Page 69 of Ascendant King

Wolves flowed around me, and they smelled like pack, because I had that now. Alphas didn’t fall to pieces over things like this.

With a grunt of effort, I shifted back into my human form. My mouth was coated in blood, some of it Benji’s, but most of it from where the magic I’d torn off Lynn and him had burned my skin.

Cade reached forward, his hand brushing my cheek, and I felt the thousand small pressures of his magic on my skin, crawling over my mouth. After a few seconds, he said, “There. That’s the best I can do until we get you back to Rhys.”

I shook my head, clearing my throat. “I just need to shift a couple of times.”

Cade looked at me, and I had to look away before I drowned in his gaze. I was at the bottom of a deep cavern, I was lost in the dark, and if I fell further into Cade’s eyes, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get out.

Standing, I locked my knees. I wasn’t going to fall now; I wasn’t going to drop to the ground over this. Cade handed me clothes, and I dressed quickly.

The wolves around me parted, and I saw Nia standing over a female wolf. The rest of Ghost Pack was defeated, or fled into the shadows. Nia’s growl told me how easy the fight had been for her.

Even after eleven years, I recognized her on sight. Benji’s blood was drying, tacky on my skin. My mouth tasted salty and when I swallowed, I could still feel the burn where Cade had only just barely healed my soft palate.

“Miriam,” I said. “Shift. We’re going to talk.”

Chapter

Twenty-Three

Miriam looked away, and Nia reached down, growling. Miriam glared, a fierce, sharp snarl on her lips.

“Shift.” I let everything that was alpha in me force itself into the words. She would shift because I needed her to, because I had questions.

Miriam snorted out a breath, but I didn’t let up.

“I command you toshift.” I forced the words past the knot in my throat, the terror that I wouldn’t be able to make her shift, that she’d somehow be able to avoid the pressure of my strength. What would that do for the tenuous respect the other wolves had for me?

With a grunt, Miriam began to shift, the snap of bones and tearing of skin lasting only a few seconds before she was human again. Then she glared at me, kneeling on the ground. As she started to stand, Nia growled low in her throat.

Miriam shot her a disgusted look. When she turned to me, I didn’t recognize her, although I could see she had the same color hair as our mother, the same sharp eyes.

“Oh, the big bad alpha wants to talk to me? Go ahead.Talk.” Her lip peeled up from her teeth.

“Where is everyone?” I demanded. “The mages, the consorts?”

She shrugged. “Some are inside. Some are gone. I don’t keep track of mages.”

“Miri…” I drew out her name, glaring fiercely. “Where are they?”

She rolled her eyes. “They stay on their side, we stay on ours. Benji likes it that way. He’s the only one they talk to.”

“Benji’s dead.” The words were flat as I said them. The rage and tears and all the feelings that were associated with him fell away.

Miriam looked away, her eyes scanning the battlefield. The members of Ghost Pack that hadn’t run away were subdued, held underneath growling members of Los Santos or the packs that had come with us. Her eyes found Benji’s fallen body.

Snorting, she shook her head. “So you did kill him. He thought you’d freeze up. He said you froze up the last time he met you.”

I tried not to think about the last time I’d seen him, when Declan Monroe was defeated and I hadn’t known who he was until he spoke. Something warm brushed my elbow, a tickle of magic trailing up my skin, Cade’s hand at my elbow.

“Miriam, how could you betray us like that?” I asked, stepping forward.

She sneered, raising her chin to toss her hair back. “How could I? Our mother killed a mage king. We were dead anyway. At least Benji offered me a way out.”

“Bykilling your family.” I felt the words burning in my chest, as though I’d swallowed some of the magic from the wards, as though it was burning me from the inside out.

“By finally being free ofyou.” At my expression, Miriam barked out a laugh. “Miles Castillo, the littleperfect alpha. Oh, Mom liked to pretend she didn’t have favorites, but who was theone who got all the books he wanted? Who got every opportunity to sit at her side because someday he was going to be just as powerful as her?”