Page 78 of Alpha Exile

It seems to me that it's dangerous to take an ancient and powerful spirit, forge it into gemstones, and notdoanything with the result. Maybe once Delphine is defeated, I'll takeallthe Spirit Eyes from her and find something to do with them. Something that doesn't involve letting them possess living people and destroy their minds entirely.

As the statues stare at us with their fixed gazes, a wind kicks up around the edges of the Mating Circle. My mates move in close to me, and I hear Lance growl low in his throat, alarmed and ready to fight.

"It's okay," I murmur, looking towards Vivia's statue and feeling a spark of comfort. "I don't think anything bad is about to happen."

The wind twines around us, flitting through my maroon hair. Then it dives upward, surging towards the tapestry of mating threads. Fingers of wind thread between my fingers as it coaxed them towards the tapestry. It urges me to pluck separate threads, and as it does so, I feel it add strength and power to my weft.

In places where our bonds have been shaky, threads interrupted by self-doubt, jealousy, and fear of uncertainty, those emotions are smoothed over and replaced with certainty and strength.

Where my mates haven't gotten along, instead memories of friendship and love are pushed through.

The wind writes its own lyrics into the story of our bond's weft, reinforcing it where needed. When it's done, it trills through my hair one last time, then surges out into the woods and settles around us.

"Thank you," I murmur, watching the mating threads wrap around us and sink back beneath our skin, newly energized and strengthened. "We're going to need all the strength we can get."

Now that we've done all we can to keep the bond intact, it's time to hunt down Delphine and end her once and for all.

Which motivates me to ask Roarke, "Where is Delphine right now? What is she up to?"

He closes his eyes and taps into that sense inside of him again, then frowns, his brows furrowing together. "She's moved further away from the territory. The signal is faint, getting fainter."

"Why? She isn't tucking tail and running, is she?"

"No, I don't think she is." Inhaling deeply, he pauses for a long moment, like he's trying to sense more. "There's a determination inside her. I can't feel her strongly, but I can sense that much. Whatever she's up to, she'll be circling back around once she's finished with it."

"Then we'll be here to finish her off," I tell him, my heart racing at the thought. "Whether it's tonight, tomorrow, or days from now. Just keep track of her."

"I'll try, but..." Trailing off, Roarke opens his summer blue eyes, a troubled expression on his face. "The signal has dropped off. I can't sense her anymore."

Unease flits through me, but I squash it down. "Then as soon as you can sense her again, tell us, and we'll snap into action. Until then, we'll prepare for battle, just like we did today."

Whatever Delphine is up to, though, I know that it can't be good.

Thirty-Two

Delilah

"Tonight may be our last night together before the battle, so we should party," Finn says, making a beeline directly for the bar cart in the rental's dining room and unscrewing the cap on the largest bottle of tequila there. "As soon as Roarke's homing pigeon device tells him where she is, all the fun is done. So I say we have our first real orgy."

"It's ahomingdevice, not ahoming pigeondevice, which doesn't exist." Roarke takes a large drinking glass and pours an unlikely amount of whiskey into it, grimacing as he downs a full finger all at once. "As far as a group event goes, I'm not the one you have to convince, though if you put your finger up my ass Iwillbite it off."

Finn snorts. "I'll have you know that I'm a strictly consensual pervert, thank you very much, and assplay is something you warm up to. As far as convincing goes..."

All our eyes go towards Lance, who's standing in the middle of the room, somewhere between the bar cart and fleeing, his face expressionless.

The same expression remains on his face as Finn hands him a large margarita with a bit of colorful liqueur floating at the top of the glass, complete with an umbrella shoved in the ice, its jaunty angle suggesting a party is imminent.

A long pause hangs in the air before Lance takes the glass, his glower at Finn milder than usual. "I'll tolerate a group event, as long as Delilah is the only one who touches me, and I get to come in her mouth."

I swear, Finn's eyes go so wide that I'm shocked his eyeballs don't fall out of the sockets. "That sounds reasonable."

Kieran chokes on a sip of his beer. "So we're all going to have one big sex party?"

"I think that was the suggestion," Roarke agrees mildly. "You can always suck me off again, if you're feeling up to it."

"Iknewsomething was happening there," Finn purrs.

"Does this mean we're all going to have sex with Roarke, too?" Bastian glances around the room, his dark brows drawn together. "Other than Lance, obviously. Is that what's happening?"

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