Page 85 of The Alpha Wolf Defying Fate

A searing pain erupted from the mark as dark magic began to fill my veins with force. My body seized with the pain as a scream ripped through my lips and echoed through the ballroom.

“Sasha!” a familiar voice shouted.

I turned my head limply to the side to see who it was, the memories flickering in and out as the darkness filled me with fire and ice.

Rory’s face came into focus, a ball of pure sun-fire in her hands as she fended off the shadowy dancers who now attacked my small pack.

“Sasha! Don’t give in! You are stronger than you think! He’s the one who needs you! You don’t need him!” My cousin yelled at me.

Her words didn’t make any sense. Why would Morus need me? He was strong. He was power. He was the darkness incarnate. The very creature we had set out to destroy, but there was no destroying him. He was too strong. We were fools to have thought we could face him.

‘But we can, Sasha,’my wolf howled.‘Listen to the bond!’

I could feel the thrumming of the mate bond then. The darkness dimming its call, but it was still there. I only had to hold on, and I would be able to hear Ayden. Feel what he was feeling and draw strength from him.

My mind weakly reached out and brushed against that imaginary cord, and moonlight trickled into my mind.

‘Don’t give up! You are a gods damned warrior queen! You pushed back that darkness before, Sasha! Do it again! I believe in you!’Ayden’s voice echoed with the howls of his wolf in my mind. His faith in me glowing as brightly as the full moon that blazed in his eyes.

I thought back to the last time that this darkness had filled me. The last time that I had nearly given into its siren call. He was right. I had fought it. I had turned away from the power it had offered me. The power granted immortality to many individuals. I had run from it and pushed its control away from me.

“Just relax,” Morus said, that phrase now feeding into my anger towards him.

I growled and pulled my wolf closer in my mind. My eyes locked onto his and for a split moment, I saw genuine fear in those demonic black eyes.

He pushed harder against my mark, pushing more of his darkness inside me, but I could feel his control over it dwindling. I could feel my own control over the darkness growing stronger. I could control it, not the other way around.

“No,” I said firmly. I reached over my shoulder and grabbed hold of his wrist. Together with my wolf, we pulled his hand from our skin and shoved him back from us. “You relax.”

Morus stumbled back two feet before gaining his balance. His eyes narrowed at me as I stood tall, the darkness wrapping its smokey tendrils around my body. Now, the darkness concealed my white gown completely. I was as much shadow as the creatures surrounding my friends, but I didn’t feel the evil of it.

I was in complete control.

Fur brushed against my hand as I stared down at Morus. I knew it was Ayden without even looking down, the bond between us pulsing more than it ever had before.

‘That’s my girl,’he whispered in my mind.‘Show him what you’re made of Rigel. Don’t hold back.’

He leaped at the same moment I aimed a ball of darkness for Morus’s head. Our combined attack seemed to catch him off guard. His eyes narrowed at my mate as he aimed his own dark magic at the wolf as he flew through the air.

I barely had the chance to stop his magic in mid air. Morus turned his attention to me with a snarl of his own and threw dark daggers at my chest.

My darkness rose and blocked his attack, yet another snarl spilling from his lips.

“You think you can handle the darkness better than me?” he accused. “I created this magic. It’s a part of me!”

The darkness flew up again around me, the smokey waves of dark magic wrapping around me in a protective shield. I cocked my head at Morus as he stared with unhidden awe at my control over the magic that he created. A smile formed over my lips.

“You may have created this magic,” I said to him as I sent three dark daggers of my own to his chest. He blocked the first two, but the third found its mark in his shoulder before disappearing to leave the open and bleeding wound. “But I was born with it.”

Ayden dove at Morus again, his teeth sinking into the injured shoulder of the dark god as I sent another dark ball of shadow fire to his chest. He pushed us both back; the fire searing his white suit as he barely caught and extinguished the fire.

Ayden flew back from the force of Morus’s magic, his paws sliding across the ballroom floor until he stood once more at my side.

“Guards!” Morus yelled as he backed away from us. “Kill them! Kill them all!”

He pointed an accusing finger at me and smirked a deadly smile. “You think that you’re special? You were made for me by my order. And I can make another of you just as easily. You are nothing.”

A wave of shadow dancers rushed in front of Morus, blocking our path to the dark god as he turned to walk away. I tried to rush past them as Morus disappeared through a small door near the dais where we had sat not more than an hour before, but the shadows swarmed in with their teeth and claws bared for attack.

---