Fate of the Alpha: The Complete Bundle (30 page)

Again, she held up the bit of key to search, wondering how much longer she could hold her breath.

Two strong hands grabbed her from behind, yanking her backwards.

No, no, no.

She turned and the light of the key reflected in a sequined eyepatch.

Cressida.

Ainsley followed Cressida and soon they had reached the hole. On the other side was more icy water.

With the last of her strength, Ainsley swam. It grew impossible to hold in the air in her lungs, and she began to let it out, as slowly as she could, not knowing how much further she had to go in the icy blackness.

Soon, all of her air was gone.

Ainsley struggled to fight it, but her desperate body tried to breath in the water.

Miraculously, she broke the surface a moment later, spluttering and coughing as she clawed her way to the mud of a familiar bank.

She was too desperate for her next breath to appreciate the fact that the tomb of the moroi had been directly below her special place with Erik all along.

Under the white bark of the sycamore where they’d played, she willed her body not to choke to death, on the water of her own creek.

Cressida appeared beside her, loosening Ainsley’s death grip on Grace.

“Get her untied,” Ainsley gasped.

The air was cold enough that Ainsley could see her own labored breath as she stumbled up the rocky bank and fell to her knees.

The water she vomited felt pleasantly warm as it flew out of her lungs. She retched a few more times, then turned to Cressida and Grace.

Grace sat on the bank, staring blankly back into the water.

“Any sign of that thing?” Ainsley asked Cressida.

“No,” Cressida shook herself, sending droplets everywhere. “Where would it go?”

“It’s looking for a quick power fix,” Ainsley hypothesized. “Who are the most powerful people in town?”

“Ophelia,” Cressida said instantly.

“Garret,” Ainsley added, the wheels of her mind turning furiously as her accelerated healing kicked in. “I’ll go to Ophelia, you guys go to Garrett. Put the pack on high alert. This thing cannot leave Tarker’s Hollow.”

Grace still stared into the black water. Ainsley was nearly paralyzed looking at her. Imagining the trajectory of the water to the hole, to the tomb, to Julian, disappearing into the red light under the grate.

The broken key seemed to ache in Ainsley’s hand, reminding her of the mate she would never regain.

“Let’s go, sweetie,” Cressida said kindly to Grace. “He didn’t do that so that you could sit around moping.”

Suddenly, Grace was on her feet. She blew past them both, looking like she was ready to punch one of them in the face.

“Take care of her,” Ainsley said softly.

“Somebody’s going to pay for these boots,” Cressida muttered.

Ainsley trotted ahead to Grace. She couldn’t leave things this way.

“I’m so sorry for what happened to Julian,” she said helplessly. “And that you got caught up in all of this.”

Grace kept walking.

“I have to go to Ophelia,” Ainsley said. “But I will find you when this is over. I can’t make things right, but I’ll find you anyway.”

Grace didn’t even blink.

But Ainsley didn’t have time to negotiate.

“Hold this for me,” she said, tossing the shard of the key to Grace.

Without waiting to see if her friend caught the key, Ainsley shifted into her flame colored wolf, shredding what was left of her tattered clothes.

As it always did, her focus narrowed to a simpler plane. The shivering misery of her conflicted human was replaced with the singular purpose of a wolf seeking her alpha, and the tingling burn of bunching, stretching muscle as she sailed through the woods.

M
ary was confused
.

No matter how many books she read about grown-ups, or how much she longed to be treated like one, sometimes, the things they did still puzzled her.

Tonight, she knew that what Erik was saying, and what he was doing, were very different things. She just couldn’t quite figure out why.

“What’s he doing?” she said, almost to herself.

“He’s going to fix things,” her mom whispered.

“How?” Mary asked.

“There’s a very bad thing in those mines,” Miss Bonnie said. “Erik is going to make sure it never gets out. It’s what your daddy was trying to do when he brought down his branch. He’s going to finish what your daddy started. To protect us.”

Mary could hear the comforting words they were saying,
fix
and
protect
, but the set of Erik’s jaw told her there was another way to describe what he was doing.

To protect us.

“What about
him
?” she asked, turning to the librarian, who had less reason than her mother to protect her feelings.

Miss Bonnie averted her eyes, and suddenly, everything was clear.

“No!” Mary cried. “He can’t do that!”

She had spent her life listening to her grown-ups, mostly, and doing the things that ought to be done. But she couldn’t stand by and let this happen.

She leaped up off the gravel. She only needed to get past these women and get to Erik before it was too late.

If the thing was too strong for her dad with his crew, it was too much for Erik by himself. And that made this a waste — whether the grown-ups saw it that way, or not.

But the librarian grabbed her. She was stronger than she looked.

“There’s nothing you can do, honey,” she whispered in Mary’s ear.

“Remember what he said, Mary,” her mother added. “We need you to be strong. To take over your new role in the pack.”

“I can’t,” Mary cried, struggling hopelessly against Miss Bonnie’s strong arms. “I won’t. I don’t want this. I just want him to be okay.”

Her mother joined in, holding her fast. It was hopeless.

A rustle in the air caught her attention, and she turned to the ridge overlooking the mine to find it thick with wolves and people. Half the town must be there. The ones in human form headed down to join her family on the mostly empty lot.

While her mom and Miss Bonnie were distracted, Mary pictured her sleek gray wolf. It lowered its snout to her and instantly she felt herself change.

She hadn’t shifted many times. But this time it came easy — maybe because she needed it to be.

Time slowed down.

Mary dove between Miss Bonnie’s legs and out into the open space at the mouth of the mine. She splayed her paws to stop herself from sliding out of control on the gravel.

The smells of the mine overpowered her wolf nose, and Mary struggled to focus on Erik’s smell. It was a spicy amber scent, and once she had it, it was easy to follow.

Suddenly, something big landed on her back.

Another wolf had her by the scruff.

She tried to shake it off, but it held fast.

A second wolf landed on her back.

Desperately, Mary snapped at them. But she knew already it was useless. Her tail fell between her legs.

The spicy scent vanished into the mouth of the mine.

Mary lifted her snout and howled mournfully.

The night air filled with echoes of her song. Every wolf in Copper Creek had joined her in her pain.

She sighed and felt herself slide back into the form of a girl again.

Instantly, the jaws on her neck were gone.

Her mother licked her cheek once with a raspy tongue, before shifting back to human herself, and wrapping Mary in her arms.

“This had better work,” Miss Bonnie hissed, the moment she had shifted back.

“The cave-in’s already blocking off the section of the mine where Jake and the boys were. What’s Erik going to do that hasn’t already been done?” LeeAnn whispered back over Mary’s shoulder.

Before anyone could answer, an earth-moving rumble tore through the ground. Mary felt the earth come up to meet her, and her naked hip hit the gravel hard enough to bruise.

The twins began to cry, and the wolves on the ridge stirred nervously.

Mary looked up to see smoke pouring out of the mouth of the mine.

“What happened?” she whispered, not expecting an answer.

The crowd behind them began to buzz.

“That crazy son of a bitch opened the east branch!” Ted Mullin’s voice lifted over the crowd.

“What?” a woman’s voice asked.

“The gas. He lit the gas,” yelled another man’s voice.

“That thing will burn for a hundred years. What are we supposed to do now?” Jimmy Brewer shouted.

“We can’t mine anymore,” said another voice. It was Mr. Kirkland, one of the foremen.

“Without that mine, this town is doomed,” a woman’s low voice carried across the night air.

Mary felt the weight of a new anger pull at her shoulders.

“He just put an end to Copper Creek!” screamed another voice.

Enough.

Mary stood, feeling taller than the mountains.

“Shut up!” she screamed.

Silence, sudden and complete, blanketed the crowd. The eyes of the whole town bore down on her.

Just yesterday, she would have been ashamed to stand naked and dirty before a single person. And now she stood proud, letting the cold wind whip her hair and buffet her body. Since her first change, she hadn’t needed her glasses anymore. But she had hid behind them anyway, they were another layer between Mary and the world. Now they were broken somewhere in the gravel, and she was glad.

“You shut your mouth, Jimmy Brewer,” she shouted. “And you too Mr. Kirkland.”

Her voice had taken on a deeper quality that frightened her, but excited her all the same.

The men sensed the power behind her words, or the fallacy in their own, and looked at their feet.

“The man that just went into that mine is a hero to this town,” she said. “Just like my daddy. Don’t you ever forget that. Anyone that says different is going to have to answer to me.”

It was a silly thing for a fifteen year old to say — she knew that. But no one questioned her. She could feel the fire in her own eyes as she held the pack in her gaze.

A murmur of excitement rippled through the crowd. They began to point and crane their necks to look past her.

Mary whipped around to face the mine. Something was coming out.

If Erik had failed, and the creature, whatever it was, had gotten loose, they were all doomed. Mary headed toward the entrance, a low growl building in her throat. If the thing was going to kill her, she would die spitting in its miserable eye.

A blackened body half-crawled, half dragged itself toward her.

Erik.

Oh god, it was Erik.

Mary broke into a run. Her mother and Miss Bonnie moved aside for her immediately this time, then fell into step behind her.

She bolted for Erik. He collapsed onto his chest, and rolled onto his back before she made it there. The coppery odor of his blood and the terrifying breath of the fire poured off him. Only a tiny sigh of his spicy amber scent still clung to him.

Mary dropped to her knees. She felt someone wrap a blanket around her shoulders and didn’t bother to look up.

She gazed into Erik’s perfect eyes. His body was horribly burned, charred in some places, but his eyes had been mostly spared.

She slid his head gently into her lap and cradled him. He was badly hurt, but she knew he would shift and heal quickly. And she wanted to stroke his fur and comfort him when that happened.

He didn’t shift. Instead, his breath grew shallow.

“Why isn’t he healing? Why doesn’t he shift?” She looked around frantically.

“Because he can’t,” Miss Bonnie said softly from her place at Mary’s shoulder. “He’s not a wolf.”

“What do you mean, he’s not a wolf?” Mary asked, knowing already that the librarian was right.

“Bad people,” Miss Bonnie explained. “People who want that thing in the mine to get free, took his wolf away.”

“Nooo,” Mary howled. “Please don’t go, please.”

She begged, tears streaking down her dirty cheeks as she rocked him desperately. If only she were a grown-up and not a kid. She might know what to do.

But she didn’t know what to do. And Erik wasn’t a wolf. He was just a person, a good person who cared about her family. And he was dying.

Mary leaned in close, her eyes hungrily taking in a last glimpse of the man she would never forget. The man who was not a wolf, yet somehow more of a wolf than any of them.

Someone turned on a spotlight over the site, illuminating him in her arms.

Mary’s vision blurred as her tears dripped onto his charred flesh. The too-bright light stung her wet eyes, forming a golden halo around Erik.

It was right that he should look like an angel. He had saved them. He should have been their alpha.

His chest rattled with what she knew would be his last breath.

“I love you, Erik Jensen,” she whispered. “You will
always
be my alpha.”

G
race’s body
felt somehow unbearably hollow and impossibly heavy at the same time.

Only the mantra of her police training kept her going.

Do not
replay the incident mentally
.

Do
take deep breaths
.

Do not
allow yourself to become distracted imagining possible future outcomes
.

Do
focus on staying safe now
.

But her mind stuttered like a broken projector, hung up on the image of Julian disappearing into the red light.

Cressida followed her in silence.

At last, they emerged from the darkness of the woods.

As they approached the intersection of Yale, Grace noticed the excited crowd in the pools of radiance from the overhead streetlights. For a moment, she panicked, thinking that the moroi had already created terror in Tarker’s Hollow.

The squeals of laugher reminded her that it was Halloween. This was the parade from the Community Center through the local businesses.

Her stomach turned as she envisioned that thing tearing through the giddy group of children and parents.

She and Cressida picked up the pace, and crossed Yale. They were wet, dirty and terrified, and the small downtown was packed. Grace tried to imagine what she would say if someone tried to greet them.

They passed the pastry shop and art studio without drawing any attention. There was a crowd outside Coslaw & Associates, where Minnie Henderson gave out candy. Minnie was still tall and thin with a touch of hippie glamour — just as she’d been when Grace and Ainsley were kids.

Grace fought a wave of nausea as she pictured her best friend’s stone cold expression in the cave below town. The expression that said she was willing to watch Grace die.

Grace could hardly blame her, really, she respected Ainsley for making a choice for the greater good. But did she have to make it look so... easy?

“...no, I have no idea where Charley is, Marge. This is his favorite night of the year,” Minnie was saying. She shook her auburn head, jingling the tiny bells in her dangly earrings.

Well, Grace had a pretty good idea of where Charley was. He wasn’t going to be giving out any more candy.

She and Cressida made it across the lawn of the library and into the lower level entrance to the Tarker’s Hollow Police Station uncontested.

The door stood intact, so Grace figured the moroi probably hadn’t arrived. That meant Ainsley was headed for trouble. They would have to join her, but Grace had business here first.

She stormed inside, past the bulletin board and the reception area.

“Gracie?” Dale called to her.

She didn’t break her stride, though she had to avert her eyes as she passed the Interrogation Room. Thinking about her night there with Julian wasn’t going to help her now.

Cressida still followed a step behind. She hadn’t said a word on their trip into town. That was for the best. Grace didn’t feel much like talking at the moment.

She found strange comfort in the presence of the silent she-wolf. Grace was numb with grief and Cressida didn’t give a flying fuck. Together they were a force to be reckoned with.

“Why are you all wet?” Dale continued, trotting after them, his voice at a higher pitch.

Grace unlocked the armory closet and grabbed a 9mm pistol. She checked it, though there was no need. All the weapons in the Tarker’s Hollow PD armory were kept clean and loaded. She saw to that personally. It was perfect.

She locked the door behind her out of habit, and continued toward the holding area.

“What are you doing?” Dale tried again.

“Go back to the desk, Dale.” The gravel in her voice surprised her, and must have told Dale she meant business, because he headed in the other direction immediately.

Grace reached Garrett’s cell.

He stood in the middle of the space, cradling the stump of his right arm in his left. His posture looked almost relaxed, his pale blue eyes clear. It was as if he had known she would come at this exact moment.

“Okay, Sanderson,” Grace said. “I’m going to keep this simple. The moroi ate your friend, Charley, but it’s still hungry. I think you’re going to be next. Let’s go.”

She unlocked the cell door, slid it open with a loud clang, and took a big step back, giving him room to exit.

He held eye contact with her for a long moment before shaking his head.

She lifted the gun and pointed it at him. At this range, she didn’t need to aim.

“Grace,” Cressida said softly.

“This man is the reason Julian is gone,” Grace said firmly. “He is going to pay, one way or the other.”

She thumbed back the hammer of the gun. Garrett remained in place. She would rather he met the same fate as his friend, but she was ready to send him to hell if he didn’t move.

“This isn’t you,
Officer
Kwan-Cortez,” Cressida said, trying to remind her of her duty. “You don’t need this on your conscience.”

“Stay out of this,” Grace warned her.

Cressida sighed, and moved into the path of the firearm, right outside the doorway to the cell.

“You are a good person, Grace. Maybe the only one of us who still is. Don’t throw that away on this dirtbag.”

Grace stared at her, unblinking.

“You can put the gun down now,” Cressida told her.

“I can’t,” Grace replied.

“It’s okay,” Cressida said, in a voice that was almost gentle. “Really.”

“No, no, I mean I
can’t
,” Grace said, panic creeping into her voice. “I can’t move.”

Below them, intricate runes scrawled on the linoleum floor in what looked like blood began to glow and pulse.

How had she not noticed them?

“Shit,” Cressida hissed. “I can’t either.”

Behind her wolf companion, Garrett regarded them with a smug smile.

“Sorry, Officer Kwan-Cortez,” Garrett said, in that annoying, slow voice. “I think I will be taking my leave of you now.”

He moved closer to Cressida, but instead of slipping past her and exiting the cell, he paused behind her and leaned close.

“It is a pity, though,” He whispered in Cressida’s ear as his good hand stroked her damp hair. “I would enjoy getting to know you better.”

“You know,” he teased, meeting Grace’s gaze over Cressida’s shoulder. “The way I did with your other friend, Lilliana?”

The air crackled with the electricity of Grace’s hatred.

Praying to her abuelo for strength, Grace focused all her rage into a tiny pinpoint.

Her finger moved a hair.

Please, just a little more.

The gunshot thundered, deafening in the small space.