Page 29 of The Alpha Wolf Defying Fate

I couldn’t be certain if this was the River Lethe or not. I had never heard any tales of a kelpie living beneath its surface. What I knew for certain was that these waters were not acting on the kelpie’s authority. There was more magic at play than the creature itself. Something was helping it in its clear mission to take Sasha.

I searched the waters for a sign of her, the waves and currents twisting my body in the water as a means to confuse my senses.

‘We don’t need those senses to find her,’my wolf growled the reminder in my mind.

Even if I hadn’t marked her, the bond had still been strengthened. Even before tonight, I had been able to always find her without my eyes, like a sixth sense programed to only her. Now, I needed that sense even more.

I closed my eyes and searched for the tether that belonged to her. I could feel the kelpie’s tether first, darkness around it as something stronger than myself held the reins of the creature. I could tell without even trying that if I attempted to touch the kelpie’s cord, it would do more harm than good to myself and the creature.

Sasha’s tether glowed near the kelpies then, my mind locking onto her warmth through the bond as I grabbed her tether. I couldn’t pull her. Held against her own will, it would only harm her to attempt to control her like this. A lesson my father had learned when his gift first awakened and therefore he taught me. So that I might never harm a creature by pulling against their will or control.

Instead, I combined the power of my gift with the bond, sending a message to my mate in a way that we should only be able to do once marked by one another.

“Sasha, fight! Don’t give up! You have to fight!”

I opened my eyes to see her deep in the water. Her eyes widened with fear as her hand finally broke free of the kelpie’s binding and reached out towards me.

“Fight!”I yelled through the tethered bond.“Be the warrior I know you are!”

The current pushed against me once more, my hold on the tether faltering and its glow disappearing from my gaze. I panicked for a moment, believing that she was gone. My wolf’s howls of rage echoing in my mind as my lungs began to burn for air.

The rage only paused as a new sense of magic rippled through the waves, and my eyes found the floating strands of hazelnut just before a second strong ripple of magic knocked away whatever magic had been pushing me back.

Chapter Fourteen

Sasha

“Kelpie!”

This time it had been Ayden who named the monster that attacked us. This time, it had been a creature that I could recognize even without the dark voice in my mind telling me its name.

The monster grabbed hold of me with a darker version of elemental magic. A kind of magic that both smelled and tasted of an age long forgotten by those outside of the Forgotten Realm.

I tried my best to break free of that magic’s hold. The creature turned towards the river as Ayden went flying back. I cried out for him to help me, watching in horror as he got back up and ran after me, his left arm dangling at his side, clearly injured.

‘No, no, no,’I thought in my head. My wolf growled for me to fight back, but how do you fight a creature made of the very element it controlled? A creature well known in legions to drown his victims and feast on their bodies like crocodiles in the south.

‘Sasha, you can’t give up,’my wolf said.‘You must fight just as fiercely as our mate now.’

I shook my head; the water rising to my chest as the kelpie moved towards the very center.

‘I can’t. I can’t move!’I felt tears burning my eyes just before the water covered my face and the kelpie pulled me beneath its glistening surface.

I thought about how beautiful that surface had looked just hours before. How relaxing the sound of the water had been, lulling us into a sense of security at its edge.

That must be how the kelpie finds its victims. The call of the river was like a beacon of light to a moth. It’s song giving whoever dared to come near the river’s edge the feeling of peace and safety before the Kelpie surfaced and dragged them to their deaths.

As I held my breath, sobs began to rise up in my chest, causing a burning sensation. I had been so stupid to have let my guard down. My excuse to Ayden now proved accurate.

The bond had been a distraction that would now cost me my life.

‘And his if you don’t fight!’my wolf growled in my head.

My brows creased at her words until a pull at my mind had me turning to look back towards the surface just in time to see Ayden attempting to dive towards me.

‘He wants you to fight!’my wolf said, his words sounding too distant for me to hear.‘As do I, Sasha. We must fight.’

I wiggled my arm free; the kelpie letting its grip loose as we dove deeper still. Far deeper than I would have ever imagined the river to be. I reached out towards Ayden, urging him to get to me. To save me.

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