Page 51 of The Alpha's Forced Bullied Mate

Now wasn't the time to start doubting. If I got too confused, then I would ruin my chance of getting her to calm down—or worse, I wouldn’t be able to protect her if the demons decided to attack right this second. The wind whirled through the kitchen, creating another pool of spirals that knocked things off the counter and threw the mail around. Paper fluttered into the windows, some smacking me in the face. At this point, the living room was leveled.

Fred caught Kylie's shoulder. “Somebody has to stop her.”

I reached for Faye and tried to grab her shoulder, but there was a force field around her that prevented me from touching her. “Damn it.” I shook my hand, feeling the leftover burn from being zapped.

This wasn't good. I desperately swung at the force field, getting thwarted and burned at every turn. The harder I struck, the harder the bounce back. Faye seemed to be caught in her own meltdown, an invisible forest that kept anyone from touching or reaching her. I stood just outside the force field that was about six inches thick over her whole body.

It was like a protective egg made of something thick and invisible at the same time.

I held up a hand to it. “Faye, it's me. You have to stop.”

She didn’t hear me—or she didn’t want to hear me. Her face was blank, and her eyes were still white. Tiny bolts of electricity fluttered over her skin, her bare legs, her feet. The mark on her neck glowed with an eerie lime-colored light. I didn't like that. It felt foreboding—it feltthreatening.

“Faye, it's me. You need to get back to earth. You need to get back here!” I reached for her again, frustrated by what stood between us. “Son of a—” I grunted as I slammed the field again.

There weren't many things in this world I was afraid of but losing her was at the top of the list. Just the thought of never being able to communicate with her again made my entire body shudder with anguish. How desperate it made me. How jittery I became at the sudden possibility of forfeiting our bond.

Kylie and Fred ran up on either side of me.

“How do we get her out?” Fred reached for the egg-shaped field, rubbing his fingers together when it zapped him. “It feels like a different kind of magic.”

Kylie worriedly reached out. I could see her fingers shaking as she tried to make sense of the forcefield. “I just don't understand. I never knew that she had this kind of power. What's going on?”

I shook my head as they both looked to me for answers. “I don’t know. All I can say is that when her emotions get out of control, she starts to make a storm.” I worriedly looked at my mate, her hair floating ethereally around her face. “I've never seen it to this extent, though.”

The tornado intensified, swirling around the room and picking up everything in its path, destroying things, launching them in different directions. The thunder that growled through the house made the walls shake. It threatened to burst the windows. I half-expected glass to rain down from the ceiling.Every time I thought it was going to start raining, the wind picked up and made the tornado accelerate.

Everything seemed to come to a great crescendo, and another thunderous banging persisted in the background. This storm was about to destroy the house. It would probably destroy everything that I had built with her as well. If I couldn't reach her now, then what was I supposed to do in the future? How were we supposed to have children if she had power that got out of control like this every time?

Leave her.

I tossed the thought away. That was a terrible thing to think at the moment. How could I leave her when she needed me the most?

There was no sense of regulation with her. It was hot or cold. It was all power. No power. Had I done this? Had I caused so much chaos in her life that I turned her into this remarkably eccentric magician?

The drumbeat of thunder beyond everything came crashing through, and then the front door ripped right off the hinges, flailing around in a tailspin that came right toward us. I rushed Kylie and Fred out of the way, telling them to duck behind the kitchen table.

“Faye, watch out!”

The door swung right through Faye and flew over the kitchen table into the wall. Wood splintered in all directions, spattering the table and walls.

I gaped at the mess. That was impossible. I'd never seen things materialize right through her. She was starting to reach a level of magic that I couldn't understand or define.

Maybe it’s not her, I thought frightfully.Maybe something else is doing this to her.

Someone shouted over the tornado. I peered through the doorway to see Cliff fighting his way through the swirling wind with his arms up over his head. How he was managing to get through the living room was a wonder to me. I tried to get past Faye to get to my best friend, but she raised her fist and sent me reeling back into the wall.

Cliff cupped his hands over his mouth. “Faye, it's me! It's Cliff!”

Faye perked up. Her chin pointed in his direction. From my vantage point, I watched the back of her hair raised up around her like an electric spark. She seemed to understand that someone was trying to make contact.

Cliff stumbled forward. “This is not who you are. You're not a destroyer.” He jumped forward a few inches, ducking to avoid a pillow. “You're a lover, you're a creative. You’re a builder…”

He fought the wind with his elbows, struggling to keep his head covered while fighting to keep his feet on the ground at the same time. The tornado slowed. And then broke in half, one part dissipating into the ground and the other retracting into the ceiling. The clouds there continued to coil and swirl, but none of them came down and contacted the carpet.

Gasping, he ran the rest of the way, just a few feet, and managed to grab Faye’s shoulders. The protective egg of energy around her disappeared. We could contact her again. Jealousy consumed me as my stomach turned. I tried to recover myself, rubbing the back of my head that had already been smacked twice with a fist or a piece of debris. And now, with back paincoursing through my body, I watched as Cliff held his sister's face and got her hair to stop flying around her head.

He pressed his forehead to hers. “This is not who you are. I know who you are.”

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