Page 4 of Alpha Exile

We leap into the fray together, as more and more vampires come at us. Between rounds of tearing off limbs and punching my claws through throats, I look at Delphine.

She stands in the center of the carnage, unnaturally beautiful, and almost bored.

There's no expression to her face. I would almost think it was another fake, if not for the fact that she has a realpresenceto her that feels weighty and dangerous. And though she doesn't join the battle directly, she does wave her hand and perform magic.

I can't see or sense the spells she does. But I can see their result. The vampire whose throat I just tore out heals in seconds. Another whose arm is yanked off by Kayla regrows it an instant later and rakes long nails down the wolf's side, drawing a yelp from her as blood splatters grey fur.

Snarling, I leap on the vampire and pin it to the ground. The thing struggles beneath my grip, and when it slips out, goes back to attacking Kayla again. More and more vampires are gathering, going for her and the warriors who've joined us.

Meanwhile, each time Roarke and I enter the fray, we encounter resistance—but not much. In fact, I can almost sense Delphine's eyes on us, watching sharply. Dismay seems to radiate through her when one of the half-feral vampires bites my back leg and nearly tears the tendons apart.

The hybrid peels her lips, and the bloodsucker jerks back, whimpering as if in pain. Long hair obscures features that would be feminine if not for the starvation hollowing out the undead's face. Turning away from me, she gallops towards Marcus instead, who has just joined the battle. She attacks him with three of her fellow recently healed vampires, and his howl of pain echoes through my eardrums.

Over and over again, they keep coming back, even as their limbs are ripped away.

Even after we put them down.

I swear, at least once, a pile of vampire ash at my feet reassembles into flesh and blood to tear a chunk out of Lionel's side.

And we don't seem to get any closer to Delphine. If anything, we're further away, her sharp eyes on us as we fight.

As if she's looking for something she hasn't seen yet.

Waiting for the moment to finish her plan.

Three

Roarke

My warriors suffer.

Torn tendons. Exposed intestines. Bones that fracture, skin that gushes blood.

More and more of them heed my call, until every able-bodied werewolf is here in the trees with us, fighting the feral fray.

And the more who come, the more frenzied the battle grows.

The vampires are single-minded in their attacks, relentless in their desire for blood. One of them throws Ian against a broad tree trunk and immediately leaps on his body. He hasn't even slid to the ground in a heap of unconscious muscle and fur before the vampires are sliding their fangs into his neck and draining his blood.

I attack them, tearing them off with teeth slick with blood, my muzzle and whiskers drenched in red. They retreat, looking for another target and finding it. Easing my nose under Ian's body, I push him to wake up, and he obeys, his wolf responding to his alpha even when his body is weary.

I'm okay, I'm okay,he insists, shaking it off and squaring himself up again.They won't get me a second time.

But as I scan the battlefield, I find a similar scene playing out almost everywhere I look. The vampires have grown more and more frenzied, melting from the shadows to attack the warriors. Four or five will converge on one werewolf and attack him or her until they've bled them. Another warrior will tear the vampires off, severing limbs and spilling guts, only for Delphine to wave a hand and make those vampires whole again.

And the more they attack us, the stronger they grow, their mouths and bellies full of our blood.

The only way to stop them is to get to the center of it all: Delphine.

Once I'm sure Ian is back on his feet again, I slip away and meet Lance's gaze. He nods at me, moving to protect my back as I make my way through the battlefield towards the center of it. When the vampires try to get me from behind, he's there, his oversized white wolf barely exerting himself taking the bloodsucking leeches down.

They may not stay down, but they dogodown.

Lance's coverage gives me the chance to get close enough to Delphine to size her up. There's something sickening about her; the beauty that coats her skin feels so false it makes my teeth ache. It's nothing like the effortless beauty Delilah has.

But I can't deny that she's beautiful, even though her skin is so translucent it makes my eyes hurt, her hair so long that it skims the ground. Prowling towards her, I'm struck by her resemblance to the deep sea predators I've seen in nature documentaries. Like them, she wears her beauty to attract the unwary, draw them into her net and meet their doom.

Just like her mates met their doom at her hands.

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