Page 26 of Alpha Wolf’s Arranged Bride (Rose Hollow Wolves #1)

“We’re fucked,” Rex states with not even a hint of irony.

I couldn’t agree more.

Vanessa is racing around the circle with her razor-sharp claws, slicing up warriors in both human and wolf form. Even though the tough, trained fighters give their best, she moves with magical speed and power, slicing them to ribbons with barely a pause.

The blood pours onto the stone, where it’s immediately absorbed. As more warriors die, the great snake gets bigger and thicker, curling above us like a rising tornado. The heat in the circle increases, and a terrible wind begins to whirl around us.

Uncle Azarian is charging straight into the center of the circle—right at me. The snake’s tail emerges from a crack in the sigil right behind us. Since the ritual began, I haven’t been able to move.

I’m linked to the snake somehow. Can I use this?

I feel like the Old God might be vulnerable until it absorbs the blood of the warriors, and that might be why it needs me, but I can’t think of a way to use it.

Could anyone think in a situation like this?

Azarian is now about ten feet away, distracted as he cuts down any warriors in his path.

Rex is tugging on my arm, trying to get me to my feet, but it’s as if my knees are glued to the stone.

I look out towards the edge of the circle, praying that Jarrod is safe and someone out there is moving the innocents as far away as they can get.

The best way out of this might be the explosion. We can’t let this snake merge with Azarian!

“Rex,” I gasp, forcing him to look at me. “You have to get out of here!”

“No!” he yells. “I’m not leaving you!”

“You have to!” I scream. “For Jarrod!”

“Jarrod’s going to be fine because we’re both getting out of here!”

Rex turns away from me to look up at the snake.

Its body is now as thick as an old tree, and it towers above us like a ten-story building.

When I stretch to see its head, I see a huge pair of glowing ruby eyes staring right at me.

A long, forked tongue like a streak of mercury flickers from its mouth, and I hear a voice in my mind.

Scarlett…

A scream pours out of my throat at the feel of the Old God’s mind touching mine. I struggle to get to my feet, and all I manage to do is fall straight on my face, spread out on the rock as if in supplication.

“That’s right!” Azarian yells. “Accept your fate! The snake needs your blood, your life! Then it will transfer to me, and I will have its power!”

Pressed to the simmering hot stone, I feel like a heavyweight is keeping me flat against it. Rex is tugging on my hand, but he can’t move me. The pain of my injuries, the screams of dying warriors, and sheer exhaustion all hit me at once, leaving a dark well of hopelessness inside.

It’s useless , I think . We can’t win this.

Scarlett…

I hear the voice again, something truly inhuman that slithers through my thoughts, thin, quiet, but impossible to ignore. With the whisper, images begin to fall through my mind, and I realize they are memories of the past.

But not my memories.

I’m looking down at the stone from high above, as if I’m looking through the snake’s eyes.

Around the circle, I see crowds of people on their knees, worshipping the great god.

The snake is starving, a hunger more powerful than anything I’ve ever known.

It asks for blood and sacrifice. The surrounding people don’t feed it enough—the blood is nowhere near enough to satisfy its hunger.

The snake screams, all its power combusting within the center of the circle. A shockwave pours out around the stone, decimating everything around it for miles. As the energy spills out with extreme destructive force, the snake is sucked back down into the rock to sleep again.

Years later, it is awoken. This time, they bring hundreds more to sacrifice. The snake rises for the innocent blood, then feasts on the warriors, becoming stronger than it has ever been. When the time comes for the power transfer, the alpha invites the Old God into himself.

With glowing red eyes and a flashing silver tongue, the snake approaches the alpha, glaring at him. I can feel the snake’s contempt for this stupid mortal that thinks to control it, and its amusement that yet another has failed to understand the runes.

As the alpha invites the snake into his heart, the Old God obliges, pouring itself into his mortal form.

The alpha screams as his body tries to contain the endless, divine spirit, but he isn’t strong enough, and the flames shred him, bit by bit, as he clings to life, fighting to the bitter end to contain the power.

Again, the snake being swiftly returned to the stone triggers a massive explosion, with an earthquake cascading out from the site in a rumbling wave.

The snake shows me ritual after ritual and how each one failed. My body stays pressed flat on the rock right in the midst of battle, but my mind has flown back into the past, where the Old God reveals its secrets to me.

Why are you showing me this?

The snake does not respond with words, but I feel satisfaction flooding through it, an almost sensual pleasure. The Old God slithers upwards, coiling towards the sky as it enjoys the sacrifice and death done in its name.

This time is perfect , it hisses in my mind. The alpha, the witch, the blood of a hundred warriors… and the innocent.

I’m not innocent! I’m just an ordinary woman! There is nothing special about me!

A high, piercing sound breaks through the haze around me, and I’m back in the present moment. Rex is frantically trying to get me to my feet, and Azarian is almost on top of us, his long, sharp knife held high.

The sounds of the fight around us have gotten louder, and I see that more of Rex’s Shadows have joined. Vanessa is still tearing into them, but as more join the fight, it looks like they are managing to push her back and get her on the run.

“The explosion,” I gasp, looking up at Rex. “Even if we can stop this, it’s the force of the snake returning to its home that causes the cataclysm. We’re all dead, no matter what.”

“I don’t think we should let Azarian and Vanessa absorb the power just to avoid the quake,” Rex says. “I can’t imagine what this thing would do if it were mobile.”

Rex has instinctively understood that the snake is tied to the stone and needs a human host to leave.

It makes me wonder if Azarian and Vanessa have fully understood that the snake has a will of its own, and even if they manage to contain it within themselves, it’s likely that they won’t be able to control it.

“Azarian!” Vanessa screams, turning to run towards us. “Do it now! I can’t hold them off!”

My uncle was diverted from his path by warriors he cut down without mercy, but now he’s only a few feet away from me and Rex. Azarian is covered in blood. His eyes are black, sunken holes in his face, and his wide, fanged grin is truly the stuff of nightmares.

Rex jumps in front of me, and I scream for him to get out of the way, but he stays in Azarian’s path. Vanessa is closing in fast, and I know he can’t take them both on, even with his Shadows beginning to run towards us to help.

The snake roars, a terrifying, soul-crushing sound. It twists and bends over itself, slowly coiling down towards Azarian. He opens his arms and looks up at the snake with adoration.

“Fill me, great one!” he yells. “My body is yours!”

“Hear the melody of the runes!” Vanessa gasps, joining Azarian. “Be bound by the magics, and serve us.”

A bright glow envelops us, and the horrible vibration increases until it feels like my eardrums are going to burst. Rex falls to the ground, and the other warriors are blown out of the circle as a tremor booms beneath us.

When I look up, the snake is pouring itself into Azarian’s body. He laughs maniacally, and through my connection with the snake, I can feel that Azarian is containing the power more than any of his predecessors did.

My uncle screams as the snake keeps pouring into him, and I pray that he’ll be destroyed by it, even if it means all of us going out in the explosion. My eyes are locked on the scene before me as the great tower of flame becomes one with Azarian.

Suddenly, everything stops. The air is still. There is no wind, no roaring, no crackling sounds of fire. The edges of the circle look very far away, and there is only me, Rex, Vanessa… and Azarian.

And the snake?

My uncle opens his eyes, and they aren’t dark pits anymore. They are a glowing, glittering ruby.

The snake’s eyes!

Azarian takes a step forward and almost falls. He laughs, a disturbingly beautiful sound of pure amusement. When he tries to walk again, it’s with another broken step.

Rex roars, pulling out his blade and swinging it at Azarian’s neck. Before the blade can reach him, it melts into slag, droplets of steel hissing as they hit the red rock.

Vanessa shrieks with laughter, pointing at Azarian. “You’re too late! He’s invulnerable! It worked. Share the power with me, my love!”

Azarian turns to look at her, his eyes still glowing ruby-red with no pupils. He tries to speak, and I see the flicker of the snake’s forked silver tongue. As my uncle takes a step towards Vanessa, I see bright spots of flame chasing across his skin, as if his insides are made of fire.

Again, I have to say… we’re fucked.

Vanessa reaches out for Azarian, a tender look on her face. He cups her cheeks in his hands and smiles.

Azarian’s hands slowly turn to gold as all the fire in his body coalesces into his hands. Vanessa tries to pull away, screaming horribly, but Azarian tightens his grip, digging his thumbs into her cheeks as fire pours into her, burning her to ash.

Rex stumbles, taking a step back from my uncle. I try again to get up, but my feet still feel stuck to the stone. My skin crawls with a strange, pinching sensation, and my hands begin to feel warm and tingly.

What’s happening to me?

Azarian laughs, that strange, almost pretty sound. It strikes me as odd that under different circumstances, I might find the snake beautiful.

Maybe when it’s not trying to kill hundreds of people and level the forest.

Azarian reaches for me, and Rex tries to jump forward to get in his way, but stumbles. Power whips around me, and the strange sensations in my body get worse.

The glowing, ruby eyes fix on mine, and Azarian bends forward to look deeply into me. I feel mesmerized, falling into the glittering depths.

“Scarlett,” my uncle says in his human voice. He sounds surprised and somewhat disappointed.

I pull back from the contact just in time to see Azarian’s body incinerated from the inside out. It happens in less than a millisecond. One moment, he’s in front of me. Next, he’s ash drifting on the wind.

What just happened?

The snake hovers before me, the silver tongue flicking out as its form fades. The Old God looks into my eyes as it becomes insubstantial, and I feel the tingling in my body again. The strange, lovely laughter echoes through my head, and I know the snake and I are still connected.

It speaks to me one last time.

We’ll be seeing each other again soon, Scarlett…

It fades from view, and suddenly, I can move. My muscles tremble from being held still for so long, and Rex throws his arms around me.

“What the fuck just happened?” he yells.

“I don’t know,” I answer. “But I think the snake played us all.”

“Doesn’t it want to get free of the stone? Why would it kill Azarian, then?”

“Rex,” I say. “I think it is free of the stone.”

“What?”

“It didn’t go back in. There was no quake.”

“So, where the fuck is it now?”

My hands tingle, and the sensation disturbs me so much, I almost cry.

“I don’t know!” I blurt out. “I don’t fucking know!”

“Of course not,” Rex says, hugging me tight. “That was a stupid question. Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

“Yes, let’s,” I agree, letting Rex help me to my feet.

As I leave the circle, I feel lingering fear and doubt, but every step closer to the woods feels lighter, and I begin to feel like myself again.

I don’t know what happened to me in there… but I’m leaving it behind. Let it stay in the circle, and I’ll get on with my life.

As we step off the stone and I see Jarrod running towards us, I hear just the faintest hint of the snake’s beautiful, joyous laughter.