Page 86 of The Alpha Wolf Defying Fate

“Sasha! Behind you!” Rory called, as she ran to my side. She shot a ball of her fire at a shadow who had snuck behind me, the creature’s body disintegrating in the purity of her magic.

“Thank you, Rory!” She pressed her back to mine, the warmth of her body against mine helping me to calm the shadows inside. Her scent of summer’s night and sweet honey flowed around me and more of my control took hold of the dark magic inside me.

“Any time, day or night,” Rory said, her hand pulsing with magic. “I’ll always have your back.” She reached her hand around and gently touched my stomach. “Both of your backs.”

I felt my heart crack as a fresh memory made it past the block of my mind. My hand moved to my stomach and my eyes widened.

My magic reached inside myself, a soft glow of protective magic reaching back to me.

‘I took care of them,’my wolf said calmly.‘I protected the pups from him. That was how he was able to separate us so easily. I couldn’t leave them.’

‘Them?’I gasped, my wolf giving a quick nod in my mind.

‘They’re strong. You can keep fighting. They won’t be harmed.’

I let out a sigh of relief, my eyes finding Ayden’s as he crashed his body into a shadow soldier in battle. My hand flew out to protect him as two more creatures charged for his back.

Their bodies were pulled apart. The dark magic that controlled them split between my call and Morus’s. Baer joined Ayden then, both alpha kings fighting in wolf form as a perfect team.

I turned my head to the small door where Morus had disappeared. The battle in the ballroom was nearly over. His shadow dancers, now soldiers, were down to their last three. It was time to go after the true enemy and not the shadows he plays with.

Baer and Ayden took out the last of the shadows as Rory and I walked towards the dais. As they came to our sides, I ran my hand through Ayden’s fur, the touch of any part of him grounding me more than the shadows that receded to the back of my mind but didn’t leave completely.

“This is it,” Rory said as we reached the door. “I can feel it. This is the end.”

She looked at us all, waiting for anyone to say or do something. I took that moment to take charge and reached for the door handle.

“It’s about damn time.”

I was done with this quest. Now, my only goal was to get my family back to where we belonged. Safe and without fear of Morus ever coming after us again.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Ayden

“Whyhasn’tAydenshiftedback?” Sasha asked as she looked between Baer and me. Baer had shifted back just before she had touched the door and she had looked at me, expecting the same.

“Morus cursed him,” Aurora answered before I could explain it myself.

Sasha’s eyes narrowed as she patted my head. “There it is. That son of a- I can’t break it. It’s set too deep.”

“There’s only going to be one way to end the spell, Sasha,” Baer said. “And it starts with going through that door.”

I stood at Sasha’s side as she swung open the door where Morus had disappeared. He hadn’t gone far into the castle. I could still feel traces of his magic, even now.

He was cocky. It was obvious in the way he had disappeared. It wasn’t that he was running from us. We had just irritated him and his plans.

I looked to Sasha, the touch of her hand in my fur grounded me and my wolf, as if the dark magic that Morus had cursed us with, was at ease to her command. Just as she had controlled Morus’s own magic that was thrown at her.

She still had slightly darkened veins from the magic inside her. A magic that would now always be a part of her. Then again, according to what Morus had said as he filled her with the dark magic, it had always been there. A shadow of the power she had now.

She could control it, however. Unlike the thousands of witches in the past who have fallen into darkness. More than one of my ancestors who wields its darkness, but they didn’t control the magic. The magic controlled them.

Even Alkmene, who, though she still held her loyalty for her family, was ultimately under the thumb of the darkness inside her. I wondered what would happen to those witches if we managed to destroy the creator of the magic that fueled their life span.

‘Don’t worry about that,’a voice rang in my head. I jerked from side to side. I had never heard that voice before, and yet it was familiar to me.‘You must work as a pack to fight him. Shadows hide from the light, but even the moon’s glow can disperse them. Use your bloodlines together and end the darkness once and for all.’

“Ayden?” Sasha whispered; her hand paused on my head. “Are you alright?”

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