Page 30 of The Alpha Wolf Defying Fate

‘You aren’t a damsel! Fight!’

Those words echoed loudest in my mind; my wolf’s voice was even silenced by the deep command of our mate. His pep-talk from before echoing with those words in my mind.

A fresh fire ignited in my soul; my gaze turned back to the kelpie as its horse-face shifted to a creature of nightmares. I shot out a pulse of my magic at the creature, his hold loosening only a bit as my magic knocked its head away from me.

I tried again; the impact was less effective than before. That sense of defeat seeped its way back in as I shot every bit of magic I could think of at the creature. The smokey darkness of my mind returned from the depths of my head with the strange dark voice echoing over my wolf.

‘You have other magic, Sasha,’the voice soothed my fear.‘Why don’t you use it?’

I shook my head.‘I’ve used everything.’

I didn’t understand why I was willingly talking back to the voice in my head. The very voice that had left me feeling frightened and confused just days before.

The marks on the back of my neck began to tingle, a thought I had long ago pushed away coming back at the beckoning of the strange voice in my mind.

‘Why not try the very magic that marked you before you ever drew your first breath,’the voice suggested.

I shook my head as I fought the thought, the voice in my mind chuckling at the attempt.

‘It’s the only way, Sasha. You want to live, don’t you?’

Again, my gaze moved to Ayden, his arms hooking through the water as he tried to fight the magic that pushed him back. Every wave and current of the water exhausting him as he refused to give up.

The voice in my head gave a growl.‘Yes, he will die if you don’t try. You both will die if you do not save yourself.’

It was the thought of Ayden dying with me that broke my resolve. The resistance to the temptation I had fought all my life breaking just as my resistance to the mate bond had just hours before.

I felt the darkness rise to my fingertips, my eyes closing as the euphoric feel of power echoed in my veins.

I could breathe, my lungs no longer burning with the need for air. I could move, my entire body slipping out of the kelpie’s grasp as its monstrous gaze widened in fear.

It was as if the creature itself recognized the darkness that I held inside me. The darkness that not even I had fully known existed.

I raised my hand and sent a new wave of magic, the dark smoke of the magic swirling like ink through the water, surrounding the creature that had threatened my life and drove my mate to risk his own life to save me. With a close of my fist, the creature’s neck was broken, its lifeless body drifting away from me into the very depths where it had intended to drag me to my end.

I could still feel the power that pushed back against Ayden in the water, my eyes opening to see the tendrils of darkness within the currents and waves that did not belong to me. My hand reached out to it, its wisps of ink linking with my own magic, all of it coming under my control.

With another twist of my fists, the magic dispersed, and my body fell limp in the water. My strength leaving with the magic that had fought to keep my mate from me.

Darkness filled my gaze, my sense of direction clouded as my body floated in place. I could feel a hand wrapping around my wrist, then an arm around my waist as it pulled me towards what I could only hope was the surface.

Though the world around me was dark, I couldn’t tell if my eyes were actually closed, or if the darkness I had wielded simply took over my sight.

In the textbooks I studied as a child, it always showed the dark magic users with blacked eyes and veins. The magic was like a plague over their body, completely consuming everything that made them who they were as it ran through every vein and vessel of their body.

I wondered if that was what was happening to me now that I had given into the secret temptation which not even my own mother knew I struggled with.

From the time I had turned thirteen, I had felt drawn to the dark magic that everyone warned against. Every class on the subject warning of its addictiveness, and how it would destroy everything you cared about.

I had convinced myself that I was only curious due to my mother’s brush with the dark magic and the mark we both shared. I had thought myself over the curiosity of it, but now I knew it had always been inside me. Just waiting for me to give in to its siren call.

But could it really be so bad? If I had not used the magic, Ayden and I would both be dead right now. Neither of us would have made it out of that river. Neither of us would be able to breathe that fresh air that I had always taken for granted.

‘We aren’t breathing, Sasha,’my wolf’s voice whimpered.

I frowned to myself. That didn’t seem right. I know that I felt air in our lungs when I used that magic. I could still feel air filling me now, and I could taste something sweet, though I couldn’t place where I knew that taste from.

‘Sasha, we aren’t breathing. We need to take a breath. You have to let go of the magic.’My wolf urged me.

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