Page 18 of Curvy Alpha Bride (Wolfshade Brides-for-Hire #4)

“Xavier.”

I hear my name called so softly, it barely penetrates my dream. At first, I wonder if the creature is taunting me, but as I open my eyes, I realize someone is knocking on the door.

I get up quickly, trying not to wake Mabel. It’s amazing she was able to fall asleep at all after yesterday’s stress, and I want her to get as much rest as she can.

When I open the door, Serra’s hard, pale blue eyes greet me. We glare at each other, neither of us backing down, until I start to wonder if we will have to fight.

She was pretty serious yesterday, and I’m not about to forget the way she treated me and Mabel. I don’t care what she’s had to deal with—her behavior is unacceptable!

I step out onto the front porch, closing the door behind me as I turn to face my aunt again. Her eyes glitter with threat, and I feel adrenaline rush deep within me.

I’ll take all of you on if I have to!

“Xavier.”

Aunt Finnah pushes her sister out of the way and comes over to hug me. I melt into her embrace, feeling her love surround me and comfort me as it has my whole life.

“Mom,” I whisper, finally beginning to realize I’ll never be able to call her anything else.

“My son,” she murmurs, stroking the back of my head as I lay my head on her shoulder.

A few seconds pass, and my adrenaline doesn’t fade. My mind starts to race as I begin to calculate a way out of here.

“Xavier, we’ve come to explain,” Aunt Serra says.

I turn to look at her, and all the elders are there, even though Ivan and Hector look rough from standing guard all night.

“I read my father’s journals,” I answer, letting go of Finnah. “So, I know what we’re up against.”

“No, son, you don’t,” Finnah says, grabbing my hands. “It doesn’t matter what my brother wrote in those journals. It couldn’t have explained the full horror of it.”

“It was horrible enough,” I say. “And I know I have to get Mabel out of here.”

“If you think that, then you know nothing,” Serra says, her voice harsh. “We cannot let it take a luna. It would be better to kill her now than let the witch have her.”

“Excuse me?” I blurt, turning to face my aunt. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“Xavier,” Finnah implores, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Please, don’t. Let us explain. None of us wants harm to come to Mabel—or anyone. But we have a responsibility to the rest of the Range.”

“How many out there do you love?” Rhiannon asks. “How many do you call friends and family? If you try to take Mabel out of here, you risk dooming them all.”

“Alright,” I say with a sigh. “I’m ready to listen. Tell me what you know.”

“The witch’s name is Ivarra,” Serra says. “When the town was founded, she was only a young woman, but a very powerful witch. We only have legends to go on, a few very brief town logs, so I don’t know how much of this is true.”

“Does it matter?”

Serra shakes her head. “Not really. But she has been here since the first days when the Range was settled. You know time doesn’t work the same here as it does in the human world.”

“I know it intellectually,” I answer, shrugging. “Not from experience.”

Serra makes a dismissive gesture. “I won’t waste time on too much detail.

Ivarra was a young witch, powerful and beautiful.

She fell for an alpha, but he did not love her in return.

He married another wolf, and they became our first sacred pair.

On their wedding night, she used her magic to kill the luna and drained the alpha’s power until he became her slave. ”

“Fucking hell,” I mutter.

“As I said, this may be embellished, or even made up. For all we know, she’s an ice demon that crawled out of the glaciers further north.

The fact is, our first luna was killed by her, and our alpha enslaved.

He was a husk of a man, a shell, and he did all her bidding. She tried to take over the town.”

Serra pauses to look out over the lake, and it looks like there are a hundred years of weariness in her stare.

“Her powers were growing,” she continued.

“Consuming the luna was an act of rage and revenge, but it flooded her with power. She only intended to enslave the alpha to make him her own, but she fed on his energy as well and became drunk on it. She decided the town wasn’t enough. She wanted the whole Range.”

“I’m assuming the point of this story is that she was defeated?” I ask hopefully.

Serra shakes her head. “Not defeated. Ivarra had the alpha bring her every young woman in the town, and she began to eat them, one by one. Her powers increased, and she set her sights on devouring every luna and young woman in the Range. There is no telling what she could have done if she got out of this valley. She might have even made it to the human world.”

I suppress a shudder. “So, what happened?”

Serra looks away, swallowing hard. “Ivarra was holed up in a cave at the base of the mountain with the girls and the alpha. The pack went after her to get their daughters back. At first, the alpha fought them, but at some point, he regained his senses and managed to spear Ivarra through the heart. The pack fled with the young women, and Ivarra consumed the alpha, regaining her strength, but not becoming powerful enough to go after them.”

Finnah puts her hand on my shoulder. “It’s just a story.”

“It feels like a true one,” I say.

“From then on, we never let anyone travel far from the town lines. Occasionally, she would grab an unwary girl, so we strengthened our rules even further. Young women from the Eyrie sometimes hunted close to our territory, and they were taken, too. Our ancestors lived in fear that these kills would give Ivarra enough strength to attack, but it didn’t happen.

Her activities would briefly increase, then stop, so it was assumed that she hadn’t fed enough to take on the whole pack. ”

“And you went underground,” I realize. “You put your rules in place to starve her, keep her weak. And after she got my mother, you all went underground.”

“Those were days of terror, my boy,” Ivan says. “You have no idea. We really believed the witch had enough power to breach the valley. It was almost a relief when she kept hovering over the town, night after night, trying to get into the bunkers. It meant she was still contained.”

“My father thought he stopped her,” I mutter. “He thought she was dead.”

“We all prayed so,” Serra answers. “Your father made the ultimate sacrifice, and everything was so quiet, we really believed the threat had passed. Especially since you were safe here for six months.”

“Something has changed, then!” I exclaim. “If she was so weak, how was she able to attack Dove?”

“She’s been watching us,” Serra replies.

“I’ve been a fool. We relaxed the rules; we allowed the young women to be out after dark, and aboveground on a new moon.

Also, a fresh, young alpha would be enough to draw her out…

and then, you took a luna. We haven’t had one for so long, she must have been saving the last of her strength for this moment, hoping that one day, we’d let our guard down. ”

“So, she’s stronger than you thought,” I say. “Now that she’s fed, she’s gaining strength… and if she gets Mabel, she can break free from the valley?”

“I believe so, yes,” Serra says with finality.

“I have to get Mabel out of here! Everything you’ve just told me makes it even more important to get her to safety!”

“It can’t be done,” Serra snaps. “Even if you leave right now, in broad daylight, she will come for you. She won’t let an alpha or a luna go. Not now, when she’s so close.”

“But she can’t fight us all! Why don’t we just form up and leave together? We can create a shield around Mabel.”

Serra looks right into my eyes, a piercing, ice-cold gaze.

“She is weakened in the light, but she can still move around in it. She would bear this pain to stop us from leaving. If she wants to consume someone, it only takes her seconds to shred them to pieces—there is nothing left of them but a splash of blood. So far, she has only consumed young women for their vitality, but there is no reason she can’t kill young men as well. ”

“She can’t get all of us,” I counter. “If we lose a few, but get free into the Range, isn’t it worth it?”

Serra sighs. “Would you tell members of your pack to sacrifice their families just to get you and the luna out safely? You’re also forgetting that she can enchant alphas. Imagine if she could brainwash you and turn you against us.”

That thought is so ugly, my mind shrinks away from it in revulsion. I turn to Aunt Finnah. “You got out—with me! There must be a way.”

Finnah shakes her head. “That took every last scrap of magic we had in this town. The witch was still glutted from feeding, and focused on enchanting your father. There was chaos in town as everyone headed for the bunkers. Your father gave you to me and ordered me to use the last of the magic to conceal us as we fled the valley. It can’t be done again. ”

I take a step away from them and glare at the ground, clenching my fists. Inside me, a terrible fury is raging, but I can’t let it out. I have no target.

I promised Mabel I’d get her out. Now I can’t!

When I turn back to the others, all of them wear dull, resigned expressions.

They’re ready to go back underground! It’s the only way to starve the witch!

In that moment, I realize that even if I could get Mabel out, I’d be leaving my pack vulnerable to the witch. Ivarra would be trapped in the valley, without the strength to take on the Range, but she would completely destroy Valentine Creek.

Whether she outright killed them or kept them underground until they died, it’s all the same. If I leave, this pack is dead.

“I understand,” I say. “And I’m not giving up. We will stand against this evil! I won’t let her take anything more from this town.”

“There is no way to fight her!” Finnah cries.

“So far there isn’t,” I say. “But I will find one. I’m not going to leave you alone here. We’ll stay, and we’ll fight—and suffer the isolation, if that’s what it takes. I swear, as your alpha, I won’t leave you.”

There is a soft gasp behind me, and I turn to see Mabel standing in the open doorway of the cottage. My heart sinks as I realize she heard everything I just said.

Another promise broken… surely now, I can never be forgiven.