Page 55 of The Alpha's Rejected Mate

The fact that the Dalesbloom Alpha was on his knees with his head hung low seemed surreal. Wooziness moved through me again, and I felt as if I could be dreaming as I never could have imagined the proud Dalesbloom Alpha on the hardwood floor of the Hexen Hunting Lodge.

But then … I’d never imagined Catrinadead. My throat tightened as my insides knotted. I stared, feeling hollowed out as I watched David’s hands quivering over his daughter’s mangled body. Her body was still in its wolfish shape. Catrina had died in her wolf’s form and so would remain that way.

From outside, the snarls and thuds of fighting suddenly subsided, too. A shiver crawled down my spine as I heard footfalls echoing from the tiled vestibule.

Lothair, the Inkscale Alpha, appeared in the doorway, his obsidian gaze taking in David grieving over Catrina’s mauled body.

“David,” Lothair uttered, his serious expression and tone calling the Alpha’s attention. “Grieve for your daughter later. After all, it wasn’t Catrina that we attained the horn for.”

Lothair’s eyes shot to Muriel, sitting between me and Aislin. My grip tightened on my friend’s arm as the dragon shifter’s onyx eyes seemed devoid of feeling. I gritted my jaw, narrowing my gaze at him, hating the way he reduced Muriel to her horn as if she wasn’t a person in her own right.

Aislin’s hackles rose, too. She’d stayed in her wolf form to heal from the deep gash that Catrina had put in her leg and shoulder. I still scented fresh blood from her, which meant her wound must be deep.

Gavin had turned toward the dragon shifter, his body angled between David and Lothair, ready to shift should the need arise from either direction.

But as I registered Lothair’s words, surprise tumbled through me. He said itwasn’tCatrina who had wanted to get Muriel’s horn. But with the killing of her fated mate, Joseph, and her ceding the power she’d have gotten from embracing their connection, it had pointed to her wanting her Lycan form.

David’s resolve hardened his expression as his attention went to Muriel. “You’re right, Lothair.” Cold steel rang in his voice. “Besides, Catrina would have wanted me to take up the power she hoped to share with me.” The craving in his tone made me want to shrink away, but the need for answers rang louder.

I stood up from beside Muriel, getting into an alert stance and forced David’s attention to me. “You promised me if it was a good exchange you would give me answers,” I reminded him. I had no intention of handing over Muriel, but he didn’t needto know that. “Tell me what happened to my parents, or you’ll never get past me.”

David smirked, and Lothair threatened to come toward me.

But Gavin's low voice rumbled, “Don’t move a muscle, Lothair, or I’ll have my teeth in your neck.”

Lothair’s onyx eyes flashed to Gavin, and he clenched his fists but remained still.

David’s gaze locked on mine. I held my breath as I wondered whether he was finally going to give me answers. His cloudy eyes fell to Muriel again and to the cut on her arm. “The first blood that blade tasted was Rebecca’s.”

Shock skittered through me. David was talking about the blade he’d cut Muriel with. When David had cut her earlier, Muriel had said that the blade had “seen murder.”

As I stared at David’s cloudy eyes, I realized he’d sunk into a reverie. Perhaps it was the shock of Catrina’s death, but my demand for answers about my parents had conjured thoughts of the past to him. Confusion whirred through me, though. I hadn’t asked about Rebecca.

Rebecca had been Colt and Catrina’s mom. She’d passed away shortly before I’d come to live with the Hexens. But I’d assumed her death had come about through illness. In fact, I distinctly recalled Colt telling me she had been ill. My gaze swept over to my adoptive brother, whose body had frozen, where he still kneeled by the fireplace. The lines of his face were rigid with shock as he listened with rapt attention to David, too. Colt hadn’t heard this truth from his father either. The shock rooting hisbody was vibrating through me. Colt had no idea that his father hadkilledhis mother.

But even as I wondered why on earth David had committed such a crime, an inkling of intuition dawned. Sickness moved through me as insight stirred. Rebecca hadn’t been theonly onekilled with the murderous blade David had used on Muriel. He’d said the first blood that the blade had tasted had been Rebecca’s. My throat threatened to close up as I suddenly didn’t want to hear who else he’d killed with that blade.

But my heart punched my chest, forcing me to get answers. “Did you kill my parents with that knife, too?”

David’s eyes gleamed. “Yes.”

My voice broke as I demanded, “Why? What did they ever do to you?”

David let out a hollow laugh. “Your mother never did anything .…”

At his admission that she’d been innocent, and still, he’d killed her, my chest felt as if it had been shredded.

His cold voice continued, “I knew Rebecca had been meeting someone.” David’s expression twisted with resentment. “So, one night, I followed her. She drove to Pioneer’s Creek. There, I saw her and your father. I caught them in your father’s car, carrying on like a pair of teenagers.” Bitterness cloaked his face, and he added, “I gutted them both then and there.”

Horror punctured me. My father had been having an affair with David’s wife. Icy terror shook through me as I pictured David following his wife like the hunter he was. The prey mountedon the walls of the gallery seemed even sicker trophies as I understood for the first time what a truly lethal predator this man was.

I took in the obsidian-eyed dragon Alpha, realizing that was where he came into this plan. Lothair must have offered David the chance to regain the power that he’d lost by killing his fated mate by sharing the Lycan ritual with him. That was the reason David coveted Muriel’s horn and had long wanted to partake in the ritual.

But there was still a part I didn’t understand. “What happened to my mother?” I asked, my heart squeezing.

David’s expression clouded with anger, “I needed to make it look like your father had fled. So, I went to get his passport from your house, but you woke up in the night, and when your mother roused, she noticed me.”

Astonishment tumbled through me as I pictured a woman getting up in the Mundy’s cabin, her baby crying, only to find a trespasser in her home.

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