Page 89 of Mated Exile

They're all here to support me. No matter what I do, they'll go forward with it, as long as it saves the pack. Even if it's evil.

Or if doing so tears me apart.

Drawing the knife from my jacket, I turn back to John, who is already fighting the curse again. It feels so heavy in my hand. As I take a step towards him, the nausea inside me grows, but I tell myself there's no other way. I've come this far—I can't go back. Especially because the blood the curse will demand next time won't be my own's.

As I grab John's hand and twist it towards the knife, I feel a moment of hesitation. Looking up again, I search for the spirit, wondering if I really saw what I thought I saw. The elders aren't meant to wake for us unless we call to them. If it were that easy, I wouldn't be here with this spell blackening my hands and stretching up towards my elbows.

I can't find the spirit's silhouette in the darkness anymore.

When I look up into Vivia's statuesque carved face, I feel a tremor within me. For a moment, I swear a voice echoes through my head, full of grief and aged wisdom.

This is not the way.

I blink, and on the backs of my eyelids I see people cultivating the land, giving it life and sustenance, drawing on the willing sacrifice of hard labor and animals hunted for food, not sport or pleasure. Magic pools from their fingers and sinks into the river water, stony ground, fertile soil, and tall-growing trees.

The strong build. They do not destroy.

My hand trembles on the knife. When I jerk my eyes down to John's face, I'm shocked to see the whites of his eyes. His expression is full of fear, and sweat slides down his temples, pooling on his neck. I am the thing he fears.

Black curse magic stretches up towards my shoulders. I hear my father's voice in my head, warning me of the dangers of dead things and darkness.

Shuddering, I drop the knife. Then I murmur the curse's undoing."Mens a tua antinumus."

The magic slithers from my skin and drops to the ground, disappearing. John jerks away from me, stumbling back a step, his face narrowing and a growl leaving his lips. As Bastian and Lance tense, ready to start something, I step forward and hold out a hand.

"I'll do anything to save my pack, much like you." Raising my chin, I cut my eyes in his direction. "That said, I've decided to spare you, because I refuse to sacrifice my soul to darkness. I have to believe there's another way. I suggest you and your people leave—now, while there's still any sun in the sky. By the time darkness falls, I want no one on our territory who isn't a member of our pack."

John sneers at me, gathering his pride and dignity together, even though I can sense that my total power and control over his mind and body has affected him poorly. "Do whatever you want. I can see now that this pack isn't the only thing tainted beyond repair. Your very land is cursed."

As he strides towards his people, they peel off from the tense crowd and follow in lockstep behind him. Moments later I hear their cars start up, and I close my eyes in relief, even as adrenaline makes my heart race and my fingers tremble.

Roarke approaches me and quietly asks, "What do we do now?"

Laughing, I open my eyes and shake my head. "I don't know. We could use your blood, if you become alpha, but the instant we do..."

"We're cosigning the pack to the fate of the curse unless waking the elder reallydoeswork," he says, resignation in his voice. "We'll be putting all our eggs in one basket. Hoping that we can save the pack, instead of dooming it with our arrogance."

Looking up at the statue, I murmur, "I hope you've got some answers for us."

Vivia doesn't answer. Sweeping the knife off the ground, I stride towards the center of the circle, listening to the rise and fall of voices. There's real fear in the crowd—much of it, I sense as they pull away from me, directed towards my abilities.

My skin crawls, and I have to double-check that my arms are no longer grey. The curse magic has left me, thankfully, but even that hasn't stopped them from knowing that I read an alpha's mind, or sensing that something was off with what just went down. Their minds are full of vague unease from the moment I opened my mouth to speak the spell to the moment the alpha left in a hurry.

Roarke and I exchange a glance, and I see the same regret tinged with worry in his expression. We may have had a good reason for what we just tried to do, but it also cost us the trust of the pack. There's a good chance that our next gambit won't pay off.

Thankfully Niall, who has much more social cache in the pack than us, clears his throat and speaks up. "So that failed spectacularly. And I doubt we want an alpha like that to take over, since it sounds like he'd just drain the pack's last remaining strength and use it for himself. What's next?"

A gaping silence descends. I look to Roarke, watching his expression as he tries to work out what he'll say next.

Before he can, Bennett strides to the edge of the circle, rubbing the side of his jaw where a fast-healing bruise is fading from Lance's earlier treatment.

"What's next is, we get rid of the source of the curse once and for all." He turns his head to the side and spits blood, sneering at me from just beyond the protection of the stones. "As soon as the exile is gone, this will all go right. You saw what she did—darkmagic. Black magic. Getting rid of her is the only thing that'll save us."

"She was exiled when the curse began," someone points out calmly. "Exiling her again is unlikely to fix things."

Bennett's mouth twists into a smirk. "Who said we should exile her? That's not a permanent solution. I say wekillher."

Shock ripples through me, and I tense. At my side, Kieran lets out a low snarl that raises the hair on my arms. All the other men tense, and Bastian's eyes glow that strange, eerie red of his wolf form.

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