Page 3 of Celestial Alphas

He leans forward. “If she is hurt, I’m personally blaming you for it. If you had fucking warned me about your father being there, I wouldn’t have come back with her. You should have done something. Anything. I promised her.”

“We all made promises, Finn, and we want the same thing.” Her safety. Finn huffs like I’m talking bullshit as Hollis walks in. He looks tired, but it’s not about Gwen. He still doesn’t give a shit about her. “How’s Rhodes?”

I know the answer. Hollis would have called me if there’d been any change. Hollis slumps onto the seat next to me, in a stained white shirt and crumpled black trousers. “Still in a fucking coma!” He waves at the door. “Get Gwenieve out, get her to the hospital, and maybe she can wake him up. Their bond, whatever fucking shit links them, can wake him. I don’t care, but if she is there, maybe she can wake him. He’s my twin, and he’s not waking up! That stupid fucking house fell on him, and a Vian must have touched him because the doctors can’t do anything. None of the magic is working.” He grabs my arm. “Wake my brother the fuck up.”

Alek storms in, stepping between us and putting his hand on Hollis’s arm. Hollis violently drags his bloodshot eyes to Alek, who has always been the middle ground for us all when we argue. If I can’t fix it, Alek always does. “Us destroying each other is not helping her or Rhodes. Our best bet is convincing Paavo to let her out. Outside of that, we go to the trial and figure it out. I will apply to the priests for a special visit from Gwenieve in light of Rhodes’s condition. But, Hol, we need to show we are mentally sane, or no one is going to help us. They will just lock us up with her.”

“Sounds perfect to me,” Finnegan stands. “At least I’d be with her.”

Alek clenches his jaw and looks at Finn. “Finnegan, just let us try to be civilised. We cannot lose it now. We’ll be on the run forever with her, even if we managed to get to her unhurt. We still don’t know everything about what she has been through, but with that Nexus…I suspect she has been lying to us about everything.”

“Her Nexus is stunning,” Finnegan groans. “And these idiots don’t understand her.”

“She is locked up for a reason,” Hollis snips. “I told you she is psychotic?—”

“You want to say that to me again?” Finnegan roars, stomping over to Hollis.

Alek blocks him as we all stand up. “Enough!”

“When he stops being a fucking petty bitch, then?—”

Alek growls and it echoes. “I said enough. What does this achieve? All we’ve done since she’s turned up is argue, at which point, none of us were helping her when she needed us. We don’t deserve her, and this isn’t making it any better. She needs her mates, and we need her, too. After what Finn said, it sounds like she rejected us to protect us. I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking heartbroken over that idea. Our mate protected us! We treated her like shit for it.” We all go silent. I don’t have anything to say to that, because he’s right. Any time I think about the truth of it, I feel like shattering inside. Gods above know how she’s feeling. None of our Gods would be able to save anybody in my way if they didn’t let her out soon. Convincing the Supreme Alpha is the right way to fix this. “I want to be a mate to her, and one she deserves, so I’m working on helping her. Not hindering her. I doubt she will forgive any of us anytime soon, but it would be nice if we were behaving like full-grown men, not fighting like boys, when she gets out?”

The doors open. My father’s assistant walks out, pausing at the sight of Alek pushing Hollis and Finnegan back. Alek’s warnings have hit home, though, because they both step back. I barely even look at her or hear her inviting us in as I walk into the room. “I’ve been waiting ten minutes, father. Does family mean nothing to you now?”

My father watches with a cold, calculating glare, the same look I grew up seeing anytime anything didn’t go his way. Helikes control, he likes to know everything, and now he is in the only position in the Nexus world to guarantee that he gets what he wants. How lucky for him the Supreme Alpha was killed at the same time his only heir was taken. Annie wouldn’t have become the Supreme Alpha after her father’s death, but her family vote for the next alpha would have been hers. Instead, the vote wasn’t cast. I have a feeling Annie wouldn’t have voted for him. Gwen was close with Annie, and after losing Harry in the explosion… I hope Annie is alive for her sake too. It will hurt her to lose another friend.

“I do have things to do, son. You’re lucky I agreed to this meeting at all with the mess I’ve just taken over. Nexus are going missing, and a bomb blew up a house that killed thirty-two. The Vian made the bomb and killed twenty-one other Nexus before they were stopped. The previous Supreme Alpha was killed by Vian, and his daughter is missing along with her mate, who is the only heir of the most powerful family except for us in Starlight, and they are demanding we do everything we can to get him back, or they will stop giving us money that many of our people rely on. I know why you’re here, and your monster mate is the least of my problems.”

I smell her blood instantly on him. I’m not sure where, but it’s there, and it takes everything in me not to explode even when it’s a tiny amount. Family or not, he is dead if she is hurt. Hollis meets my eyes, and I know he can smell it too. I clamp my teeth down as Finn slams the door shut behind him. “Where the fuck is she?”

“Finnegan, need I remind you that you’re contracted to protect and respect the Supreme Alpha as per your job as the assassin of Starlight? Unless you wish for your sister to stop receiving the lifesaving care you are afforded by being the assassin you were trained to be, I’d suggest you lower your voice in my fucking office!” my father snarls, and his eyes glow black.It’s a low blow, going after Finnegan’s very sick sister, and we all know it.

Finnegan crosses his arms and nods once before looking at me. I need to be smart and use everything I know to challenge my father on his choice to lock up Gwen. We’ve had a rocky relationship since the beginning, but I’m his only child. My mother’s the kind, sweet parent I was blessed with having, and I never understood why the Gods bonded them. My father rolls his shoulders. “Now behave, or you can all be locked up in that mansion I bought you under armed guard until the trial. That’s your choice. Don’t think for a second that any of you intimidate me. What intimidates me is this?—”

He presses the button on the laptop next to him, and video footage from outside the bombed house plays. Video footage of Gwen fighting the Vian like a badass. One Vian actually touches her, and it does nothing to her at all. Their touch doesn’t work on her. She just kills him, then one after the other like a very well-trained ranger, but it’s more than that, she enjoys it. She is fast, smart, and she is smiling as she murders our enemies. Why the fuck do I like seeing her do this?

We all stare in shock and every one of us is silent. All that time at the academy when she was weak, untrained and clumsy at times…was a lie. She was pretending and lying, and we taunted her for it. We fucking bullied her because none of us could accept that she rejected us. We are fucking assholes. Hollis looks ready to break something, Finnegan is smiling, and Alek laughs. “She’s been trained—and well. I knew that she was pretending to be shit.” I glance at his waist where her Nex dagger is clipped. He’s looking after it for her or just wants her close, even if he can only haveitclose. Hollis grits his teeth as he realises, every time they fought in training, she was pretending to be shit and let him win. His ego won’t take that well. Finneganis proudly grinning at the footage. This is such a fucking mess. I’m going to get her out. I have to.

“Father, I only see a very well-trained ranger of the academy doing what she should be doing to our enemies. The fact that the Vian cannot drain her is a bonus, a skill of hers, one that should be commended. I see nothing intimidating in this footage. In fact, we should play it for new recruits at the academy to show them what a ranger should be. I searched her records, and her father was the top of his class, extremely well-trained until he left, and she clearly was taught by him.”

“Fine.” He clicks a few keys, and a new video comes up. This time she’s in a warehouse. The footage is grainy, very blurry, but she’s there, and there is no way to mistake her. She is standing in a pool of blood and bodies and many body parts while holding a head. So much blood. How is she not throwing up? “Or this?” He presses a button again. This time it’s her in Starlight, but she looks different. She is walking slowly through the doors of an apartment. Her long hair is not brown, but the brightest grey falling all the way down to her feet and mostly covering her naked body. Her skin seems to have a grey sheen to it, like all the colour is drained out, and her nails are black, long and sharp. She looks up at the camera, and both her eyes are grey, pure grey, and her lips are blood red right before the camera breaks and the screen goes blurry. “This is what she really is. She is some kind of monster. I don’t know what kind of shifter this half-mortal thing is, but it’s clear she can shift into a wolf and whatever the fuck this side of her is. Her Nexus being…I don’t know what caused it, but it’s wrong. It is so fucking wrong.”

“Careful, that’s my mate, and I don’t see anything other than how beautiful and brilliant she is,” Finnegan warns.

My father ignores him because he knows he has a way for Finnegan to behave. “She’s a monster, and I gravely apologise to all of you that you have been bound to her. There are manythings that we can do to unbind and correct, but the simplest would be killing her. It would be easier if we had your approval for her execution. It would go a long way in the trial.”

Finn starts laughing and walks straight up to my father before he grabs his throat. My father sputters, choking, grabbing for him even with his black gloves on. I know he can make runes through them, but Finn doesn’t seem to care. He picks him up and throws him across the room, and I wince. I should run to my dad, protect him, but not from Finnegan. Not when Finn is right. “I don’t give a shit if you’re the Supreme Alpha. I have enough money to care for my sister on my own, and I want Gwenieve, or you’re going to learn exactly what kind of assassin I was trained to be. You let my mate out, or there’s going to be hell to pay for Starlight. You have until tomorrow.”

None of us try to stop him when he storms out, and I look at Alek. If anyone has a chance of calming him down, it’s Alek. “I’ll look after him, but I can’t promise he doesn’t do anything reckless. I can’t promise I won’t help him if you don’t get her out soon.”

I nod, and he leaves. Hollis just shakes his head at me as my father climbs to his feet, red faced, and a line of blood is dripping from his forehead. “I should have him executed for that!”

“We both know you won’t. Hollis, leave us alone,” I ask, patting his arm. “And I’ll come to see Rhodes as soon as I can.”

Hollis looks between us and nods once before leaving. Only Hollis and Rhodes know how bad it was for me as a kid. They regularly picked me up from whatever pub, bar or shithole I found myself in when I’d run from home, covered in bruises and cuts, or with runes on my skin that made me feel like dying. They helped me every single time, and their mother would cook meals for me before I was forced to go back. Back to a house full of misery and punishment, and a mother who was too scared of hermate to protect her child. If I ever have kids, I will never do that to them.

My father sits in the seat he stole with blood and watches me with his head cocked. The last time he hurt me, I was fifteen. I shifted and attacked him, and he barely escaped with his life. He hasn’t touched me again, but I know he still hurts my mother. She won’t leave him, though, and he knows I’ll always stick around to be there in case she does. I’m a fucking fool for still caring about both of my fucked-up parents. “Your mother will be so disappointed when I tell her about this. I can’t believe you’re siding with that girl.”

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