Page 112 of The Alpha's Fated Destiny

My grandfather nuzzles me, helping me up. When Karina realizes I am not going to give up, irritation, flickers in her eyes. “I’ve never met a more stubborn person in my life. Fine. You want to be this way? Then, I’ll see how well you can withstand this attack. Kill the Silver Wolf’s mother.”

There is a smile on Karina’s lips and the witches lift their arms, creating those fire bows again. Only this time, all of them are aimed at my mother.

I run.

Summoning every bit of magic left within me, I throw a barrier around her, just as the sky is filled with a thousand burning arrows.

My barrier fails.

I try to create another one and it doesn’t work either.

I’m empty now.

Stumbling on my feet, I crash face down on the forest floor, and as I look up at the sky, I see thatit looks like it is on fire.

Dimly, I remember a faint voice saying, “When the sky is burning, then summon me and my coven.”

When the sky is burning…

It looks like the sky is on fire.

My body is too weak and I can’t get up. My grandfather is racing toward my mother and out of nowhere, my ears catch the faint sound of glass breaking.

My grandfather throws himself on my mother and the arrows land.

Only, they don’t land on him, but on a barrier surrounding him, Elsa, and my mother.

Karina lets out a scream of anger, but I am barely listening.

My head turns in the direction where I heard the sound of the glass breaking. Familiar faces are standing in the middle of the battle, their eyes hard, their hands outstretched.

Marlene.

I let out a sob of relief.

But then Marlene steps aside, and another figure steps out from behind her.

Alex.

Chapter 26

Alex

As a child, I always loved to hide in small spaces. It made it harder for the other children to find me, but my parents would always know where I was. It didn’t matter whether I was curled up in the trunk of a tree or in a closet where no one ever looked, my parents would always find me. I never minded small, dark, and confined areas.

And then I saw my parents die before my eyes. I saw my uncle murdered as he tried to protect me. And the woman who killed my father, all the while smiling so sweetly at him, dragged me to a cage and thrust me inside. It was a cage meant for a small cat or a dog. It was not meant for a nine-year-old little boy. My body would not fit, and I had to pull my knees to my chest and curl into a ball.

That was the first time I learned that there were times when breathing was hard. That drawing in air was not always as easy as it seemed.

Over the next seven years, I would often be punished this way, stuffed into a cage and stashed somewhere where very little air could reach me.

Humans called it claustrophobia.

My kind doesn’t give it a name because it doesn’t happen to us.

I spent years hiding this weakness from even my closest friends because I was ashamed.

But Karina knew.

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