Page 104 of Fated Exile

“Stay here,” I tell her, getting up and grimacing at the blood that’s coated me.

I follow the green threads to their end and find them twining around a pair of blinding yellow-white threads that nearly disappear in the sunlight. Threads that are thin, brand new, and sing with hopeful energy.

They’re coming from Micah.

He has his eyes on Hazel, his expression fearful, Finn and Bastian still holding him back. Looking at me, he asks, “Will she live?”

“I think so.” An idea seizes me, and I kneel down to gather up Hazel’s threads, gathering them and the yellow-white ones they stretch towards. “With a little help.”

I don’t know what I’m doing, or how it will end, but I tie the strong, green threads to the weak, pale yellow threads.

Fated mate bonds are meant to be forever. Severing them or rejecting them makes them toxic. Painful. Even deadly.

They’ve never, as far as I know, been replaced with a different, lesser bond.

But stranger things have happened. My father was mated to another wolf when he met my witch mother. Bonds between wolves and humans have formed. Maybe Micah can love Hazel in a way that will save her, even though she was meant to be with Knox, at least according to fate.

I’ve got a word or two to say to fate aboutthatchoice, now that I’m covered in her blood.

When I return to her, she’s healing, and there’s pink in her cheeks. She still looks tired, but Lance and Kieran are able to cross over to her and help her to her feet. One of the medics is in the town square now, waiting in the wings; they bring her to his van.

“Thank you,” she says as she’s loaded up, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “Really. Thanks so much.”

Hopefully she’ll still be saying that when she realized who I mated her with.

But I shouldn’t have worried. Micah has pulled away from Bastian and Finn, and run over to the van. He hops in beside Hazel, a fierce expression on his face.

“I’m not going to let that asshole Knox anywhere near you again.”

She smiles at him weakly, but there’s pain in her eyes.

Despite herself, she loved her fated mate.

Somehow he didn’t love her back.

Sighing, I watch the van pull away and do my best to wipe my hands off on my pants. Thankfully Roarke has parked nearby, and he has a spare change of clothes in his trunk, plus some baby wipes. He pulls them out and gives me privacy in the back of his car while I wipe the blood off me and grab a new shirt and pair of shorts.

By the time I get out, all the guys are back in human form, gathered uneasily near the middle of the square.

"Now thatthatis over. We should get back to what I came here to do." Roarke sighs. "Let's hope the rest of the day goes easier."

He aims this to me. Around us, the crowd is dispersing to go on with their errands, some whispering and exclaiming as they look my way. Hopefully they're saying good things about me preventing a total disaster, and not gossiping about having a hybrid alpha.

"There are some new recruits waiting for us in the civic center. I want you to help me check them out," Roarke continues. "Some of them are lone wolves, and a few are runaways who severed their pack bonds. Most should be fine to rejoin the pack, but I don't want to let anyone in until we check them for whatever it was that affected Bastian."

"The gemstones." Bastian shudders all over. "I don't think the vampires had many sets of them. They seem... special. And if they had dozens to use left and right, they wouldn't have kept me and my sister for years without making us swallow them."

"Still, you never know. They could still have the set they used on your sister, and put them in one of the lone wolves coming to our borders now that the curse is lifted,” Roarke points out. "Regardless, I'd like to check them."

So would I.

Because I can't shake the lingering feeling that something terrible is going to happen soon.

Thirty-Eight

Delilah

There are several possible recruits waiting for us in a conference room at the civic center, eight total. Five are young, barely old enough to mate or shift, while two are an older couple looking to join a pack after years of living as lone wolves, and one is a female warrior who ran away several years ago. She's the one I look at first, the sallowness of her brown skin and small bandaid on her neck catching my attention.

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