Page 88 of Mated Exile

Now that I've dragged the alpha out of their minds and spirits, there's room for Roarke to reach out and soothe them. He uses his voice as well as his influence, giving the pack a reason not to see the spell even as it takes hold. "I'm sure we can come to an agreement, John. Go with Delilah—talk between yourselves. There's no reason for this to come to blows."

As he speaks, his natural alpha tendencies move through the wolves and tug at their minds and spirits. The glowing irises around me quell. Tense bodies take a step back, rippling out of battle crouches, and claws turn back into simple fingers.

But the fight is far from over. To get the spell to work, we need the alpha's blood—and we can't just prick a finger then dab it lightly on the stones. He has to bleed fresh blood directly into the chamber at the foot of Elder Vivia's statue, a good thirty feet away.

And I have to drag him there every step.

"Gothatway, John." He narrows his hate-filled eyes at me, even as his legs obey my order, feet pulling him step by grueling step. I clench my fists and stalk behind him, a headache starting at the base of my skull. "Faster. We don't have all day."

Technically that isn't true, because the Summit is tomorrow and the Mating Circle will light up after sunset, but I'd rather do this with the sun in the sky. Something about slashing the man's hand open at night, using a dark spell from a black book full of curses, hedges a little too close to the dark magic my father warned me about. With the sun shining down on me, I can almost pretend that I'm doing something perfectly justified.

Even as nausea curls in my stomach, and I have to fight John's will with every step, feeling his horror and dismay at my presence in his mind.

Step by onerous step, I trudge onward.

As the sun lowers in the sky.

As discontent slips into the pack, though Roarke does his best to soothe them. I can hear him speaking, just barely, past the pounding of my headache. "Delilah and John are going to have a negotiation. Maybe we can offer Stone Pack a few of our male warriors..."

Finn and Kieran work the crowd with him, soothing fears, distracting from what I just did. They turn away, confused and befuddled even as their minds tell them that they're only seeing their alpha walk with me to speak somewhere in private. He's waking in front of me, leading the way—at least in their minds.

Lance and Bastian are behind me, shielding the crowd from seeing the worst of the spell's effects. How John's feet drag on the ground with each unnatural step. The tension in his shoulders grows the closer we come to the statue. His unnatural, jerky movements, and hard, hateful eyes.

"Delilah." Bastian's voice is quiet and calm, but tension runs through it. "Your hands."

I take my eyes off John for a moment to look down. Writhing my fingers and curling up towards my forearms is a strange, black energy that snakes across my skin. It's turned my palms an ashen grey color that makes me cringe.

In the moment that I look away, John jerks at the spell. I grit my teeth and bite back a whimper of pain as I tug his will back beneath mine. My breathing is labored, and sweat slicks the back of my neck.

"Almost there." Taking a gulping breath, I measure the distance between us and Elder Vivia's statue. "Just a few more steps..."

As I look towards the stones, the sun slips towards the horizon enough that its light no longer touches the hilltop of the Mating Circle. In the darkness behind the statue, I see a ghostly figure, rimmed in silver moonlight.

Slim and statuesque, with long feminine hair and a white dress, she looks at me with sorrowful eyes. For a strange and halting moment I think that she's my dead mother, come to guide me through the pains of my hybrid nature.

Then my eyes land back on the statue of Elder Vivia, who Michael said was the wolf-witch hybrid who built this territory. The resemblance is undeniable. They have the same high cheekbones, narrow face, and long hair.

But the longer I stare at her, the more I note the differences between them. The spirit has a full figure and a lined face, and her hair is free, while the statue is slim with braided hair and a youthful expression. It could just be a coincidence. Or a delusion, caused by the curse I've just cast, which is bound to demand I pay a price for its dark magic.

My eyes go back to the spirit, and I'm taken in by her sorrowful face. She looks meaningfully to John, who's taken his final, jerking step to the base of the statue. He stands stock still, waiting for my instructions.

I have a knife in my pocket that I'm meant to use to slash open his flesh and bleed at the foot of the statue.

The ghost of Vivia looks at me and slowly, deliberately, shakes her head.

"Delilah?" Lance's voice is full of concern. "If we're going to do this, we should do it now. Whatever that black influence is, it's spreading."

Jerking my arms up in front of my face, I startle at the grey tone of my skin. The blackness stretches up towards my elbows now, writhing in my veins and pulsing with every beat of my heart. Fear twists inside me.

Bastian is looking at me with a frown on his face, his brows drawn together. "We should just call it off. This is going to end poorly."

"It's what Delilah chose to do," Lance says, though he sounds worried as well. "Delilah, do you need our help? I can get the knife and hold him still—"

"I can do it."

Grabbing, the knife, I take it out and hesitate. Looking over my shoulder, I take in the small crowd, which is nervously looking back and forth from us to Roarke as he guides them. He's trying so hard to keep them from interrupting what I'm about to do that he's stretching himself, his influence pulling energy from his very soul instead of the earth around him.

Finn is staring in my direction, a frown on his lips. He looks over only momentarily before his attention is drawn back to the crowd, and he puts his hand on a man's shoulder, saying something that eases the growing tension. Kieran is moving among them too, going from figure to figure, somehow giving them the peace that he himself struggles to find from within.

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