Page 7 of Alpha Exile

Except wordlessly scream in terrified rage.

Four

Bastian

Ihave been here before, in another life, in another way.

I've felt someone else's will slide through me like hot oil.

I've been pulled along by tightening puppet strings.

As Delphine grasps the vials of blood around her belt, every muscle in my body freezes. I try desperately to tense, to run, to jump and claw, scratch and bite. Instead I can't even howl, can't pant or do much but stand there, paws digging into the earth, as she smugly pulls Roarke to her heel.

"Such a good alpha," she purrs, digging her pale hand into his ruff of fur. He doesn't even snarl in response. "It's unfortunate that my cadre is so hungry. You have such a beautiful pack here. But they may not live to see another day."

She speaks the truth. All around us, the warriors who fought bravely at our sides have been pummeled and clawed, drained and dragged away unconscious. The vampires are tearing open their flesh and feasting on their blood—but slowly. For now, the warriors live, but only because the bloodsuckers are so hungry they want their hearts to keep beating. That will change if they ramp each other’s bloodlust to the point of no return.

I want to go fight for them, to free them, to doanything. Instead I can only swing my head towards an approaching sound, my ears pricking forward.

A familiar scent washes over my nose, and I have to fight back despair.

Because Delilah will be heartbroken if something happens to her mother, and that's exactly who's approaching us now through the fog. The urge to scream at Cat toturn back, go away, nowis overwhelming. My tongue lolls out of my mouth and my chest strains as I fight against the spell holding me.

I even manage to shift one paw forward, though it feels like moving through molasses.

"Enough of that." Delphine puts an end to it with a sharp twist of her fingers around the vials of blood, sending a burst of pain through my chest. "You're a strong one, Otherworld mate, but you won't be escapingmygrip."

Of course I won't. That would be too easy. Delphine is going to force us all to watch silently as she brutally murders the woman who raised Delilah, for no reason at all.

As Cat gets closer, though, I'm struck by how placid and laconic her movements are. She sways on her feet, her hand closed tight in a fist around a small object, her gaze slippery and unfocused. Coming to a stop in front of Delphine, she stares at her blank-eyed.

The fiery, funny, ridiculous woman I know is gone, sliding beneath a vacant, empty shell.

"Give it here."

Delphine snaps her fingers, and Cat holds something out. The hybrid lets go of the vials of blood to unfurl her palm and accept it, but to my dismay, that doesn't lessen the magic's grip on me.

To my further dismay, the thing Cat hands over is the pair of gemstones Delilah dragged out of my mind when she freed me from the vampires' control. The Spirit Eyes, as Kerry named them, contain the spirit of some ancient, powerful being whose presence in my mind captured me and stole my will. Despite that, I can't quite seem to view them as evil—there was something about the pain and despair of the trapped spirit that made it feel like a kindred soul.

Now they're dropped in Delphine's hand, where they clink against other small, glowing gemstones. I crane my head for a good look at them, spotting four different colors that glow beside the golden yellow gemstones.

"Good little human. Now go on home." A sly smirk slides across Delphine's blood-red mouth. "I may have use for you yet."

Cat melts back through the shadows, leaving me with a curdling fear in my stomach.

Delphine is going to make me swallow those gemstones again. I just know it.

And even though I didn't make Delilah destroy them, I'm still terrified at the thought of losing my free will once more. The years I spent with the vampire covens are a dark hole in my mind. When I was stuck in my wolf form, I almost thought I would go mad.

The only thing that pulled me out of it was her. Delilah. But as soon as the vampires attacked, they made me their puppet once more. Suddenly I was attacking the very same people who'd saved me.

I can't stand the thought of that happening again.

Delphine slides the palmful of gemstones into a small leather bag at her belt, fingers dancing across the blood vials. A distinct shiver goes down my spine as she touches mine, and I know somehow that she could pull a single string and make me doanything.

Turning away from Juniper, Delphine raises her fingers to her mouth and whistles. "Come along." There are hisses and snarls in the woods, and she calls out coaxingly, "We will be back for another taste at a later date. For now, we must go. Leave your feasts behind."

Too-pale, deathly thin forms emerge from the shadows, some galloping on four limbs before righting themselves onto their back legs. These new, more feral and hungrier vampires are more disturbing than I thought possible. They have none of Ambrosia's cunning intelligence or Demetri's flare for the dramatic. It's as if Delphine has done something to them to strip what little humanity they had remaining, leaving nothing but a husk of instinct and brutality behind.

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