Page 76 of Alpha Wolf's Arranged Bride
I couldn’t agree more.
Vanessa is racing around the circle with her razor-sharp claws, slicing up warriors in both human and wolf form. Even though the tough, trained fighters give their best, she moves with magical speed and power, slicing them to ribbons with barely a pause.
The blood pours onto the stone, where it’s immediately absorbed. As more warriors die, the great snake gets bigger and thicker, curling above us like a rising tornado. The heat in the circle increases, and a terrible wind begins to whirl around us.
Uncle Azarian is charging straight into the center of the circle—right at me. The snake’s tail emerges from a crack in the sigil right behind us. Since the ritual began, I haven’t been able to move.
I’m linked to the snake somehow. Can I use this?
I feel like the Old God might be vulnerable until it absorbs the blood of the warriors, and that might be why it needs me, but I can’t think of a way to use it.
Could anyone think in a situation like this?
Azarian is now about ten feet away, distracted as he cuts down any warriors in his path. Rex is tugging on my arm, trying to get me to my feet, but it’s as if my knees are glued to the stone. I look out towards the edge of the circle, praying that Jarrod is safe and someone out there is moving the innocents as far away as they can get.
The best way out of this might be the explosion. We can’t let this snake merge with Azarian!
“Rex,” I gasp, forcing him to look at me. “You have to get out of here!”
“No!” he yells. “I’m not leaving you!”
“You have to!” I scream. “For Jarrod!”
“Jarrod’s going to be fine because we’re both getting out of here!”
Rex turns away from me to look up at the snake. Its body is now as thick as an old tree, and it towers above us like a ten-story building. When I stretch to see its head, I see a huge pair of glowing ruby eyes staring right at me. A long, forked tongue like a streak of mercury flickers from its mouth, and I hear a voice in my mind.
Scarlett…
A scream pours out of my throat at the feel of the Old God’s mind touching mine. I struggle to get to my feet, and all I manage to do is fall straight on my face, spread out on the rock as if in supplication.
“That’s right!” Azarian yells. “Accept your fate! The snake needs your blood, your life! Then it will transfer to me, and I will have its power!”
Pressed to the simmering hot stone, I feel like a heavyweight is keeping me flat against it. Rex is tugging on my hand, but he can’t move me. The pain of my injuries, the screams of dying warriors, and sheer exhaustion all hit me at once, leaving a dark well of hopelessness inside.
It’s useless, I think. We can’t win this.
Scarlett…
I hear the voice again, something truly inhuman that slithers through my thoughts, thin, quiet, but impossible toignore. With the whisper, images begin to fall through my mind, and I realize they are memories of the past.
But not my memories.
I’m looking down at the stone from high above, as if I’m looking through the snake’s eyes. Around the circle, I see crowds of people on their knees, worshipping the great god. The snake is starving, a hunger more powerful than anything I’ve ever known. It asks for blood and sacrifice. The surrounding people don’t feed it enough—the blood is nowhere near enough to satisfy its hunger.
The snake screams, all its power combusting within the center of the circle. A shockwave pours out around the stone, decimating everything around it for miles. As the energy spills out with extreme destructive force, the snake is sucked back down into the rock to sleep again.
Years later, it is awoken. This time, they bring hundreds more to sacrifice. The snake rises for the innocent blood, then feasts on the warriors, becoming stronger than it has ever been. When the time comes for the power transfer, the alpha invites the Old God into himself.
With glowing red eyes and a flashing silver tongue, the snake approaches the alpha, glaring at him. I can feel the snake’s contempt for this stupid mortal that thinks to control it, and its amusement that yet another has failed to understand the runes.
As the alpha invites the snake into his heart, the Old God obliges, pouring itself into his mortal form. The alpha screams as his body tries to contain the endless, divine spirit, but he isn’t strong enough, and the flames shred him, bit by bit, as he clings to life, fighting to the bitter end to contain the power.
Again, the snake being swiftly returned to the stone triggers a massive explosion, with an earthquake cascading out from the site in a rumbling wave.
The snake shows me ritual after ritual and how each one failed. My body stays pressed flat on the rock right in the midst of battle, but my mind has flown back into the past, where the Old God reveals its secrets to me.
Why are you showing me this?
