Page 34 of Alpha Exile

My warriors fight shoulder-to-shoulder with me, protecting me from errant vampire attacks. They help me move through the battlefield until I spot a flash of white fur again, streaked with blood.

Lance sinks his fangs into a vampire's neck and tosses the bloodsucker over his shoulder, throwing it against the cave wall so hard that it instantly turns to dust.

Then he shoves his way through the last two vampires between us. I leap on one and sever its neck with my fangs and claws. He tears the other apart, shaking his head as it howls in pain and vanishes through death.

A moment later we're together. I shift, and so does he, the warriors circling us and protecting us as we embrace in our human forms. His dark brown skin is warm beneath my touch, his strength grounding me and giving me a second wind.

I lean forward to capture his lips with my own, and feel the flare of the mate bond within me.

It's enough to make my heart race and joy burst through my chest. As his fingers slide across my neck and draw me close, I feel almost as if I must be dreaming. I've wanted nothing more than to be reunited with my mates from the moment I woke up and discovered them gone. Now that it's happening it barely feels real.

But heisreal. His chest rises and falls beneath my fingers. As we pull back from our kiss, both panting softly, I watch the mate threads twist between us and sink beneath our skin.

"I missed you," I murmur to him, glancing around at the battle surging behind us, "but we're going to have to save some of this for another time."

"Agreed." He slides his lips across my cheek to kiss my lips one more time. "Finn and Kieran are over that way, fighting in the fray. Get to them."

"I will."

As I pull back from him, Lance adds, "And be careful. This cavern... it changes people. It changed us. We shouldn't stay for too long."

With that warning ringing in my head, I shift back into my wolf and swing my gaze around until I find a familiar shaggy black wolf in the middle of the fray. Finn's silver eyes shine as he kicks out at a vampire behind him and whirls around in a circle, his lips parted back from large, sharp teeth.

Leaping forward, I cross the dozens of feet between us with my claws and my fangs. Feral bloodsuckers fall to my onslaught, turning to dust and nothingness beneath me. Finn, spotting me, surges through the vamps around him as well, slicing them open and ripping them apart.

The pack warriors converge on us and form a shield between our bodies and the fight as we come together and shift back into our human forms. His liquid brown eyes meet mine, his long lashes fluttering, and he draws me to him in a warm embrace, his arms circling my chest and squeezing me tight.

"I thought I'd never see you again, Dollface," he murmurs, his warm breath skimming my neck. "I was starting to think that I'd die a virgin."

I snort-laugh against his chest, pulling back to look up into his face. Drinking in the sight of him, I take it all in: his jet black hair, his mischievous hooded eyes, the wide set of his nose and warm tan of his skin. Leaning forward, I sink into a kiss against his plush lips, the mate bond flaring within me and stretching out between us as a thousand silver-white threads.

He grounds me, connecting me to the parts of myself that his presence awakens. Circling his hands around my waist, Finn sinks our mouths together and fits them just right, his clever tongue sweeping between my lips, the smell and taste of him consuming me. I would sink into his arms forever, forgetting about the battle that surrounds us, the danger at hand, if not for the fact that my task isn't yet over.

Two down. Three to go.

"Guess we'll have to save some things for later," Finn murmurs, pulling back with a wink. "Go get your boys. I think I saw K over near the rear end of the battle, pulverizing a few vampires. Did anyone tell you he can see the past now? And I can see magic."

I blink at him, stupefied. He grins. "Yep. All those threads around us—and the ones that are stretching between you and Kieran—I can spot them now. It's how I knew you were coming, and how I was certain that the mate bonds weren't dead, only buried deep."

"That's... unexpected."

"We'll figure it out some other time, Lilah." Kissing my nose, he pinches my cheek and tugs me up to my feet. "Go get 'em."

This time, I don't shift back into my wolf to move through the crowd. Instead I let the power of the flames in my chest move through my human fingers and light up the air around me. With Lance's strength to draw on, and Finn's connection grounding me, I feel almost like I could end this battle right here, right now, single-handedly. A single fiery explosion would turn them all into dust and end Delphine's army for good.

But there are too many wolves and warriors in with the vampires, and I don't want to singe them. So instead I let off controlled blasts, hitting a vampire here, another there. Up ahead near the edge of the battle, I see a reddish brown wolf fighting straggling vamps who run away from my fire.

Kieran.

My first love, my first heartbreak, grown into a man who I cherish more than I ever could've guessed.

Slicing through our enemies with jets of flame, I rush towards him at the same moment that he spots me and shifts into his human form.

Falling into his arms, I take in the sight of him: auburn brown hair curling around his ears, honey brown eyes that reflect the blue light around us, a smattering of freckles across a tanned face and a twist of his lips that I know means his smile is hiding a well of grief.

"I thought I'd lost you forever," I tell him, burying my face in his neck. "I'm so glad to have you back again."

"We could never lose each other. Not for long. Certainly not forever. We'll always make our way back to each other in the end, no matter what else happens."

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