Page 34 of Sasquatch's Claiming

“Someone get Coraliane to a water source,” Adam shouted. “She needs to heal.”

“I can handle it,” an elf said, scooping up Coraliane to carry her away.

Bernadette looked up at Ben.

“She’s a mermaid,” Ben responded. “She’s powerful and no doubt she was helping Aoife keep the portal intact.”

The portal itself, which glowed gold, was cracked and sparking. It seemed to be fading in and out of existence. Aoife tried to stand, but Adam wouldn’t let her.

Ben set Bernadette down and she walked with him slowly over to where Adam was.

“What happened?” Ben asked quietly.

“That thing broke through. Shattered this portal. We tried to repair it, but Aoife was injured. Coraliane is worse off, she was trying to protect Aoife.” Adam glared at the wendigo, which was pacing at the edge of the barrier. At least that was still intact.

It seemed edgy, its eyes locked on her, but it also didn’t seem to want to touch the intact barrier or the axes that were pointed at it by Ben and Adam’s other brothers, as well as a few other magical beings that guarded it.

“Bernadette,” it called in her mind.

That horrible voice she often heard.

Now she understood where that voice was from. Her uncle all along.

She took a step forward, but Ben held her back.

“I have this. It’s okay,” she said reassuringly.

“I’ll be with you,” Ben stated.

“I know.” She just knew that she was the only one who could banish this creature. Something Cillian had said to her the one time she had met him was reverberating in her mind. How her blood was powerful, how she alone had to claim Ben.

And she had done that.

Inside, she could feel this powerful light growing within her and she knew what she had to do to destroy this wendigo and send her uncle to the netherworld.

Permanently.

“Uncle,” Bernadette said, calmly stepping in front of Ben’s brothers.

The wendigo grinned, hunched over. “Bernadette, you thought you could hide from me?”

“I know who I am now,” Bernadette stated. “Wolf.”

The wendigo growled. “How?”

Bernadette didn’t give it away. “Does it matter? I know now. I know that I am an alpha and when you were a wolf, you were not. You planned to claim me and force your rank.”

“Your father was an alpha and your mother was human. Those who raised you weren’t even your real parents.”

That stung, but she recalled that memory of her uncle telling the man she thought was her father, that she wasn’t his child. Those two people crying and giving her away in another memory were her real parents. She knew that deep in her soul.

“You know it to be true,” her uncle snarled.

“And if I do?” she countered.

The wendigo laughed. “The alpha who fathered you died. He was my brother. Your adopted parents were part of our pack, but they were even lower than me. They had no choice but to let me in their life.”

“You killed them, didn’t you? You killed my adopted parents in that car crash.”

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