Page 46 of Curvy Alpha Bride
Now we’re stuck together for life, and for all I know, we will be confined to this cabin every last day until we die! Surely, they can’t keep us here forever?
A cold knot of panic twists my guts as I realize they might do just that. I don’t have enough evidence to say if they’re protecting us or preparing us for slaughter, but either way, I can’t possibly fight them all.
Would Mom—Aunt Finnah—really let them kill me? It didn’t seem like they wanted me to get hurt, but she looked pretty brutal when the others jumped me.
Sighing, I shake my head and reach for Dad’s journals. I’ve looked at them a few times since I moved in, but I couldn’t make sense of them. The text scrawls wildly from page to page, and Dad had extremely elaborate handwriting that only got worse when he was writing fast.
At first, the pages look as nonsensical as ever, but as I slowly flip through, I notice dates printed lengthwise in the margins. They aren’t consecutive, as if he were writing randomly in each book on different days.
Way to go, Dad. How is anyone ever supposed to understand this?
Then I see a line that stops me cold.
Xavier, my son, oh, my boy. Please be safe out there. I write this note with an empty chest, my heart torn out. Nothing but ice and a deep, ragged wound are left where my heart should be.
My darling love Triss is gone, torn from my arms by the malicious force that traps us in this valley. I let you go, my love. I could not hold on, and now the entire Range is in danger.
I send my son from this place in the arms of my sister Finnah, and every last scrap of magic we have goes with her in an attempt at safe passage. Be strong, dear sister, and bring my son to safety… I cannot go, because if I am caught as well, the evil will be truly unstoppable.
Our only hope is to lock down the town and pray. Live, Xavier. Live on beyond this cursed valley and doomed town. I wish we could meet again, but I would never endanger you so.
Goodbye to all the love in my heart, and the last of my hope.
I check the date, printed in tiny script horizontally in the margin. It’s only a few days after my birthday, and I start madly flipping through the leather-bound books, looking for the nearest date. I finally find it randomly in another book.
It is after me, I feel it. Its power is so strong now. Her presence hangs over the town, fully malignant. I can feel the poison working on me, and hear the cruel laughter echoing through the valley. Every last man, woman, and child is locked inside their houses, hunkered down in the basements behind walls of stone and steel. Only I am above ground, but I know I’m safe within the cabin.
It calls me, a siren song, begging me to go to it. Sometimes it uses Triss’s voice, and I beat on the door, desperate to answer the call, but knowing it would not just mean my death… but every wolf in the Range.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter, trying to absorb the magnitude of what I’m reading. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is all true. I can sense the same dread in these pages that lurked in my nightmares.
But it didn’t start until Mabel arrived and became my luna.
Flipping wildly through the pages, I finally begin to understand a pattern. It looks like my father had separate books for recording his observations of weather, plant, and animal life, as well as the set of the stars and phases of the moon. His personal entries are scattered throughout all the books, as if his mind crashed chaotically around with his thoughts and feelings.
I sift through the books a bit more, finally starting to get a feel for how to find the next date.
STARVE, BEAST, STARVE! Why won’t you retreat? Was my luna such a meal that you are now sustained for so long? You cannot breach the valley, I know that much. For you to free yourself, you need me, my power as alpha. And you shall not have it!
A shudder runs through me as I realize my father was going mad. I can’t blame him after being isolated up here, exposed to the ancient evil, whatever it may be. But it is still horrifying to witness his descent into insanity.
Ah, for the old days, he wrote a few years into his solitary confinement.Remember when the beast was held back, weakened by hundreds of years of our rules? We had a little trade if we were careful not to cross the Eyrie. What a shame it was to kill that poor pregnant woman’s mate in the challenge… but I could not put anyone else in danger. I did what I had to do.
I realize now he’s referring to Damon’s father, and a new chill runs through me. Sweat breaks out on my brow, and I feel shaky and sick.
If another alpha had taken over, the thing might have gotten out. He had no choice.
Now my need for information is taking on a new urgency. It seems the old rules kept the town safe enough to function, even if the evil always lurked beyond the forest.
I have to know what changed. How did this thing get my mother?
Fingers shaking, I find the next entry.
Years pass, and my grief does not fade. Every day, I remember my Triss, her golden, bright hair and dark blue eyes. How does my son grow? Does he take after her or me? My black hair is streaked with white now. I am an old man before my time.
“I have your hair, Dad,” I whisper, touching the page gently as if my words could reach him somehow. “But I have Mom’s eyes.”
I feel less pressure in the air today, but I am afraid to leave the cabin. The last few nights, I have heard a terrible wailing, and I know it is starving. The town may be safe now, as the presence retreats towards the mountain. My supplies are almost out, and if the cabin were not so well-insulated, I would have frozen to death years ago with no wood for a fire.
