Page 3 of Alpha Exile

Through the densely packed fog.

And I swear, a figure is there suddenly that wasn't before.

A dark-haired figure with impossibly pale skin, wearing a white dress that glimmers in the moonlight, a blood-red smile on her face.

The fog thickens and rolls around us, as high as our shoulders and as dense as our fur.

Every muscle in my body tenses.

Tilting my head back, I open my jaw and howl.

Two

Lance

Roarke's Alpha howl pierces the air. I feel it in my bones, a primal sound that crawls across my skin and urges me forward. Together, we face the mysterious figure in the fog—or not-so-mysterious, as the case may be—and race to confront her.

All the while, the surrounding fog seems to thicken and grow. It stretches above the tips of my ears. As I run towards Delphine, I glance over my shoulder once, and can't see anything behind me. We couldn't be more than a few miles away from the house, but it might as well be half a world away in this visibility.

I can sense the others there, though. They've leapt to position to protect the house, obeying Roarke's wordless order. I can feel their tension; even Finn has no jokes to crack as he shifts into his wolf form and stalks out towards the darkness.

Meanwhile, it's just the two of us here, on the frontlines.

Facing an impossibly powerful enemy.

Whatever we do, we have to keep her from getting to Delilah,Roarke says, determination in his voice, steel in his jet black eyes.That's her target, and she's vulnerable now. We beat her back at all costs.

Agreed. But she's immortal. What can we possibly do against her?

Anything will do.His lips peel back as we get close enough to spot Delphine's slim figure.Even immortals must bleed.

I'm not sure that they do, but it seems we're about to find out. Delphine is standing in the tall grass, vampires arranged around her, their pale forms ashen in the moonlight, the only color to them the hungry glow of their famished eyes.

Vampires, at least, I've fought before. And as we get close enough to make out their mistress—her luminescent skin, her ice blue eyes, the jet black of her hair and unnatural beauty of her slim face—the vampires who protect her leap into action, coming straight for us.

Their movements are like nothing I've ever seen in vampires before.

They're unnaturally fast, like always, but somehow smooth and jerky at the same time. A few that prowl towards us roll forward onto all fours, their claws digging into the earth as they leap at us. Their cheeks are sunken, their eyes crazed and pupils blown.

Not a single one of them looks like they've gotten a meal in the past month.

And they fight like it too, their chests full of growls and their movements sickeningly violent. I tear one off my shoulder as it leaps on me, ripping its arm from its chest, but it comes at me again despite the wound. It sinks long fangs into my neck, venoming pulsing into me, a screeching sound leaving its lips as it sucks on my blood.

I jerk it off, throwing myself to the ground and rolling until I hear its body crunch beneath my weight. Leaping up, I tear open its throat—and stare into bloody, famished eyes for a long second before its body gives up and it turns to ash.

They're hungry,Roarke says as he yanks one off his haunches, his fur glistening with spilled blood.These aren't the silhouettes we fought earlier.

They're not,I agree, leaping on one that snaps its fangs onto my muzzle and rips its claws down my belly. As I toss it off, it goes streaking through the fog instead of dying, so I reach out to Finn to warn him,Bloodsucker headed your way.

A friendly one, I hope.

Try demented, and very motivated to feed.

I have to jump back into the battle a moment later, this time fending off two of the bloodsuckers as they jump for me. I'm relieved a moment later when I realize Roarke and I are no longer fighting the battle alone: three of the warriors have joined us. Taryn, Lionel, and Kayla, two of them new ones, one a deserter who's returned to the pack.

Taryn calls out cheerily,Need some help?

Yes, and then some.

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