream pushing before feeling the baby slide out the birth canal, Micha grabbing it in his hands and looking down at it before he looks up frightened.
“It’s a girl,” he says, shocked looking down at the baby in his arms.
“She will be cursed too,” he says, his voice breaking as he looks at his daughter. Voices could suddenly be heard outside the cave, Micha handing the baby to me and looking into the darkness of the cave.
“They found us, get up Marabella get up”
“I’m tired of running, I can’t keep running” I cry when he pulls me to my feet, the babies clutched in my arms, he sethers the cords with his claws. “Push, you need to run” he says tugging on the cords.
“No, I won’t leave you” I cry.
“It’s not about us, you need to keep them safe, keep her hidden” he says looking up at me.
“We need to get the placenta out, push my love” he says and I do while he tugs, the grossest feeling as it leaves my body. Blood running down my legs. The voices grow louder as they enter the cave, Micha looking around frantically.
“Run! Run” Micha says, pushing me to the back of the cave.
“Not without you” I say, clutching his arm.
“We don’t have time, they have humans with them, I love you, now go” he says, pushing me to go deeper into the cave.
“No!” I cry when he steps closer, clutching my face between his hands, his lips crashing on mine before he pulls back kissing both the babies heads.
“I’m sorry, my love” he says, before I feel his aura rush out, so strong that it nearly brings me to my knees.
“Run! Keep them safe” He roars, forcing the full weight of his command on top of me, crushing me before it’s too much and I start to run. I hear the voices grow louder before hearing him shift, my legs running through the cave before I see a tiny pin prick of light in the darkness and it grows bigger the closer, I get to it, before I burst out of the cave and into the forest.
My legs, pushing me through the trees and I don’t stop, not till I feel his teether snap, my neck searing with pain and I know he is dead, the mate bond seething and crushing pain ripples through my chest, bringing me to my knees as the f0rce behind his command also snaps.
The two tiny babies clutched in my arms as my body heaved with sobs, their cries ringing out into the forest.
Voices drifted to my ears and I spun around, they were hunting us, adrenalines coursing through me.
Looking at the babies he gave his life for, I f0rce my legs to move as I stumble through the forest. The picture flickering before flashing forward again.
This time I am in a field, a boy with dark curls hanging down his back chases after an equally dark-haired girl as they play. I watch from the hill where I sit in the gr@ssamongst the wildflowers.
“Micha!” I yell and the boys turns around. He looked around 12 years old and he ran over before falling on the gr@ssnext to me. The girl picking flowers amongst the high gra*s*s, she looks up and waves. The boy and I wave back at her.
“You must keep her safe, keep her hidden and don’t let her use her power, they will hunt her” I tell him.
“The pack, but we haven’t seen them in years now mother” I cup his cheek, my thumb brushing his skin.
“No son, from Everybody, even the humans, everyone. Trust no one for they will take her from you” I tell him and he nods.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re getting sicker, and you are my son, I promised to protect you and I keep my promises”
“I don’t understand?”
“You will, for you hold my heart” I tell him, patting his chest where I see the scar. It was dark grey, looking down, my chest was the same, only glowing brightly blue, an identical scar running between my bre@sts.
“Is it because of her, the one who cursed you mother?” The boy asks.
“She didn’t curse me, she blessed me with the gift of life, but it comes with a price, a price I will pay, a price your sister will pay if she is not careful”
“How is it a gift when it is taking you from me?”
“Because without it I wouldn’t have either of you” I tell him, clutching his hand.
“But can’t you ask her for more time, what did you promise her, what did you promise her mother, I don’t want you to go”
“I promised her my heart for yours, so that means you have to live for me, live for your sister” I tell him before coughing.
“Why would you promise her your heart for mine?” he says.
“Because It was already broken to begin with, son but you, you will make it whole again” I said before coughing, blood covering the palm of her hand.
“Go play with your sister, be a good brother to Katarina” I tell him. He nods, wrapping his arms around my neck, hugging me before running off. I watch them play for a bit before the coughing starts.
I fall back on the gr@ssstaring at the clouds before I gasp, the picture flicking forward again but now stopping. I am standing on some wooden platform in the center of a village with my hands tied to a wooden pole. People yelling and screaming and throwing things at me.
“Witch, witch, witch” they chant.
“Katarina!” I hear a man scream.
My eyes scan the crowd when they land on a man, identical to Micha though slightly different. His shirt slightly open, a glowing fluorescent blue scar on his chest like Marabella had on hers. In his arms he clutched a baby.
“Take care of her brother” I mouth to him, and he nods. His face stained with tears before he nods disappearing into the crowd before the podium on which I stand is set alight, my dress catching fire and I stamp my feet, trying to put out the flames before stilling knowing it’s useless and I look up at the sky.
I closed my eyes glad for her safety, he would keep her safe. I think as my body is engulfed in flames making me scream before I am thrown out of my nightmare screaming in agony.
My eyes focus on the room, and I look down frantically patting my clothes when hands grab mine. My breathing heavy as I tried to catch my breath.
“Kat!, Kat?” Ezra says before clamping his hands on my face. He sighs, putting his head down. “Thank the Goddess,” he says.
His words anger me for what she has f0rced my family to endure.
“f*uc*k the goddess” I breathe trying to catch my breath.
“Kat?” Ezra says, he looked appalled at my words but I didn’t care, I did nothing to her yet am cursed by her, had to watch the horrors this curse has caused.
“You don’t mean that” he says and I shake my head and he clamps his hand over my mouth.
“You don’t mean that” he says, his eyes holding mine before crushing me against his chest.
“I was so terrified, I thought I K*lled you, the worst few minutes of my life” he says rubbing my back.
“Few minutes?”
“Yes, you were only out for a few minutes” he says but I felt like I had been gone for hours, days even a Lifetime.
‘Why did she show me that?’ I ask Kora. It made no sense, to me, they didn’t d*ie like my mother did or grandmother.
‘It’s just the beginning kat’
‘I don’t understand,’ I tell her.
‘You will in time but for now rest, because at midnight we shift’
‘We shift?’
‘Yes Kat, that’s why I didn’t want him to mark us yet’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s not a Full Moon tonight and we will be weaker, we haven’t had time to recharge’
‘I still don’t understand’
‘Shifting in a full Moon is quick, it won’t be quick Kat’ she says. I knew shifting for the first time was painful, but for her to be worried just scared me more.
“Kat?” Ezra asks worriedly, I shake my head trying to wrap my head around the horror that has become my life. I clutch him, hugging him back letting his scent calm my raising mind.
“We will survive the shift kat, Ezra’s bloodline is strong, his DNA runs through our veins now we will survive, we just won’t want to” Kora says, a chill running up my spine at her words.
We won’t want to? A blessing, how was any of this supposed to be a blessing when everything feels like it’s a curse.