Page 23 of The Alpha's Betrayed Mate

“You can’t,” Rylan said, his eyes filling with horrified tears as he swung to look at her. “We have to stay here and fight the demons. You told me. You said living here, and building a life, and being a family—you said that was how we’re going to stop the demons. And now you’releaving?”

“Rylan—”

But it was too late. With a stifled sob, the boy turned on his heel and ran. Venna felt frozen in place, her mind racing helplessly to catch up with what was happening. Belmont swore under his breath and called Rylan’s name, but by the time the two of them reached the living room of the cottage, the boy was gone. The front door was still swinging on its hinges with the force of his exit, and Belmont exhaled heavily, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand.

“He won’t get far,” she heard herself saying, embarrassed that even after what Belmont was trying to do to her she couldn’t stop herself from trying to comfort him. “He just needs a bit of time to calm himself down, then we can talk to him. He’ll be safe out there.”

Later, she’d wonder if saying that had activated some kind of ancient curse. Because even before the last word had cleared her lips, the familiar, horrible sound of the siren split through the air, high and insistent. Venna and Belmont stared at each other for a long moment, convinced that there had to be some mistake, that any second now the siren would be cut off and an apologetic messenger dispatched to explain that someone had sounded the alarm by mistake. But the siren kept howling, and slowly but surely, they both realized that this was no error. Just as the lorekeepers had predicted, there was another attack. But this time, instead of being safe and sound in the creche with the other kids, Rylan was out there alone. And what was worse, he was angry and distraught. And Venna knew from bitter experience just how much demons loved to single out a lone wolf in the grips of strong emotion.

“I’ll find him,” she promised Belmont. What else could she say? He was calling her name, but she was already on her way through the door. One disaster at a time.

Once she was sure that Rylan was safe, that was when she’d deal with with his father.

Chapter 13 - Belmont

There were more demons this time, and it wasn’t long before Belmont was feeling like a damned fool for how pleased he’d been with their response to last night’s attack. He should have seen this coming. He should have known that such an easy fight had to be a smokescreen of some kind, a distraction from the real attack. And right now, he could barely focus on taking down the enemy, he was so worried about his son. But what could he do? His pack needed him—the whole island needed him. They needed everyone. If he was honest, they needed more wolves than they had. The demons were not only more numerous this time, they were bigger, too, and he could already tell that there would be more casualties by the time they got through this—if they got through it at all.

He just had to keep reminding himself that Venna was out there. She and Rylan had grown incredibly close over the last few weeks—closer, he sometimes worried, than even Belmont was with his son. She’d know where to find him, and once she did, she’d be able to keep him safe. There was nobody he trusted more in this world or the next. He only hoped that his advisors had been wrong about the demons being drawn to Venna. They had to be.

Wave after wave of demons came pouring out of the trees as the afternoon wore on, a mindless onslaught of beasts that just kept battering themselves against the unbreaking line of wolves defending their home. Belmont held his place in the line despite several wolves offering to swap out with him, sending them instead to relieve other wolves on the front line. He wouldn’t be taking a break until the assault had been broken. His pack needed him. And besides, as long as he was fighting for his life with his fellow soldiers at his side, he wouldn’t be fretting about whether Venna had found Rylan yet. Surely she had. Surely the boy would have come back to the cottage once he’d heard the sirens, or gone to the creche… he dodged a blow from a demon’s great talon at the last minute, then sharply reminded himself to focus. Worrying about Rylan would do him no good at all if it got him killed.

By nightfall, the waves of demons had finally begun to lighten, and Belmont finally let himself take a break. The wolves kept on fighting, steely determination carrying them where their energy was flagging, and he felt a surge of fierce, protective pride in his pack who’d been through so much without ever letting their spirits flag. They were good people, his pack, he believed that. And despite their animosity towards Venna, he truly believed they’d be able to see their way around that too, in time. He just needed to show them that she wasn’t the cause of the demon activity as they suspected. If she agreed to go away for a short while, even just a few weeks, his wolves would surely realize that her presence had nothing to do with the demonic presence on the island, and then… well, then he’d deal with the next part of the impossibly thorny problem, which would be explaining why the exile was pregnant with his child.

Because as worried as he was about how his pack was going to react, the truth was that he couldn’t shake the growing spark of joy that had flared to life in his belly when Venna had told him she was pregnant.

With that secret joy still burning in him, he set about a methodical patrol of the island, covering every bit of ground in his search for Venna and Rylan. He started the search at the cottage, hopeful that the two of them had been home safe for hours, but the place was as empty as he’d left it, not even a light on. Well, maybe she’d taken the boy to the creche, he reasoned. Or maybe it had been too dangerous, and the two of them were holed up in some hiding place somewhere. Belmont forced himself to remain calm as he searched, keeping his wits about him and his situational awareness sharp.

He kept running into demons, stragglers separated from the main attack—nothing he couldn’t handle on his own, but an unsettling presence regardless. It took him a while to put his finger on what was strange about them, but once he noticed it seemed obvious in hindsight. Though they were all generally considered the same species, demons tended to be very different from one another when it came to their monstrous bodies. Some had wings, some slithered like snakes, some had anywhere between one and a hundred legs to walk on (when their awful gait could even be called walking.) Their reeking hides were sometimes decorated with feathers, sometimes with scales, sometimes with thick hair—some had no flesh at all, and were nothing but bone and sinew. The main thing they had in common was their violent approach to wolves and their settlements… and the reassuring fact that once killed, their bodies all rotted and vanished within hours.

But these demons, Belmont was realizing, hadn’t displayed anywhere near the usual diversity of body shapes he’d come to expect. Though they’d moved and fought differently enough, now he thought of it he realized that every demon he’d fought was roughly bipedal, with two legs and two arm-like upper limbs which they used to strike and hit rather than for movement. Their size range was also considerably more limited than was usual for a horde like this. He made a note, as he put yet another one to death, to ask a lorekeeper the next time he saw one. Maybe not Raske. He was interested in avoiding the old man for as long as he could, after the awful conversation they’d had about Venna that morning.

By the time he’d worked his way to the beach, he was beginning to worry about his son. Nobody he met on his search had seen any trace of the boy or of Venna, and they weren’t able to join him to help look as they were still on high alert. The stream of attackers from the trees had slowed to a trickle, but they were still coming—and it wouldn’t be the first time that the demons had staged an attack to seem like it was coming to an end before a final rush caught them off guard. He kept moving, slaying every demon he encountered with a growing rage in his belly that he knew had more to do with fear than anger. There seemed to be more of the stragglers closer to the beach, and he realized with a growing concern that there was something deliberate about the way they were moving through the forest. It was almost as if they were emerging from the water, traveling through the trees a little, then turning to begin their assault on the settlement. Was it possible that these attackers weren’t coming from the forests, as they’d imagined? Was it possible that these demons were coming from one of Kurivon’s other islands?

But no sooner had that thought occurred to him than it was dashed away by the sight that was waiting for him on the beach. There were at least a dozen demons shambling up the sand, a few of them still half-submerged in the water… but that wasn’t what drew his eye. No, he was looking at the circle of torchlight down the other end of the beach, where the sand began to give way to piles of great rocks. He knew Rylan loved to play here—Venna had told him how fond the boy was of the various little caves and hiding places that could be found among the rocks. Why hadn’t he thought to look here first? His heart was pounding as he headed for the circle of light at the far end of the beach, but the demons on the sand were lurching his way, and he threw back his head to let loose a summoning howl for his pack. If this was where the demons were coming from, all the better that the pack be fighting on the beach, not out there in front of the trees.

Belmont kept a safe distance from the demons until he heard his pack approaching, the sound of paws thudding against sand drawing the attention of the beasts that had been shambling about on the sand. With them distracted, he was clear to approach the circle of light at last, dodging away from the shambling demons as he moved. Check on Venna and Rylan then return to help his pack finish off the stragglers, that was the plan. But as he neared the end of the beach, all thoughts of his pack left his mind.

He’d thought that it was a rock that the flickering light was dancing on—a great rock, jutting up into the sky. But now he was drawing closer, he realized with a sick lurch that what he’d thought was stone was actually the silhouette of a demon cut out against the starry backdrop behind it. The beast was bipedal, like the ones he’d been fighting all afternoon and evening, but at least four times the size of even the largest… and in one of its upper limbs, he could see a strange, iridescent object, gleaming like mother of pearl. Even as he watched, the creature’s limb descended, but it wasn’t a strike—it was a slow, lazy motion, bringing the long, curved object down to draw a line in the damp, packed sand at its feet.

And there, in the sand, he could see the crumpled figure of a child. The boy’s face was turned away from him, but he’d know the shape of his son anywhere. Belmont howled for his pack at once, terror plunging through his heart like a dagger. But when the sound reached the crumpled figure, he saw it shift a little, and realized with a rush of staggering joy that Rylan was still alive.

But his relief was short-lived. Because standing behind him, her head tilted up to take in the full bulk of the demon that stood before her, was Venna. She was watching what passed for the demon’s face as it waved the iridescent object it was holding around in front of her, for all the world as though it was showing the object off, and though he could see her own dagger gripped tightly in her hand, she was holding it still at her side. The howl had drawn their attention—he saw Venna’s head whip around, but the demon moved even faster. Before he could blink, it had turned and done something he’d never seen a demon do before—it was retreating into the sea, its great bulk quickly disappearing from sight as it waded out and disappeared beneath the choppy waves. Venna stooped to pick something up from the sand. Belmont realized too late that it was the gleaming weapon the demon had been holding.

It had all happened in barely a few seconds. Belmont wasn’t even clear on what he was seeing—but then the pack were closing in, most of them shifting back to their human forms so they could shout at one another. Belmont hurried after them on his own two feet, already knowing it was too late. Raske was at the front of the group, closest to Venna and the unconscious form of Rylan. The old lorekeeper’s eyes were wild and his staff was held aloft—Belmont caught his breath as he realized that the runes engraved along the side of the weapon were glowing faintly in the darkness.

“You see,” the lorekeeper boomed, his voice carrying effortlessly down the beach and even seeming to drown out the waves. “You see what comes of trusting an exile.”

“Wait,” Venna said faintly. “Wait, you don’t understand—”

“We understand all too well!” Raske snarled, gesturing with the staff again. “We witnessed you consorting with the beast, exile! Seize her,” he snapped, and two wolves surged forward. Belmont could see Venna sizing them up, clearly considering the prospect of fighting—but more and more pack members were joining the crowd, and her shoulders slumped as she realized she was outnumbered. As Belmont moved forward, the pack moved aside to let him through, and he reached Raske’s side with his heart already pounding in his chest, his mind already racing with how he was going to clear Venna’s name here.

That was when he saw that Rylan was hurt. He could hear the boy groaning as he stirred, but someone quickly moved to his side to tell him to stay put—he recognized Yara, half her hair plastered to the side of her head with blood from a fresh wound. But it was Rylan’s wound that had made Belmont catch his breath. There was a deep gash in his arm, running from the point of his shoulder all the way down to his elbow. And it was more than just a nasty flesh wound. The skin around the injury was shimmering strangely in the torchlight, as though slick with some iridescent ooze that was already mixing with the blood. He looked at the demonic blade in Venna’s hand, and saw a drop of the same substance fall from its tip.

“Take that weapon,” he heard a voice shout, and realized with a jolt that it was his own. “Take it from her at once.”

“Belmont,” Venna said, and he had to harden his heart against the note of utter despair in her voice, the look of abject betrayal on her face. “You don’t understand. I protected him—”

“Silence,” Raske snapped, stepping forward and lifting his staff. “I’m not quite so exhausted that I can’t still take your voice by force. Bind her hands,” he ordered the wolves who’d moved forward. “Take her to the library. Knock her out if she tries anything.”

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