Page 102 of Fated Exile

He furrows his brow as he looks down at his barely covered length. "It is big, isn't it? I noticed while we were all taking turns with Delilah. I think it's the biggest."

I snort, Delilah laughs, and we all enjoy a moment of quiet bliss.

Which is, of course, when my cell phone goes off in my pocket, Delilah's cell phone goes off on her desk, and Bastian's minutes phone starts to scream from somewhere under the bed.

It's an emergency alert, courtesy of the new intra-pack alert system Roarke set up for Glass Pack Territory.

The not-an-emergency I was sent in to fetch Delilah for has turned into a five alarm fire type of emergency. We have to grab whatever clothes we can get on our naked bodies before we shift and run out the door, because whatever it is, it can't wait one more second.

Too bad, because I had a few things in mind for a second round just in case Bastian'sbiggestmember decided to become big again.

Thirty-Seven

Delilah

It's Delphine. It has to be.

As the ground disappears beneath my loping paws, Bastian and Finn beside me, I scramble for every tip and trick Kerry taught me in the last week. But they slide between my fingers like sand, because none of them is what I truly need to defeat the immortal hybrid.

Vivia, why didn't you come to me?There's no answer, though I hear Bastian whimper beside me and see him lick his lips, my distress flowing outward through the mate bond. I clamp down on it, and lean my shoulder towards Finn's ruffled side, needing his good humor and cheer at this moment.

It's probably nothing,he reassures me, his voice a soothing balm in my head.In fact, less than nothing.

You came to me because there was urgent business,I remind him.What could it be?

I can feel his hesitation just before his voice comes through.Just some nonsense with some of the mating bonds now that they're being let loose. Roarke did a few intended ceremonies while you were out on patrol the other night, and I'm not sure all the teens were happy with their selection.

Great, just great. I was so busy with my nose to the grindstone searching for Delphine that I forgot my first and biggest duty: to the pack. Now that the curse is lifting, they're ready to tentatively try new mating ceremonies during the next full moon, and that means pairing off with mates. Except only one of their alphas has been paying attention to them, while the other is asleep at the wheel.

It can't bethatcausing the emergency, though. A few thin mating threads, some intended who weren't what they each expected, bonds going astray—that happens even in the best of times when a pack is healthy. There has to be something more urgent going on in order to activate our emergency alerts.

EMERGENCY ALERT—TOWN SQUARE. WARRIORS AND ALPHAS NEEDED. That's what our phone screens said when the blaring alarm started from all three of them. I barely bothered to pull a shirt on before I was out the door, and even that level of speed may not be enough. Our warriors are no doubt engaged with Delphine right now, falling to her sinister magic just like my aunt's coven did—

But as I race around the final side street and spot the town square in the distance, I don't see quite what I expected.

There’s a young girl in the middle of the square, clutching a torn white T-shirt to her nearly naked body, blood in a pool around her. She can’t be much older than fourteen, her hair long and white-gold, her skin freckled where the sun hits it. She sobs despairingly as she curls in on herself in pain.

Surrounding her are a thousand broken, glowing, struggling threads. They surge up from the stones to grab at passerby who try to edge in to help her. I spot Lance and Kieran in wolf form, trying to ease their way through, but the glowing green threads block them. They form a twisting wall of magic that itches at my skin and tickles my nose.

As Finn, Bastian, and I get closer, I see another teenager, this one at the edge of the circle on the other side from Lance and Kieran. He’s a boy with bright orange hair and suntanned skin, his juvenile muscles straining as Roarke holds him back.

That’s where I go, shifting back to human form so I can talk to both of them, my clothes disheveled from what the three of us just did but mostly intact.

“What’s going on?” I look to the girl and the green threads; her nose is dripping blood down onto the ground, and she shivers, her mind full of dark, negative thoughts. “What happened to her?”

The teenage boy spits out a sentence before I can respond. “Knox happened to her. And now she’s going to die.”

“Calm down, Micah.” Roarke grabs the young man’s elbows and holds him tight, his alpha senses pushes calming pheromones into the air. His face is grim as he tells me, “The young woman is named Hazel. Last night I joined her with her intended in a casual ceremony. They haven’t even mated yet, but their threads were strong—too strong to be anything but fate.”

“And he tore them apart with a black magic spell he bought on the internet!”

Teenage Micah snarls, rage written into every line of his body. I motion Bastian and Finn forward. They shift and grab the boy, pulling him back so Roarke and I can speak privately without upsetting him further, though I can feel his attention, his anger and despair.

“Is that really what happened? Her fated mate just… abandoned her?”

“Worse than that.” Roarke grimaces. “Whatever spell he used, I don’t know what it was meant to do, but somehow it tore all of her threads. I can’t see them, but I can feel them—can you see them?”

“Yes. They’re green. I’ve never seen that color before.”

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