Filed To Story: Claimed by the Alpha I Hate Book Read Free
Daisy, we pray to the Goddess these find you in time and not some other soul. Protect this information with your life, there are people who will k**l for it. They know we stole it, and they’re hunting us now. If we don’t make it, give Breyona the letter we included and tell her we love her. You’ve been a wonderful friend to her since you’ve come back into her life, and all that we ask is that you use what you’ve learned to keep her safe, to keep them all safe.
When I came back inside the living room, nothing had changed. Zeke was still dancing with Breyona while Giovanni watched with a mixture of irritation and adoration on his face. Tristan continued to glance at Holly, who was curled up on the couch watching the two dance with blush-stained cheeks.
Clara and Mason looked like they wanted to join in, while Cassidy laughed at Kendrick’s terrible moves.
Only Nolan noticed me come back in, his dark stare soft as it turned to my face. There must’ve been something—some fragment of truth in my expression because his eyebrows slid into a grimace and his jaw tightened.
“What is it?” He asked, coming to my side.
I held the papers in my grasp, still trying to process what the h**l I’d just read. The envelope with
Breyona’s name on the front sat at the very top, another hole in my heart because I knew this letter would dampen her mood. It was from her parents, a last farewell to their only daughter before they were m******d.
The single envelope felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
Every head in the room turned to Nolan and I, hearing the question he’d asked me and seeing the truth on my face. Tristan was at my side in an instant, followed by Breyona. Giovanni hovered at her back protectively, as though he could shield her from whatever had gone wrong.
“The neighbor just brought this over. Apparently, it was delivered to the wrong house.” I said, my voice low and eyes darting up to meet Breyona’s. “It’s from your parents.”
My best-friend s****d in a sharp breath, her large brown eyes instantly watering. They scanned the papers in my hands, latching onto the envelope that stood out against the tanned pages that had been torn from the book on my family’s history.
“Is that…is that for me?” Her voice trembled as she asked.
I swallowed the knot in my throat. “They left it for you…incase they didn’t make it.”
Her lower lip began to tremble, and she brought her hand up to hide it just as Giovanni pulled her into his arms. I looked up at the Vampire that towered over her, that protected her with the same fervor he protected me with.
“Take her to my bedroom or one of the spares. I’m sure she doesn’t want an audience.” I murmured, handing him the envelope with pain clutching my heart.
Zeke, who had been hovering on the outskirts, cocked his head. “Those papers are from the book, aren’t they? What do they say?”
I gave a small shake of my head, one that said, ‘not here.’ It’s not that I didn’t trust everyone else in the room, but my insides were so shaken that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to utter the words around this many people.
Mason’s voice rang out, snaring all of our attention. He had his arm around Clara’s shoulder, but his words weren’t just directed to her.
“Mind if we grab some of those leftovers you got stashed away? I’m starved.” He said, rubbing his toned stomach. There was a knowing look on his face, but it was laced with sympathy that told me he understood completely.
Clara hummed, holding back laughter. She batted her eyelashes at Mason, making him smile. “You’re always hungry, but I could use a snack too. Alcohol gives me the munchies.”
Kendrick nodded, oblivious to the tension in the room. “I second that. Plus there’s never a bad time for a burger.”
“Go ahead and dig in.” I said, forcing a smile onto my face.
Mason and Clara headed into the kitchen with Cassidy and Kendrick following closely behind. The blonde in charge of hosting tonight’s sleepover had a concerned look on her face, and clear reluctance in her eyes as she left us alone.
Holly appeared around Tristan’s shoulder, tapping it gently to get his attention.
“I think I’m going to go with them. I could use another blood bag.” She whispered, her eyes flickering over the rest of us.
Tristan nodded, something in the depths of his icy gaze thawing as he looked down at my half-sister.
“Giovanni put them in the ice box in the garage.”
Once Holly had padded out of the living room, leaving only Nolan, Zeke, Tristan, and myself, I knelt down in front of the coffee table and spread the papers out for them to see. Nolan flicked on the television, cranking the volume up to drown out our voices.
They were made of the same thick material as in the book. Even the writing and ink were the same, elegant, and lilting as someone with an expert hand painted them across the page. The frayed edges only proved further that they were the missing pages, but it did nothing to explain how they’d gotten that way to begin with, or who had taken them.
Each one of the guys passed around the sticky note that was attached to the front, their eyes skimming over the last words of Breyona’s parents before they were k****d.
“The witches are the ones that k****d them, so it stands they most likely had the pages to begin with.
We need to prepare for the possibility that they already know.” Tristan pointed out, his mind on the same track as my own.
I chewed anxiously on my lower lip, picking at the skin that come up from the last time I bit into it.
“We need to pray to the Goddess that they don’t.” I whispered, staring down at the pages.
“What the f**k?” Zeke mumbled, his eyes sliding back and forth as they traversed each page with rapt interest. He slid a hand down his face, which had paled considerably. “F**k, this is bad.”
Nolan, who had been silent this entire time, pinched the bridge of his nose and suppressed a snarl.
“Can someone explain?”
On any other occasion, Tristan would’ve taken that moment to poke fun at Nolan. He would’ve gotten into him for being too impatient and high-strung to read. The stoic Vampire said nothing, looking expectantly at Zeke and I as he too waited for an explanation.
Zeke looked up at me, a light I’d never seen before in his eyes. They’d always been full of warmth and friendliness, and while they weren’t exactly distrusting, there was a wariness there that I found myself hating.
“Do you want to, or should I?”
“Go ahead.” I croaked, not trusting my voice.
“The first page is saying there are no limits to Conjuration, but that there are certain…side effects. The side effects the witch experiences are dependent on where the power comes from. It goes on to describe these two different planes of existence. They’re kind of like Heaven and H**l, only think of them as dark and light. There’s no way to travel to these planes, but they’re the sources of magic that all witches pull from. Even the evil ones pull from light without knowing it since the dark plane is so hard to access. There are some in history that have accessed the dark plane, but only in small amounts.
Conjuration acts like a key to both planes, and lets the witch pull from them freely…drawing as much power as she wants.” He explained, pausing to give Nolan and Tristan a moment to catch up.
Tristan’s grimace held a hint of confusion. “How is this knowledge dangerous?”
“He hasn’t even gotten to the good part yet.” I said, my lips pressed in a thin line.
Zeke tapped the second page in the stack. “It gives an example. It talks about one of Daisy’s ancestors who pulled from the dark plane, drawing more power than any other witch has in existence. The spell k****d an entire town of people, but it worked.”
The dim lighting paired with the pressure filling the room, s*****g the air from the four walls, left me lightheaded and shivering. I slid my hands beneath my t****s to hide the tremble in them.
Nolan leaned forward in his seat. “What did the spell do?”
Instead of looking at Nolan, Zeke met my eyes as he spoke.
“The spell created something. Something dark and never before seen by our world. It created the
Shadows.”
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?