Page 24 of Brutal Alpha Beast (Roseville Alphas #2)

I decide to go to the coven to pick Danielle up.

When I don’t scent her nearby after a long while, I decide that it’ll be a good idea to escort her back home.

I know how bad she’s been feeling, and I want to treat her to something today.

We could go out and get dinner, or watch a film at home—whatever she wants.

I want to make her feel good, but also not suffocated.

As I get nearer to the coven, her scent gets stronger. I’m relieved.

I trusted her this morning, but I can never be too sure; Danielle can be so secretive.

A couple of witches who I’ve gotten to know during our time being allied greet me at the entrance.

It’s good to feel welcomed here. It reminds me how far I’ve come.

Life is buzzing on as usual at the coven, although I can sense the tension in the air.

I want to ask them about the general sentiment among coven members and whether any progress has been made relating to the curse (unfortunately, not much development on my end), but then I spot Danielle.

“Good to see you both!” I call, before rushing to follow after her.

She’s walking around by herself, looking as though she’s in some sort of daze.

When she doesn’t respond after I say her name, I get worried.

I catch up to her, and as I touch her, she looks confused at first. For a split second, it is as though she doesn’t recognize who I am.

My instincts sharpen. “Are you okay? It’s me, Ellis.”

“Oh,” she says, smiling after—although something about it looks wrong. “Sorry, I’ve been feeling off.”

“I know,” I respond. “Are you good? Did coming here help?”

She looks around at the coven grounds, avoiding eye contact—her face still in a strange sort of daze.

Something is definitely still off.

“Yes,” she replies in a monotone, “it was good to see Monroe.”

“That’s good,” I say carefully. “If you’re done, do you want to get out of here? Maybe we can do something fun?”

“Yeah...”

I’m about to turn when she grabs my arm. “Wait,” she says. “Let’s go to my old place here first. You haven’t seen it, right? I don’t remember. But I’m enjoying the energy here—it’s soothing.”

Even the way she says ‘soothing’ sounds wrong. So artificial, as though she’s feeling the exact opposite, and I can’t understand why she’d lie. She knows that I support her.

But if my recent experiences with Danielle have taught me anything, I need to be patient. Especially when I don’t understand what’s going on.

“Sure,” I say. “If that’s what you want. Lead the way.”

I follow Danielle as she leads me to a cabin. Once we step inside, I expect Monroe to be there—but she’s not.

“What do you think?” She asks.

“It’s cozy,” I respond.

Something’s definitely weird, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Usually, Danielle would have made a joke by now, or at least some sort of snarky response—she does this even when she’s in a bad mood.

I look around the place carefully. Is coming here a clue? Something she wants me to look at that relates to her strange mood?

But I don’t notice anything that wouldn’t usually be found in a witch’s cabin.

I walk around.

“So, what did you get up to?” I ask. I have my back to her as I inspect.

“Well,” she says. “I was with Penelope, and then I wanted to find Monroe. We were in the forest, talking, girl stuff. It was good.”

“How is Monroe?” I ask.

“Why?” She says quickly.

I turn, she’s close to me and takes a couple of steps back.

Does she think I don’t trust her? Is she trying to suss me out?

“You said you hadn’t spoken to her in a while, and you were concerned.”

Danielle makes a face, like something about Monroe, or the situation is pissing her off.

Is that why she’s acting so strange?

“Right,” she says, leading me through to the kitchen. Again, I’m not sure if there’s something here that I should be looking out for. “Well, Monroe was fine,” she snaps. “I think she’s just been going through some stuff. I think we all have. No one's pain is worse than any other's.”

“No,” I agree, looking around at the cabinets. “Of course, not.”

The place is clean. Not a dish out of place, shiny fruits stacked accordingly in their bowls. I notice a few bottles of what looks like potions on the kitchen table.

There are five of them, all different shapes and sizes. Some are long and pink, some short and green, and others are circular and blue.

Out of the five, one of them has been opened, and I can see that the liquid in that one is only half full.

“Have you been doing research?” I ask, gazing at the bottles.

She doesn’t respond.

I glance over my shoulder and freeze.

Danielle is standing dead-still, her hands by her side as her eyes lock onto me with a strange intensity.

She looks too emotionless. Too still.

My instincts tell me something is very wrong.

Her hand twitches slightly, and in an instant, there’s a flash of silver.

She lunges forward,

Blade in hand, and with her body moving with athletic precision, she aims for my chest. My heart slams against my ribs, my adrenaline spiking as my brain tries its best to catch up with what’s going on.

But my body knows. It acts quick. I’ve barely even registered the knife as I raise my hand and catch her wrist mid-air.

She yells as I twist her hand, rendering the blade loose and tumbling to the kitchen floor with two high-pitched crashes.

I hold both her wrists as she continues to scream. Her cries are manic and animalistic as she strains against me.

“Danielle, stop!” I yell.

She’s eyeing the blade out of the corner of her eye, and I kick it away.

“Danielle, what the hell?”

She continues to push, working herself into a frenzy. She leaves me no other choice—I pin her down to the floor.

That’s when I see it. Her face begins to shift—subtly at first, as she screams, the arch of her brow slackens, her jawline softens, and then the shape of her mouth begins to morph.

I blink.

At first, I considered it might be the lighting mixed with my adrenaline-filled brain playing tricks on me.

But as I hold her down, I notice that the features I know as Danielle begin to fade. It’s like the transition from night to morning—everything is suddenly clear.

Straight brown hair, circular eyes.

“What the-” I breathe, stunned.

My blood runs cold.

It’s Monroe.

She stops straining, but she avoids my gaze, her head turned on the floor as she stares off into the corner of the room.

I need to restrain her somehow.

Using my wolfy instincts, I recall the rope I saw on the way in here. At supernatural speed, I pull her up, my hand clasped over her wrists. I grab the rope and tie it around her body, moving in circles as I tie her to a pillar.

“Let me go, wolf!” She yells as she pushes against the restraints.

“Tell me where Danielle is,” I demand. “And then we can talk about letting you go.”

She shakes her head, pushing against the rope as though she’s trying to take the kitchen pillar down.

I remember Danielle mentioned how her powers haven’t come through yet, but possessed by this energy, who knows what she’s capable of. I need her to be knocked out.

I go to the kitchen table, looking through the potions.

“Help!” She yells.

“Stop,” I bark. “You’re not in your right mind, Monroe.”

“Help!”

She strains. “Someone will come, and you’ll be hit with magic. Who do you think they’re gonna believe, huh?”

The potions don’t tell me anything.

“What do these do?”

She laughs, her eyes maddened. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Alpha?”

I scour through the cupboards, looking for dreamroot or lavender beetle. I remember one of the witches told me that those could be used to render someone unconscious for a little while.

Never thought I’d be needing to use it so soon.

As I fumble through quickly, Monroe continues to laugh.

“You’re not a witch,” she taunts. “If you want to get me to shut up, you’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. Do you think Danielle’s gonna forgive you, then?”

I block her out, search through all the top cabinets. No dreamroot, no lavenderbeatle.

Come on.

I look through the lower cupboards, searching from left to right.

Finally, I see it, in the corner, a small bottle of dreamroot.

As Monroe sees, her eyes freeze. She moves against the rope with greater force, tips her head back, and screams.

Without hesitating, I open the bottle and throw the solution on her.

She continues to scream.

Part of me feels guilty, but I push past her similarities to Danielle. I need to find her—the real her.

Eventually, her screams quiet down, her eyes grow heavy—she closes them.

“You won’t get away with this, Elli-”

Then her head slumps, and she’s out cold.

Thank God.

I was one scream away from a burst eardrum.

***

I run out of Monroe’s cabin, shift into my wolf form to get a better scent of the real Danielle. She’s close.

I can’t believe that my senses failed me before.

As I run through the coven, I cause a stir. Witches are calling my name, yelling at me, asking what’s going on.

But there’s no time to explain.

I sprint through the coven, paws leaping over the ground and plummeting onto the floor. I’m skidding through the mud.

Eventually, I get to the forest land just outside of the coven.

I scent her.

I shift back into my human form so that I can yell her name, but there’s no response.

“Danielle! It’s me. I’m here.”

I sprint further into the trees, my heart racing as mud splashes up my legs.

“Danielle!” I yell louder this time, voice cracking. “Where are you?”

Nothing but the rustling leaves responds. But I know she’s here, I can scent her.

I veer left, zigzagging through the trees, and then I notice something. A flash of red. Danielle’s dress. I skid to a halt and fall to my knees beside her.

“ Danielle. ”

She’s crumpled against the base of a tree, one arm limp against her stomach, and her cheek pressed against the damp earth. Her lips are pale.

I lift her into my arms. “Danielle, come on, wake up. I’m here.”

She doesn’t stir.

I shake her in my arms. “Come on, Danielle. You gotta wake up.”

But her eyes don’t open. Her body moves lifelessly like a doll’s.

“What’s happening?” Penelope’s familiar voice asks.

“She won’t wake up,” I yell.

Suddenly, there’s commotion around me. More and more witches flock through the trees, gathering around us, but I barely register them as I frown hopelessly at Danielle’s lifeless eyelids.

“What can we do?” I ask them frantically. “ We need a spell .”

Penelope crouches down beside us. She brings two fingers to Danielle’s pale neck.

My heart is plummeting. I’m hanging on to every second, desperately, waiting for answers.

Penelope swallows, her face grave and still. “She has no pulse.”

I freeze.

The words don’t register at first.

No pulse.

My brain rejects them before they can land.

“No,” I bark, gripping Danielle tighter. “You’re wrong. She’s breathing. I heard her breathing—”

Penelope pulls back slightly, her expression shifting from concern to caution. “Ellis—”

“No!” I shout. “Check again. You’re wrong!”

I press my hand against Danielle’s chest, searching for that rhythm. A sign of life. Anything.

But the silence is deafening.

“No, no, no—come on.” My hands tremble as I press on her chest. “Danielle, wake up.”

The commotion of the witches talking around me fades away, I’m swept up into panic. This can’t be happening.

I kiss her cheek, close my eyes, and strain. “Come on, baby, you can’t do this to me. You have to be here. Come on.”

My heart feels as though it's being ripped from my chest.

It’s like my whole body is bleeding.

“ Come on,” I whisper again, my lips still brushing against her cheek.

I press my forehead to hers as I hold her lifeless body in my arms.

How am I ever going to move from here?

I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Then, something happens.

A quiet shift in the air.

There’s a burning sensation in my lips, hot and fuzzy like crackling electricity. I almost jump back.

I open my eyes and see that my face is covered in a bright, golden glow. It swirls around my mouth, tingling, and then it spreads out to Danielle’s forehead.

I kiss her with more force.

What’s happening?

The magic has a life of its own. It colors her in, spreading from her forehead around her eyes, nose, and lips, down her throat to the rest of her body.

She’s heating up in my arms, and that crackling sensation has found its way through my body, too.

Despite the way it feels, I don’t move.

I don’t even breathe.

Danielle’s lips part slightly, her lashes twitch.

“Danielle?”

I’m still holding my breath. Is this real?

Then her eyes open.

They’re vacant at first, blinking twice, before they look up at me, lost.

That crackling, sparking magic feeling is replaced by something even stronger. A deep wave of the most powerful force on earth.

A feeling that I’ve been burying for a while.

I hold her tighter, savoring each of her breaths, grateful for the faint beating of her heart.

I love her. I’ve always loved her, and I’ll make sure that I never take her for granted ever again.