Filed To Story: Claimed by the Alpha I Hate Book Read Free
“You-you haven’t called them?” Cassidy gaped, stumbling over a root that protruded from the ground. If it weren’t for Tristan’s quick reflexes, she would’ve face planted.
I didn’t answer her question, but instead wracked my brain for a solution, for some strategy that would allow two werewolves and one vampire to apprehend not only six vampires, but a d**d/undead biker named Lars. This was one of those impossible situations only magic would solve, yet I had no clue how to call on the mysterious force that sometimes filled my body and made my skin tingle like a livewire.
No one was coming to help. It was only us, surrounded by forest so dense that almost no moonlight could break through. The canopies overhead only allowed the smallest sliver, which is what lit our way as we ran.
We were alone, but not completely.
The shadows around us were frantic, throwing whispers at rapid fire that I couldn’t even begin to make out.
Nolan would be furious, and so would everyone else but I was given this ability for a reason, and I’d be damned if I weren’t going to use it in times of dire need. I couldn’t rely on my magic, not without proper training, but I could rely on the otherworldly power of the shadows.
“Help us.” I hissed, raising my voice so that it carved through the trees and into every dark corner of the forest.
Both Tristan and Cassidy gave me identical looks of confusion, though Tristan’s quickly morphed to understanding. It was that understanding that darkened his eyes and hardened his jaw. I swore beneath the rustling of foliage and the crunch of earth beneath our feet, I could hear his teeth grinding together.
“What are you-” Cassidy began, her words faltering when I dug my heels into the ground and stumbled to a stop.
“I know you can hear me!” I snarled at them, turning in a circle to stare at the writhing mounds of darkness that hid behind the thick trees and large stones. “Why are you so afraid of me! Why now?!”
“Fear? Daisy, the shadows can’t feel fear.” Tristan said, his eyes darting in all directions. I couldn’t tell if he were searching for the shadows, or for a sign of the Vampire’s that chased us.
“They didn’t want to save Breyona, but I made them. I made them, Tristan, and they didn’t ask for anything in return.” I told him, well aware that I was coming off as manic, but it wasn’t just our best option, it was our only option.
Tristan narrowed his eyes, scanning the forest line. “That’s not possible. They always have a price.
Maybe they haven’t told you it yet.”
With a snarl, I spun around. We didn’t have time for this, for Tristan and me to argue over something I was so sure about. The way their behavior had changed since removing the bind on my magic, it was impossible to ignore.
They were no longer eager to make deals with me but were now terrified of my presence.
“I said help us, d**n it!” I bellowed, balling my hands into fists.
There was a rustle from afar, followed by the crunch of gravel and branches beneath heavy feet.
Tristan grabbed my arm, his grip almost painful. I shoved him off, using some obscure technique Chris had shown me to slip under his arm, the very arm he tried to hook around my waist.
“Daisy, you can’t-” He began, genuine concern filling his eyes, turning them into a set of small oases that glimmered in the dark.
The sound of shuffling grew closer, but it was Cassidy’s whimper that told me our chance to evade had just passed.
“Watch me.”
Channeling the same horrible emotions I felt when I found Breyona d***g in that clearing was all too easy. Like it was hours ago, I could recall the fear, the utter hopelessness that had filled every corner of my soul, had filled my body with cement until I thought I’d sink into the earth, never to return. If Breyona had died that night, I knew a part of me would’ve died too.
I owed the shadows everything; the life of my mate, and my best-friend. It wasn’t hatred that kept me from working with them in the past, but fear. Fear because I knew how steep a price they could ask for.
Fear because I had felt the kind of desperation that would bring a person to give anything, absolutely anything to protect the ones they loved.
As those damning emotions filled my body, it wasn’t just the electrical current of magic they brought on, but a dreadful sort of cold that was injected directly into my bloodstream.
The forest around me with its vague shapes and distorted bushes sharpened, revealing not only the writhing shadows but the six figures that had chased us all this way.
“I said, help us.” I commanded them, forcing every bit of emotion into my words until I was sure my voice would crack.
Three things happened simultaneously, each one more confusing than the next.
“Oh my goddess…” Cassidy whispered; the whites of her eyes huge as she stared at me with an open mouth.
The six figures burst free from the brush, each one a Vampire with glittering eyes and an expression of pure malice on their faces.
They didn’t have time to register the inky smoke that slithered along the ground, that’s how quickly the shadows movedfinally answering my call.
Each cluster of pulsating darkness shot out, wrapping around the necks of the two Vampire’s standing at the lead. Like glittering spider webs coated in obsidian, they shimmered under the scarce amount of moonlight.
Where the first two Vampire’s had panic-stricken faces, clawing, and snapping at the shadows that squeezed the life from their bodies, the other four were faster in their evasions. Three of them raised their arms in time to block their throats, though the sticky webs wrapped around their forearms and climbed higher as they thrashed. The sixth managed to leap out of the way, but it wasn’t the nimble
Vampire I scanned the forest floor, but the thing that Lars had been turned into.
If only they knew speed couldn’t save them.
The shadows that avoided me for the last two weeks now seemed attuned to my emotions, my wants and needs no matter how sadistic or depraved they were. The feeling of cold, icy power was addictive, numbing my nerve endings until nothing else mattered but the threat they posed and the lives they endangered.
No longer did they feel like a chaotic, otherworldly force I had no choice but to work with. Instead they were an ancient power brought into this world through pain and suffering, a weapon, an extension of my own power and will.
I threw my arms out, raising them far above my head and felt that icy power explode in my chest. At the same time, a hundredperhaps a thousand of those razor thin webs burst into existence, appearing from the clusters of shadows that had watched and whispered unhelpfully.
Many hit the trees, rocks, and earth, but even more hit the Vampire’s that stalked us, wrapping around their limbs, and tightening their grip much like a snake would. It was both beautiful and deadly, watching them pierce their skin, seeing the looks of apprehension and confusion as they realized I was capable of so much more than their previous ruler.
“Daisy, remember you don’t want to k**l them.” I heard Tristan murmur, barely registering the sound of his voice over the roar in my ears. His hand ghosted across my shoulder in a gesture meant to soothe me, but all it did was break the haze the addictive power I wielded had over me.
The tendrils of shadow that had been tightening around their throats, turning their faces various shades of black and blue, loosened just enough to allow them air.
Rather than show my emotions and express the ripple of doubt and regret that passed through me, I steeled my spine and faced them the way a true Queen would.
“You have all made a grave mistake coming here tonight.” I assured them, looking each one in the face from where they hovered several feet above the ground, wrapped almost entirely in darkness and shadow. “K*****g all of you is well within my power, and well within my rights, but I vowed long ago that
I would be a different kind of ruler. Tell me, (why) have you come here and where is Lars?”
With eyes of varying shapes and colors, each Vampire stared at me. Two of the males, both Hispanic with heads of curly hair spat at my feet, while the other three remained silent. The only female of the bunch, the one nimble enough to evade my first a****k, snarled freely.
“You are not their Queen, Luna Daisy.” A voice both masculine and feminine said, pulsating from deeper within the forest, like an echo that rippled and spread across the earth. “Their true ruler resides within the Land of the D**d. For now, anyway.”
Tristan sank into a crouch beside me, all too easily snapping out of his surprise.
I saw his face first, pale and covered in dark veins as his blank eyes stared at me through the night.
The way he moved, hobbling as he pushed past the bushes and hanging foliage, unflinching even with the knife protruding just below his left eye, struck a chord deep within me.
His arms and legs moved as though they were heavier than the rest of him and dredged up a seemingly unimportant memory from my childhood.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?