Page 78 of The Alpha Wolf Defying Fate

I walked back to the backpack slowly, nudging it with my nose towards Baer with a pleading look for him to open it. He bent down slowly and frowned at me as he unzipped the first pocket.

He peered inside and frowned more as he pulled out the book and held it up for me. I gave an excited bark and wagged my tail excitedly.

“This? Really? Right now?” he asked.

I barked again and spun in a circle before letting out a sniff with a dip of my head. He tilted his head, then opened the book, the pages fanning out on their own in his hands before landing on the exact page of the image with The Fates and their brother.

“Holy shit,” Baer gasped as he stood up and showed Aurora the page.

“That’s him! That’s the guy who took Sasha! How? How long did he know?” She glared at me, my wolf letting out a low growl.

“Rory, calm down. There was no way he knew that this was who Sasha was seeing in her dreams. She barely had a description when she woke up. All she knew for sure was the sound of his voice.” Baer reasoned with her.

“He knew though, Baer. He knew and he did nothing to help her.” Tears ran down her cheek as she took the book and read the page opposite of the picture. “He’s a fate.”

Baer nodded. “Tell me, Rory, what is it that The Fates can all do?”

She looked up at him with widened eyes. “Send prophecies.”

“And what prophecy has always bothered us especially given what The Fates told us back when we met up with Ayden.”

She looked at me, her eyes growing even wider. “Sasha’s prophecy about Ayden.”

“It was him, Rory. This was who sent that prophecy to her. He had to have known that she and Ayden were mates. It was just before they both turned eighteen. Right before they would have known they were mates. He’s been watching her all this time. Doing his best to keep them apart until he could come for her. And now he has her.”

I growled again, the pair looking back at me. Aurora dropped her gaze back to the story.

“He needs her,” she said. “Something else has been bothering me ever since the incident with the kelpie. She resisted the dark magic’s call. Even when she faced up against the griffin, I could see she wanted to use that magic again, but she held back. She resisted against the most addicting magic known to us. And this guy, this so-called god, he is all dark magic. He needs her for something.”

Baer nodded and scratched the back of his neck. “I know. There is something there. That’s for sure.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. They were doing too much talking and not enough moving. I showed them what they needed to know. Now we had to act.

I let out a growl, my wolf taking over then with a sharp bark. They both looked back at me, startled, before I ran for the nearest window and leaped through the glass.

Shards cut into my skin, though my fur protected me from the worst of it. As soon as my paws hit the ground, I went running. I spared only a single glance back at the house to see if the others would follow and gasped as I saw the perfect dwelling was no longer there.

They stood, as confused as I was, in a crumbling ruin with no more walls than the buildings around them.

It had been an illusion. We had walked directly into his trap, and we hadn’t even known it.

I growled at my failure and turned towards the path ahead. The fork was no longer an obstacle to me as I turned towards the westward path. I could feel Sasha’s bond calling to me. A faint image of her tether vibrating as her wolf called out to us.

‘They’re separated,’my wolf growled, his anger at the knowledge vibrating through us both.

‘How is that even possible?’I asked, though we both knew that Morus was more than capable of it. He wouldn’t have been able to completely remove the wolf from Sasha. Not without killing her, but he could certainly separate their minds so they couldn’t communicate.

It was a dark form of magic. Darker than anything we’ve ever faced. To separate two halves of a soul was a cruelty that only the evilest being could willingly do.

I pushed harder, digging my prints deep into the ground for Baer and Aurora to follow.

My wolf kept ebbing in and out, the curse speeding up the process of turning feral. The only thing that kept him going was the bond’s pull. The way it tightened the closer we came to the pristine white castle up ahead.

There was pain trickling down from the bond. The pain of Sasha and her wolf being separated. I could feel every moment her wolf tried to reach her, the pain splitting my head as we ran. My wolf pushed forward even as my mind faltered from that pain. I took the brunt of it so he could stay in control of our movements. I used it as my punishment for ever allowing this to happen. For not protecting her the way I should have.

Aurora had been right in her anger at my knowledge. I could have shared what I’d learned with them. I should have told them that very night that I read the story of The Fates and their banished brother. Although I considered them family, I didn’t have the same level of trust as I do with my actual family.

Had it been my mother or uncle with me, I’d have shared the book immediately. Had it been my cousin or her mother, I wouldn’t have hesitated a moment to tell them my suspicions.

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