Page 91 of Alpha Exile

"You're awitch." She spits out the word, and the crowd swells with anger, some of its hotheaded members striding close enough that I can see the outline of their pupils. "You must've looked inside his mind and seen it while he was still alive. Then you waited until the accident to prey on us!"

Quietly, Delphine murmurs, "I didn't ask for money."

"But you'll be expecting it!" The woman throws the box on the ground, spilling fat golden coins and thick green bills. "I'm sure you'll want your cut. Well, take it all. I won't risk being cursed by a witch because of a few coins."

My eyes—Delphine's eyes—slide closed, and I sense her reach for her mate bonds, looking for the men who're meant to be her support system. She feels a jolt of pain as her mind juts up against the missing fifth mate, his spot in her mind like an open wound. Ignoring it, she concentrates on the remaining mates. But they're thin and far away, out on a hunting mission far to the north. Delphine is alone in this crowd, and she fights through it with tears in her eyes, pushing through the jostling shoulders and jeering faces.

Once she's free, she transforms into a wolf and makes a run for it. A few wolves peel off from the crowd to pursue her—but they fall back after a while, deep in their drinks and unable to keep up.

"Why are you showing me this?" I fight to say the words aloud, uncertain where my physical body is or if I'm connected to it. "So some people were mean to you now and again. That doesn't excuse anything you did."

"Watch," a voice hisses, echoing in the sky around me, and I sigh as I'm whipped along with the memory again.

Kneeling by a clear blue river, Delphine stares down into its surface, her young doll-like face reflected back at her. She splashes tears off her cheeks and rocks back on her heels, hugging her arms against her chest. Sniffling, she sucks down her sadness and stares out into the darkness for a long, quiet moment.

A figure appears in the shadows, glowing and made of mist. The hair on my arms stand on end. Somehow, through instinct alone, I know that this is one of the dead.

He has long blond hair and tanned skin, his blue eyes shining even after death. Tall and lanky, he looks no older than seventeen, though his face is hard, his jaw set with anger.

"Go away," Delphine calls out, raising her chin and staring the ghostly figure down. "I'm not listening to you, Roman."

"Aren't you?"The ghost appears right in front of her, startling both her and me."I don't see how you have any other option. Unless you'd like me to come in your sleep again."

Delphine whimpers, and I see a flash of restless nights, of painful scratches running up her arms and dreams of consuming her own flesh. "Please don't."

"Then you should give me what I want."Leaning down, he whispers in her ear,"Kill yourself so we can be together, Delphine. As the mates we truly are."

Then he reaches out and rakes his claws through her body, their ghostly forms scratching against her very soul.

She screams at the pain, back arching and chest burning. I scream as well, distantly aware of my body, of the second that's passed since Delphine grabbed my arm. It feels like every nerve is on fire, as if someone is reaching into my chest and plucking my still-beating heart from my rib cage.

The moment passes, and we're in another memory now. In this one, ghosts swarm Delphine, begging for favors, asking her for release. She covers her ears and sinks to her knees, weakened by their presence, feeling his eyes on her wherever she goes.

He rakes his fingers through her soul and haunts her dreams until she's so weak that she has to borrow energy from her mates, because it's the only way the visions of the dead stop.

When she goes to the coven, they rebuke her, reminding her that she's one of the werewolf pack, not one of theirs. The only advice she's given is to perform a ceremony that lets her see through the veil between life and death. Once she'strulyseen the dead, they're sure she'll no longer hallucinate false visions of ghosts.

Delphine performs the ceremony.

She sees her own death.

Roman is on the other side, his face a twisted smile of pleasure as he rips her apart piece by piece, torturing her as he always promised he would.

"Why should you have peace in death, when I have none?"His smile widens as she sobs and screams, pleading with him not to do this, to leave her alone."I died mateless because of you, so you should suffer because of me."

"Please," Delphine pleads with him, as he violates her body, in her life and after her death. "It was an accident. No one knew the hunting trip would end so poorly."

"You knew,"he whispers in her ear, in her nightmares and in her vision of death itself."You saw the future in your dreams, and told no one. If you had, I wouldn't be dead."

Dragged into her mind, I find that she did, in fact, see the future. She didn't believe it; even to this day, she's not sure if it was a true vision or not. But because the hunting trip was supposed to be low-risk, and Roman was only her intended, not even her mate, she didn't confide in him. She thought it was a passing fancy, the kind of nightmare a girl conjures up without rhyme or reason.

So he died, and without him as her mate to anchor her to the Otherworld, she was haunted by his ghost. Then by other ghosts, then by every member of the dead. She did them favors, told their loved ones their last wishes—and bought nothing but suspicion for herself.

Until she went to the coven in her desperation, received a spell that she never should've cast, and saw that the afterlife would be nothing but torture and misery for her.

"You had to have messed up the incantation somehow," Delphine pleaded with the witch who gave her the spell. "Or you were wrong about what it shows the caster. All I was shown was Hell."

The witch looked unimpressed with her pleading. "I know my spells, girl, and I gave you this one right. It pierces the veil—it doesn't tell you what you want to hear."

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