Page 51 of Alpha's Secret Baby Girl
When Michael hung up, he glanced at Gwen. “He’s not going to be happy that I brought you out of the protected area.”
Gwen thought about her vision of the barrier breach, the demon’s attack on Lianne, and how it lorded over her, laughing as the pack crumbled around her. “Sometimes happiness is not the point. Sometimes we just have to do what we have to do.”
It took them an hour to find Rafael and the special ops team. Her fingers drummed impatiently on the door of the car. She had just started to think that Rafael wasn’t going to be on the road at all when they turned a corner and came upon a tensestand-off. Michael pulled the car to a stop and got out, gesturing for Gwen to stay inside.
Not likely. Rafael and the special ops team stood only half a dozen feet from the Alpha of another town on the island. She couldn’t remember the Alpha’s name, only that there had been a rivalry between him and Randall, and that rivalry leaked through to the packs. The unnamed Alpha had a dozen or so wolves with him, some shifted, others waiting for the word.
“What’s this, then?” the Alpha asked, narrowing his eyes at Gwen. “Did you send for your mate to come back you up?”
Rafael turned. His eyes met Gwen’s, and they narrowed. “Go back to town.”
One of the special ops stopped her from getting any closer. She glared at him briefly. “Rafael, I need to talk to you.”
“I’m a bit busy.”
“Trying to invade our territory,” the other Alpha spat.
Rafael turned back to him. His shoulders bunched with tension. “As I have explained, we need to do a sweep of your territory to ensure there are no demons—”
“And as I’ve explained, we have already done it. There aren’t any demons in my territory.”
Rafael growled.
Michael pushed himself through the special ops team to stand near his brother. “Well, it sounds as though this is heading for disaster. Hi, I’m Michael Buchanan. I believe we met once when I was six.” Michael held his hand to the other Alpha. Gwen couldn’t see his face, but he sounded like he was smiling. “Please forgive my brother’s insistence. The demon has directly threatened his mate and child, so he’s not thinking as diplomatically as perhaps he should.”
The other Alpha’s tension seemed to ease slightly. “A member of our pack was killed.”
“I know. The demon does seem to want us at each other’s throats.” Michael put a hand on Rafael’s shoulder. He murmured something in his brother’s ear. Rafael first tensed, but after a moment, gave a stiff nod and turned on his heel. He walked back through the special ops and reached for Gwen. He tugged her into the backseat of the car and let out a ragged breath.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he murmured.
Gwen cupped his face in her hands. “I have to be here. I know that what I saw frightened you, but you can’t let that make you keep me at arm’s length. It’s like you said. We’re fighting a demon, and we need my magic. If Kira and Chelsey could access magic like me, we’d need them, too.”
Rafael’s shoulders sagged. “You can’t control your magic.”
“But I can access it. Some level of it has to be instinctual, like when I used magic to fight off the demon at the beach,” she said hopefully. Then there were her visions.
Her visions.
“You need to stay in town where it’s safe,” Rafael insisted.
“I’m not sure…” Gwen tapered off. Now didn’t seem like the time to tell him everything. “The protections around town might be weakening. If your mother had to do magic to keep them from failing, then we can’t rely on them alone. Just like you can’t have all the weight of responsibility on your shoulders.”
Rafael’s jaw tightened.
She pointed out the window to where Michael was speaking with the other Alpha. “You weren’t getting anywhere.Now look, Michael has got him nodding. I know it’s hard, when you’ve taken on the weight of so much.”
Rafael slumped against her. His face buried into her neck. “I’m just so afraid that I’m not strong enough.”
“You don’t have to be strong enough, my love,” she whispered. “You have to be connected.”
His hands moved to her hips. “My love?” he repeated.
Gwen grinned, but before she could say anything more, his phone started to beep wildly. Rafael stiffened and jerked back. He pulled it from his pocket and swore.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“There’s been another demon sighting. Inside the town,” he said.
