Page 21 of Rise of the Alpha

Tears stream down her face as she pulls her arm from around me and shifts her body. “Look here, Magnolia Holloway, that will never happen to you. We’ll find you another pack to be with. Just please don’t give up yet, let me find a solution. There has to be one, you are not giving up your will or who you are, to be one of the mindless women of your pack, no offense to your mother.”

Laughter erupts from me at her words, and it only increases with the confused look Wylla tosses me. “Funny you should say that. My mother left me a letter without my dad knowing, hoping I never came back. She wants more for me than to be trapped in our pack.”

“Well, I take back what I said, she’s not so mindless. Maybe we can find a way to get her out, too.”

I jump at her, wrapping her up in my arms. Hope radiates through my body that we could potentially save not only me but my mother from the hell we were born into. “Do you think you really can?” I ask when I pull back from her.

“I’m not promising anything, but I can try. I will do my best.” She holds her hand out in front of her, sticking out her pinky. “Pinky promise.”

Doing the same, I interlock my finger with hers. “Pinky promise.”

“Come on, lay down beside me, and let's get some rest. Something tells me a wolf is going to be beating down our door in the morning,” she tells me, standing up and pulling the comforter back, climbing underneath it. Following her lead, I do the same and curl up to her body.

She reaches across, allowing the tips of her fingers to trail up and down the exposed skin of my arm as she places a soft kiss on the side of my forehead. Warmth pools in my stomach at her touch, it's familiar and wanted. Turning my head to face her, I lean in and kiss her lips. She eagerly returns it as she lets her tongue dart along the seam of my lips. Without thinking, I part them, allowing her entrance.

Reaching out, I wrap my arm around her and slip my leg between hers, grinding my pussy against them, causing me to moan softly. She reaches her arm around me, cupping my ass in her hand, squeezing it as she aids in grinding my heat against her.

“Magz, are you sure? I don’t want to scare you again. You’re everything I could want, and I can’t fight this intense feeling I have for you. We can do this and just sleep in each other's arms.”

“I’m so confused with my feelings and everything. There’s a pull to you, I can’t deny and don’t want to fight, but can we take it slow? Can we just hold each other and sleep?” There’s so much more I want, but I need to take it slow. What if these mates she says I have wouldn’t approve of this? What happens if my feelings grow, and I have to give her up?

“Stop worrying, we’ll figure it out together. I can hear your mind running a hundred miles a minute. Sleep. These are questions for tomorrow, not tonight.”

And that’s what I do. I sink into her arms, horny as hell from not getting an orgasm, and dream of mates I can’t see clearly.

Jude

“We’vegottotalksome fucking sense into Blaine. He can’t seriously think he can be the only mate Magnolia can have, right? I mean, none of us have ever felt the pull to anyone before like we do for Magnolia. He expects us to just back off? To let her go without a fight? No way! No fucking way! You might, Zeke, but I’m not. I have to see what’s there. Ya know?” I’m rambling in a chaotic rage to Zeke as we sit on our beds. Zeke’s working on something in a notebook, but I’m just sitting on my bed, throwing a ball in the air and catching it repeatedly. I’m so fucking irritated with my best friend right now. All I want to do is wring his damn neck until he sees reason.

“Zeke! Are you even listening to me? Fuck, man, pay attention!” I scold him as I chuck my ball at his head, missing it entirely, and it smacks the wall behind him.

He looks up from the notebook he’s working in and sighs, “Dammit, Jude, I’m listening, but what do you want me to do? I don’t want to lose Blaine as our brother over this girl. I’ve never felt this way about anyone, and she’s already going to fucking flip her shit when she finds out I’m the ferret in the woods. Her scent was so intoxicating that I couldn't stop myself.“

I’m about to tell him to just come clean to her about the woods and who he is, but our door flies open, smashing into the wall behind it. Blaine storms into the room, looking like hell, might I add. Flinging open the closet door, he grabs some sweats he discarded there earlier and changes quickly. Storming across the room, he throws himself face-first down onto his bed, groaning about bitch witches, spells, bathtubs, and Brick.How the fuck does Brick fit into this shit?

Getting up, I move to shut the door and see that there’s a doorknob size hole in the drywall from his antics.Oh, for fucks sake, who is gonna pay for that to be fixed?I move toward my bed and sit back down and stare at Zeke, who is glaring at Blaine, who’s now just laying there, growling with his face buried in his comforter.What the fuck is going on?

“What the fuck’s your problem, Blaine? And you’re paying for that fucking drywall you just damaged, you asshole,” I rage at him. He rolls over and sits up, leaning against the wall his bed is pushed up against. He rubs his hands over his face and sighs loudly before he looks at me, then at Zeke.

“Tonight, I went with Magnolia and Wylla to the sports complex to do a ritual that Wylla found to help Magnolia,” he tells us. Zeke and I are off our beds and on our feet, yelling at him and demanding he start from the beginning. He motions for us to sit back down, and begrudgingly, we obey.

“Earlier today, after I left the cafeteria, I ran into Wylla in the library. She was doing some research for Magnolia. Anyway, I followed her back to their dorm room, and she said she can do a scanning ritual on Magnolia that would show her any spells or other shit she has on her. I tried to convince them to wait, but Magnolia went all alpha female on me and said she was doing it. So we went to the sports complex, and Brick let us in. Then Magnolia got in the tub there, and Wylla did the ritual, and we all started hollering in pain, then the world went black. Wylla and I came to first, while Magnolia was still out cold. She woke up, and then we carried her back to their room.”

Zeke and I are looking at him like he has two heads. This is batshit crazy. What the hell were those girls thinking? “What happened when you returned to the room? But first, why the hell was Brick with you?” I question him, and Zeke nods in agreement.

“Well, Brick, as I said, let us in the complex. Then the big bastard insisted he come with us to do the ritual, so we wouldn’t get caught and he would get in trouble. So when we woke up, he was there just frozen, mouth gaping like a guppy. He led us out of the complex, and we told him to keep his lips shut on what he saw.”

“So nothing happened to him, but did to you, Wylla, and Magnolia?” Zeke asks, curiously

“No, nothing happened to the fucker. No gut-wrenching pain, or blacking out. He was awake the whole time. But enough about him. When we got back to the room, Magnolia asked Wylla if she could see anything now that the scan was complete. Wylla said she could see the block on the designation still in place, but she was going to talk to her Grandmother to see about getting it removed. Then she said she could see mate bonds, but they were faded and from what she can see, it’s likely Magnolia will have five or six mates, possibly more.”

“Holy shit!” Zeke and I whisper-shout.

“Yeah, so then I was pretty much kicked out of the room and told we would reconvene on this matter later. You guys, that shit was crazy. I've never experienced pain like that before. FUCK! Her body was arched like it was an exorcism, and she was screaming in pain. It was terrible,” he tells us softly.

“I almost forgot that Magnolia still denies our bond. Actually, that’s not true. She said we could be mated, but that the other bonds could be the Exodus pack Alpha heir and his Betas that her Father said she’s mating.”

Snarling is heard from around the room and it’s coming from all of us. I look at Zeke, and he looks shocked that he’s snarling over this woman. “We can’t let her mate with those awful men. No way in fucking hell,” I tell them through clenched teeth.

---