Page 67 of Alpha Exile

Pulling up to the home I rented for myself, Kerry, and Cat, I'm not at all shocked to find both women standing outside the front door. As soon as I've turned the engine off—almost before then—they're ripping open the driver's side door of my car and gathering me into their arms.

Cat is cursing up a storm. "I can't fucking believe you, all of this and you didn't eventellme—"

"Are you okay?" Kerry's fingers settle on my hair, and she frowns as they come back dusty. "What happened? Do you need my help? Any wounds?"

"Nothing physical," I tell her, watching as Kieran pulls up in the second car, my heart in my throat. "But there is something you should see."

Her eyes widen, and she understands almost instantly. "Roarke."

The others would've told her that much when they returned home while I was heading out to the old house for that box of my father's letters—a box, of course, that I've forgotten once more. We all managed to limp back home, exhausted and wrung out, then poured into my car and Roarke's car, which was still parked nearby.

Kieran insisted on driving him on his own, telling me plainly, "If he goes moon sick again, I know how to handle him. It's better that no one else risk themselves."

Now we all gather around the car as he gets out, paces to the back passenger side door, and opens it to reveal a tied-up and gagged version of the alpha we once knew.

His eyes slide over to us, and though they're no longer glassy and moon sick, they are blank and distant. It's as if that summer blue gaze no longer recognizes a single one of us—not me, not his best friend, not anyone he used to know.

"My god," Cat gasps, hands flying to her mouth. She shoots me a worried, sympathetic look. "Oh, Lilah."

Then she hugs me again, and I have to admit, it's hard not to dissolve into a puddle of tears.

All this effort. All the things we've tried. Nothing has yet worked to set him free—not even when I delved into his mind a second time, my flaming sword in hand.

Without Delphine's interruption, I was able to reach the center of the storm inside him, and thrust my blade through the enemy within. Nothing happened. The storm, if anything, raged further.

And when I came out from his inner mind, Bastian told us that the spirits left as soon as I went within. Not the big, bad, ancient spirit Delphine put in him—all the dozens of other spirits, the ones who subdued him and temporarily pushed the Big Bad himself aside.

Now that they're no longer possessing him, Roarke isn't buckling or fighting his restraints. He isn't doing much of anything, for that matter. It's as if there's nothing inside him as all.

In a somber voice, Kerry says, "Let's take him inside, and see what can be done."

* * *

Roarke looks sad and small in the dining room of the rented house, his arms tied to a dining room chair, his head slightly bowed. Strands of sun-bleached hair dangle in his forehead, and his blue eyes restlessly roam his surroundings, every muscle in his body tense.

When Lance and Kieran brought him inside, he bucked and jerked suddenly, then turned and tried to escape. Finn was able to stop him, and the three of them got him back under control, then brought him inside. It's still not clear how much awareness he has of what's going on around him—or whether or not Delphine is still controlling him.

Closing my eyes and rippling my awareness out towards him, I brush against his mind and recoil. The rage is still there, strong and violent, but it simmers beneath the surface. Though I search through it for a sign of that sliver of Roarke I once find, I can't seem to find it.

Either he's slumbering deep within his mind, or he's gone completely—a thought I don't let myself dwell on for too long, because of the despair that will follow.

"We need to do something." Opening my eyes, I meet Kerry's thoughtful gaze, and resist the urge to plead with her for a magical solution. "Whatever Delphine did in that cavern, it made the possession more permanent than it was in Bastian's case. We tried using the same magical water to open up his mind and make it easier to remove the spirit, but it didn't seem to work."

"Do you have any of this water?"

"Yes."

"Let me see it."

Kieran hands over the bottle, with what remains of the water we fetched inside. Kerry sniffs it lightly, frowns, holds it up towards the light, then tips the neck of the bottle over and lets a little of it slide across her fingers. Finally, she tastes it, then paces over to the sink to spit it out.

"It's potent water from the ley line—very close to one of the sources that feeds the magic north of here, and leeches into the rivers, the soil, and even the air." Tightening the cap on the bottle, she shakes her head. "It'll increase the potency of a spell, especially a possession spell, but it doesn't make it any easier to undo the possession. I'm sorry, Delilah."

My heart sinks. "So what can we do?"

Kerry considers Roarke for a long moment. He twists against his bond, snarling around the gag, then sags against it just as suddenly, his head hanging towards his chest.

"He has to want to fight it. And he needs to be given help," she says. "There's part of him still in there, as you said. That part of him has survived is a good sign. It means he still has a chance."

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