Page 281 of Alpha Mates

If witches wanted to levitate, that was their business. I’m sticking on the ground. Unfortunately, Katerina is a psychopath.

Her eyes flash before that smug grin returns—right as I feel an invisible force moving against my body.

“No!” I shout, trying to fight against it, but it drags me forward against my will. “Katerina! Stop!” I twist off the ledge, barely managing to grab onto it while the rest of my body hovers like a kite in the sky.

She doesn’t even look at me. Her magic tugs again, and then I’m floating beside her. I look down, and fear alone keeps the scream lodged in my throat.

I’m not afraid of heights, but I’m definitely afraid of dangling in the sky with my life in the hands of a fucking witch.

“Relax, Aiden,” she sings, reclining back and folding her hands behind her head. “Justrelax.”

“I don’t want to fucking relax! Put me down!” I bark, but she ignores me, and I can tell the demented witch plans to until I do.

Mumbling curses under my breath, I force myself to breathe in through my nose. Again, slower. It takes a minute, but eventually I calm myself enough to notice that beneath me feels… solid. It might be invisible, but it’s firm enough that I can rest against it.

“There you go,” Kat praises, beaming with satisfaction.

I glare. “What did you call your version of a mate again?” I ask, if only to steal that smile.

It does the job, and Kat rolls her eyes. “A linker.”

I stare her down until she groans.

“It’s sort of like mates, I guess,” she explains begrudgingly. “Like you, they’re our other half—all that soulmate bullshit, can’t live without them, yada yada. But the Gods weren’t as kind as your Goddess. We don’t get to reject and move on. We don’t get an out.”

My brows pinch together. “What do you mean?”

Her lips part before she stops and side-eyes me. “You’re asking for top-secret information, y’know.”

“I’m actually asking to be put down, but you—”

She sighs theatrically before looking skyward. “Witches draw power in different ways. We don’t get to choose—you just figure out where you fall when you get old enough. There’s the earth bitches, the dark-magic whores, and the ancestral dicks.”

I blink. “Wow. Really sells the whole mystique.”

“If you’re wondering which one I am—ding, ding, ding—all of the above. I’m a lovely abnormal who can draw from every source, but that’s not all, this girl can draw from people too.” She points a thumb at herself.

I ignore the theatrics and focus on what she’s saying.

I knew something was off about her, but having access to every form of witch magic was insane. I’d never heard of a witch able to draw from more than one source, let alone all of them.

Katerina’s grin stretches as she watches my face. “I know. I’m a catch.”

I’d go withnightmare, but I let her have it.

“So, what does that have to do with your linkers?” I ask, making her sigh.

“When we witches find our linkers, the source of our magic becomes … unpredictable,” she drudges on. “Maybe you keep drawing from what you always did, or if you’re unlucky, you stop. You start drawing from them, and your linker becomes your little battery for life.” She scrunches her nose like the idea physically pains her. “It doesn’t hurt them or anything, and it actually makes you stronger because it’s a two-way street. But that’s if you accept them. If you’re one of the unlucky ones and don’t complete the link, then what do you draw from?”

“Nothing,” I whisper as it comes. “You both die.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh,bothof us?” She blinks. “I never realised the other one croaks too. That sucks.”

“But that’s only if you reject them. If you don’t, you would get stronger, right? You’re already so powerful. Wouldn’t it just make you … more?”

“Nah. Both cases are a lose-lose for me,” she says, looking serious for the first time. “If my magic continues as usual, I’m me, just with extra baggage I don’t want. And if I’m unlucky and it doesn’t, I’ll go from drawing from everything—”

“To only drawing from one source,” I finish as understanding finally dawns.