Page 32 of The Alpha's Temptation

But when had I ever listened to that voice before?

No matter how close he got to surrendering to his wolf, Caelan would never mate me.

My chest tightened, and I dropped my gaze. I always said that I hated him, but I had fallen in love with him the first time I laid my eyes on him, that first night that Dad introduced me to him after Mom died.

For a split moment back then, I had thought that life wouldn’t be so bad…

I released a tense breath and opened the door.

All of that didn’t matter anymore. I needed to do this for myself. I needed to figure out who I was, where this power was coming from. I needed to go back to those… witches. If I could learn how to use my magic, then I might not be so useless around here.

I could actually help protect and defend the only family I had left.

CHAPTER 23

LIVIA

I peered into the witches’cabin through the door that was slightly ajar, the stench of blood drifting through my nose. With goosebumps raised on my arms, I knocked in hopes that someone would answer.

It had taken me nearly twelve hours to find my way back to their cabin, and I hadsomehowmade it in one piece without anyone attacking me, which I had found suspicious, but nobody had been following me. I’d made sure to check and recheck multiple times.

“Hello?” I called through the dark cabin.

No answer.

When I stepped into the house, the stench filled my lungs. Where were they? Maybe they were out. They had to be out, right? My stomach twisted. No, I knew that wasn’t true. Somewhere deep down, I knew that something had happened to them.

Someone had killed them.

The living room was empty. Their bedrooms empty. The spare room empty.

But the kettle was still hot in the kitchen, and an array of herbs decorated the counters. A small kitchen knife was in thesink, covered in blood. My eyes widened, and I spotted a droplet on the ground, then another, then another.

I followed the blood to a door where the stench was the strongest. Bile rose in my throat as I opened the door and stared into a dark corridor. At the end, there was a flicker of light. I sucked in a sharp breath and entered.

While I wanted to turn back, to run home, I had come here for a reason. And that reason lay with two witches who knew about my powers, who knew my mother, who had all the answers I needed.

My brain was screaming at me to leave, but something deep inside me kept pulling me toward the light at the end of the hallway until I was in the room and standing over Esma and Circe lying dead in a pool of their own blood.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, dropping to my knees.

As soon as my flesh touched the blood, it all began glowing. The same symbol that had been on my necklace’s pendant was drawn around the room in their blood, all over the walls, fucking everywhere.

“What happened…” I asked, looking around and shaking my head.

While I wanted to blame the Whispering Pines Pack for this, the wounds on their bodies looked… self-inflicted. My hands trembled. How… Why? They’d told me that they’d be here to explain everything whenever I wanted, and that was… barely a couple days ago.

Why did they kill themselves? Why were they… Why were they dead?

My fingers twitched, the pool of blood drawing me to it like a magnet. I didn’t know why, but I submerged my hand in the crimson liquid. While the puddle was only an inch deep, my fingers dipped further into it, almost as if… it were going through the concrete floor underneath.

Forearm deep now, my arm came out the other side, almost swimming in the air underneath. Yes, air. Not dirt. Not more concrete. Air. I fished around and finally grabbed what felt like a book.

It took everything I had to pull it back up through the concrete, then through the blood.

But once it was finally out, I dropped it onto my lap. That symbol covered it again and again. I sucked in a sharp breath, unable to stop myself from opening the pages that looked like they hadn’t touched the blood at all.

The writing… was in a language that I couldn’t understand, yet somehow my body did. I didn’t know why there was so much blood. I didn’t know what this all meant. But the words… the words were seemingly coming to life.

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