Page 263 of Alpha Mates

“I really hope this worked.”

“We’ll see,” Katerina mumbles, shifting her blank stare away from Julian’s prone body. “I tried to give them space, but things sounded a bit heated.”

My brows twitch closer. That’s more than Max had given me.

You really going to let a witch tell me what’s going on?I push at him, but still nothing.

He’s there, but no amount of begging gets him to speak. All I feel from Max is sorrow, settled exactly where our shared anxiety used to be.

“But he’s okay?” I press as I look up at the witch sitting across from me.

“Yes,” Katerina drawls, her eyes rolling as she toys with one of the beads in her hair. “Again—for themillionth time—he’s fine.”

When she catches me glaring at her, she tosses one right back.

“Why would I lie? If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have gone through all this just to get it done. He’s fine. It was just taxing on his body, and now he’s resting.”

If Julian had been hurt by something she’d done, I’d have felt it in my bones, if not my spirit, but there’s none of that. And the scent of magic is already fading from his skin.

“Okay,” I force out, looking behind me for the tear that brought us here.

I want to take Jewels home so he can rest, but the only house in sight pulls my focus—the squat cottage with its thatched roofing.

When we first got here, I’d been too focused on surviving to really look around. Now it’s impossible to ignore that we’re hundreds of miles away from our pack, in some desolate corner of the Earth that Katerina has carved out for herself.

The question was, if she had this little escape, what in Goddess’s name was she doing running around the unclaimed lands beyond ours? She’d promised she wasn’t drawing magic from our pack, but Julian and I never got around to asking about syphoning.

“So,” I start, returning my gaze to the peculiar witch. “What did you do to get kicked out of your coven?”

Katerina makes a face, her nose wrinkling like the idea of talking to a werewolf physically pains her. The feeling’s mutual, but I can’t leave here without at least some clue of what’s going on.

Between the rogues and now her, it feels like we’re playing chess with a limited view of what pieces are on the board.

“Why do you assume I was kicked out?” she snaps. “I could’ve left.”

“Well, did you?”

“Ha—fuck no. They kicked me out.” She breaks into her manic laugh, rocking back and forth. I roll my eyes, already too used to her brand of crazy.

“What’d you do?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she toys with her hair, twisting and untwisting the strands. She shifts and fidgets then finally drops the braid with an exaggerated sigh, folding a leg under her.

“Power makes you the strongest,” she murmurs. In her open hand, a rose just—appears. No flare, no warning, like the air decided to humour her. Its dark purple petals catch the light.

She strokes it with a small twitch of a smile, gentle in a way that doesn’t match the rest of her.

“I got powerful, so naturally … I became the strongest.” The flower hovers above her palm, spinning slow and deliberate. “Eventually, I gottoopowerful”—the rose stops—“and I didn’t know what to do with all that power.” The rose shakes. “I tried to lock it up so they couldn’t have it.”

Smoke rises from the centre of each petal before they begin burning off, one by one. “Then one day, it got out.”

The flower torches down to its stem, flaring red—beautiful—before it turns to ash and withers to the ground. The wind takes the remnants, scattering them, and Katerina tucks her hand back into her pocket.

Silence looms between us, awkward. She stares at the ground with empty eyes. She doesn’t move much, but around her, the world is saying what she tries to keep bottled up.

Clouds brew overhead, swallowing the sun, and the winds pick up. Even without knowing her, I can scent the sudden bitterness in the air as sadness.

I shift uncomfortably, instincts telling me to get Jewels and get the fuck out of here before she detonates, but there’s also the urge—quiet but still there—to help.