Page 100 of Alpha Exile

"Yeah," I murmur, squeezing Kieran's hand, the blessings of second chances overwhelming me. "I think he would be."

For the rest of dinner, my heart feels restful and strong, quieted by the hope of a new spring dawning.

Forty-Three

Delilah

My belly brushes up against the stone statue as I reach up to press the yellow gemstones into its empty eyes, an unfurling of power bursting within my chest. Lance's strong hand is against the middle of my back, propping me up and keeping me from tipping over.

He has to do that a lot these days.

The twins have decided to growquickly.

We know now that one is a boy and one is a girl. Kerry has brought a handful of witches into the territory, and one is an excellent midwife who reassures me she has the combination of drugs and spells to bring me through their birth safely.

Let's hope I make it there without falling on my ass and breaking my neck.

Whispering the words of an ancient spell, I press my fingertips into the gemstones, and feel them spark with life. The ancient spirit within, a spirit that is both dark and light, old and new, ripples out of the gemstones and into the statue. A feeling of thanks passes from it to me before it closes its eyes and falls into a peaceful slumber, waiting to wake when its skills are needed.

"Okay, I'm done now." I let Lance slide his hands over my hips and draw me down onto the ground safely. "You don't have to do that, you know. I can get down on my own."

"Can you?" He raises a brow in my direction. "Because just yesterday you fell off the stepping stool trying to get flour out of the upper kitchen cabinets, and it took a whole minute for you to roll yourself up and off the ground."

"Yeah," I scowl, "it would've been nice if Finn had helped me up instead of laughing his ass off."

In his defense, it was very funny. The video he took of it went viral online. And I got him back by shoving his head in the bag of flour until he begged me for mercy.

Taking Lance's hand, I follow him into the center of the loose circle of stone statues around us. There are five of them, one for each of the ancient spirits Delphine intended to use to enslave my mates. It took some time to figure out a fitting way to deal with them, and this felt right. If they have a home of their own, a purpose and a way to guide others, they won't need to possess bodies anymore.

The Spirit of Power, who has realized his name was Baldr in his life, apologized to Roarke for taking over his body. Then he fell asleep, his eyes closing around glowing red stones, his face turned towards the altar in the center of the circle we built for all of them. I saw peace cross Roarke's face in that moment, as a painful chapter of his life fell into the past, the pages of it closed for good.

Now we come together in the center of the circle, placing our hands on the altar. It flows with water now, a small bubbling pool in the center of its carved stone. As Roarke puts his hands on its edge, the last to touch it, the small pool burst up to the edges and spills down onto the stones, lapping against our feet.

My belly brushes against the altar, little feet tap dancing against my bladder, and I hold my legs very close together. The sound of running water is... not helpful right now.

"We should say something, shouldn't we?" Bastian asks hesitantly. "I mean, since we're basically making a new Mating Circle."

"More of a Coven Circle than anything," I correct him. "Some of the packs used to have them, before so many of the wolves turned against the witches. This is where our newly-formed coven will hopefully come to perform spells and grow their wild plants."

"It'll help us stand against the army," Roarke says confidently. "They've been coming closer and closer to our new borders, and I get reports back almost every day now about drones flying overhead. They'll think better of that when their cameras capture spellwork."

Lance asks the question all of us have asked ourselves these past few months, as this plan came to fruition and the statues were hastily built. "Are we sure that the spirits won't turn against us? There must be a reason why the coven abandoned their power, after all."

Unease blooms in my chest, and I find myself looking around at the sleeping statues to make sure that their eyes are still closed. "We won't know until we give them a chance. I just know that I don't believe in destroying something with value and life... not if I can help it."

Roarke slides his hand over mine, squeezing my fingers, and I meet his eyes gratefully. While we haven't spoken of that moment in the woods, when he offered to be the one who killed instead of me, it's on my mind often these days. I don't regret what I did—I wouldn't have this peaceful land, these growing lives, without that death—but I do feel different because of it, a little harder, a bit less naive.

I'm not sure that I could've destroyed the five ancient spirits and come out the other end still myself.

"Let's say something," I announce, bringing the subject back to Bastian's proposal. "A celebration of life, perhaps? It is almost Samhain, after all."

Bastian proposes, "We can say a prayer of thanks to the dead."

"That sounds nice."

I close my eyes as we mouth the words of the prayer for the dead, spoken by wolves and witches alike for decades, changed by time and well worn.

And I think of my mother, the one I never met in life, with her clever eyes and shining hair.

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