Page 87 of The Alpha's Fated Bond

I’ve been trying to feed my mother my energy slowly and steadily, but I have to be careful. I cannot deplete myself. I need my strength to fight when the time comes. I’ve also been trying to figure out the collar around my mother’s neck. There has to be a way to release her. But no matter how hard I look, I can’t see any trace of dark magic or the like that I can remove. But is it truly impossible? After all, I am the Silver Wolf. Nobody really knows the true depth of my powers. I even took Lily by surprise when I began using magic. Maybe there is a way…

We are taken straight to Karina’s home. It doesn’t look like a normal house but a palace of massive proportions. I have never seen something so large and majestic in my life, and yet each time I feel even a flicker of awe at the marbled floors and highceilings, I remember that all this is built on the blood and bones of other shifters.

We’ve been provided clothes for tomorrow’s banquet and are waiting for Noah in our suite. Lily is standing in front of a full-length mirror and adjusting her forest green dress. She does clean up well, with dark curls flowing down her back and light makeup that makes her features stand out. In this moment, she reminds me of someone, but I can’t put my finger on who.

She catches me looking at her and frowns. “What?”

“Why are you doing this?” I continue to stare at her. “Shouldn’t you be glad that I didn’t mate Noah?”

Lily holds my gaze in the mirror for a couple of long seconds and then turns around to face me. She covers the distance between us and there is hatred in her eyes.

“Do you think I was happy with the idea of my mate marking another female?”

“But I never—”

“But he wanted to!” she hisses, enraged. Her hand grabs my throat; I want to push her off me, but I haven’t revealed that my strength is back.

Lily isn’t aware that ever since Alex and I started sleeping together, moving one step further in our courtship, my healing and recovery time have gotten much faster. I’ve been dragging myself along in front of her and Noah to hide this fact.

This is the perfect opportunity to kill her.

One hand in her chest, and I can rip her heart out.

My arm begins moving slowly, but when I look in the direction of my mother, who is sitting in a corner of the room, a hint of doubt stops me. What if it doesn’t work? What if Lily’s death doesn’t remove the collar? What if her death triggers the collar to explode or something?

I lower my hand to my side in frustration.

“How is it my fault that he wanted to mate me because of what I am?!” I shoot back. “I have a fated mate. I want him, not Noah!”

But Lily doesn’t seem to want to see reason. She digs her nails into my neck, drawing blood. “I don’t care what you want. You thought you could take my mate away from me? All the years I spent with my Noah, and he wanted to give some bitch what was rightfully mine? I hoped that once you fucked your own mate, you’d get out of our hair, but no. You’re too stupid and useless to get him to give you his mating mark!”

“Why does it matter to you if Alex gave me his mark?!” I try to push her off me now, that deranged look in her eyes worrying me.

“Because if he had marked you, you would die with him tonight!” Lily spits at me. “But instead, I’m going to make you suffer. I’m going to make you beg for death. You think what Robert did to your whore of a mother was bad? What I’m going to put you through is going to make her past twenty-odd years look like a fucking ride in the park!”

She shoves me away, and I let myself fall to the ground.

Not yet.

“Those wolves…” I breathe. “The ones that were attacking Alex and me when we first met you. You sent them.”

“Yeah. So?” Lily sneers. “I was planning to kill you, but you were close to figuring out to how to drop them, so I had to step in.”

“And the second time?”

“The second time, I wanted to isolate the two of us, but those damned soldiers wouldn’t let me out of the jeep.”

“That was dark magic,” I say slowly. “You used dark magic.”

Lily meets my gaze before a slow smile blooms on her face. “You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?”

“Figured what out?”

“I practice both forms of magic. Witches can only practice one form: either normal magic or dark magic. I can do both.”

Chapter 19

Sophia

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