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EIGHTY-THREE | UNDERWATER
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The Broken Alpha EIGHTY-FOUR | HALF MAN, HALF WOLF
LilySlim fingers knotted together. Lily paused, the pads of her fingertips brushing over naked skin where once a garnet ring had sat. Still she missed the feel of it, the metal warm from her body heat, the red stone glinting in the summer sun. That sun was long lost now, as well. Autumn was settling in, the leaves as red as the garnet had been; some drifted slowly to the grass, twirling downwards, back and forth, with a sad air to them that she couldn’t quite place. A leaf couldn’t be sad – could it?She bit her lip and turned away from the window. The kitchen felt too still and too quiet. Lily turned her eyes away from her father, latching them onto the flowers at the table’s centre. Her heart warmed momentarily, thoughts of her mother easing the tension she could feel rising rapidly between them. It formed an invisible wall, thickening with every second that passed in silence.Her dad knew what she was going to say. It had settled into every crease of his face, from the crinkles a
The Broken Alpha EIGHTY-FIVE | A WRITHING SEA
AtticusNight had passed back into morning by the time Atticus heard that Lily had gone.Dew speckled the grass, sparkling in the last silver sliver of moonlight. A moon that was still a little over three weeks away from growing full again. It was a haunting sight, one that made fresh wounds rip open in his heart. Atticus stared at it helplessly, hovering above the horizon line, mere moments from dropping below it. Caught between this second and the next, he thought, as was he.The moon fell. Struggling to comprehend the swelling tide of emotions writhing desperately in his hollow chest, Atticus stalked across his grounds. Remnants of the Mabben decorations still hung in the trees, not magically disposed of as they usually were. They made him think of Lily, and his heart – his whole body – ached with the loss of her.He’d saved her. She’d betrayed him.Collapsing against the base of the same tree she’d sat by only a matter of days ago, he curled his hand around a bunch of grass and ri
The Broken Alpha EIGHTY-SIX | OAK AND IVY
LilyIt was strange, Lily thought, as she retraced the same steps she’d taken before, so many months ago now, that her father was with her. He walked with a permanent scowl, though it was neither malicious nor unkind; it was a scowl of defeat, of questioning a choice too long after it had been made to do anything about it now.“I’m glad you came,” she said, eyeing him sideways. “So am I,” he replied, too quickly.Lily smiled wryly. “No, you aren’t.”He sighed. “It’s getting dark. And I just realised…”“That you have no real bed?” she finished for him.“Exactly.”“We have a tent. And bedrolls. And blankets.” She shrugged. “We’ll be fine.”He wrapped his arms around himself. “It’s autumn.”“And?”“And it’ll be cold. We can’t light a fire, I know, but…”“I know, Dad. I’m sorry.”“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” His mouth twisted. “I wasn’t going to let you go alone.”Lily let the silence swallow them both. She knew what he wanted her to say: let’s go home, Dad, and I’ll force
The Broken Alpha EIGHTY-SEVEN | THE LENGATHUL
ElijahA tentacle wound around Elijah’s leg. The world moved in slow motion around him as he was dragged below. His mind coughed up a series of half-forgotten rhymes, each one more disturbing than the last: swim up, fly down, don’t turn around, toe to toe, heart of woe, don’t look at the creature below…He gulped in his last breath of air, and then the water swallowed him whole. It was dark as pitch; something slimy writhed against his skin, somehow both wet and sticky. A glimmer of white broke through the darkness, snake-like but puckered with suckers. Elijah shuddered, though he told himself it was from the burning in his lungs rather than repulsion at the being that held him.His hair streamed across his face. He scrabbled blindly at it, wiping straggly clumps of it away from his nose and mouth. Not that it would help. Nothing would. He kicked and struggled, but the tentacle just tightened further. If he could just lift his sword a bit higher – Caslein screamed. Elijah had never
The Broken Alpha EIGHTY-EIGHT | A FATE DIVIDED
LilyLips pulled back from teeth, yellow and warped. Blood oozed from wounds, recent and old, dribbling down the creature’s furred chest. Lily’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even blink.Time froze around them. Locked in its gaze, her mind flailed for a way out, considering a thousand useless ideas and tossing them aside in that elongated instant. Everything seemed important: her dad’s pulse throbbing violently against her palm, the pull of skin over her knuckles, the way her knees locked and the shallow amount of air left in her lungs. The flicker of a leave overhead, glistening gold in the gossamer sunlight, marked a cool breeze curling through the woods. With it came the stale scent of decay, pungent and rotting as it swarmed Lily’s nostrils.She inhaled, only to exhale hastily, the smell making first bile and then saliva pool on her tongue. She blinked, half hoping that the creature would disappear when she opened her eyes again. It didn’t.Her dad r
The Broken Alpha EIGHTY-NINE | CLAIMED
ElijahSurrounded by darkness, inky and slick, Elijah let go. It was easier here, everything murky in its blackness, than it had been above. He couldn’t quite remember what above was, exactly – only that it hurt. There was pain there, and he didn’t want to feel pain anymore. He settled into his new existence, somewhere between sky and rock, his limbs strewn through water and algae like a discarded dandelion seed. But something tugged at his heart, even in the darkness. It was a painful tug, he thought distantly, but it didn’t hurt. The pain was fuller than that, all encompassing in its fire. Yes – that was what it was. Fire. Hot and bright and comforting and agonising, all at once. With that realisation came a name. A single name that changed everything.Lily.Oblivion tried to claim him, but he had already been claimed, long ago, by her. His mind joined his heart, and together they found veins and muscles and bones. As his body reconnected, his skin started to feel.The air was cold
The Broken Alpha NINETY | DAFFODIL
LilyThe portal loomed ahead. Jared had found his way back to it effortlessly, taking turns that made no sense and going back on himself just as much as he’d walked forward. A part of Lily was glad that he’d found them and taken them captive, even though her shoulder throbbed and blood still seeped into the hastily-made bandage wrapped haphazardly round it. Without him, she doubted they would ever have found their way to Red Ripper’s magical territory.She squinted up at the trees. Half of their branches were bare, gnarled and knobbly as aged fingers. The others were too deep into autumn for the season, painted in dark reds and fading browns. One drifted to the ground in front of her, and she reached for it. It fluttered onto her palm and crumbled into ash. “Hurry up,” snarled Jared, saliva flicking from his distorted snout. It was almost impossible to make out the words, so thick and throaty was his voice. Rather than individual sounds, it was a growl split into syllables that hardl
The Broken Alpha NINETY-ONE | NOCTURNAL
LilyThe scent of death hung heavy in the air. Lily pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, begging the rising vomit to stay down. It was all too familiar: the eerie sense of being a step out of time, the little cabins, the pack house looming over everything at the centre of the realm.Worst of all were the flowers. When she’d been here before, they’d been alive – so alive that they’d looked unreal, the petals too bright, too plump, and the leaves unfurling from their stems glossy green and shimmering with thin silver hairs. Now, they curled in on themselves, wilted and withered, the leaves and petals turned grey and hanging limply upon the brown grass.Something was wrong. “Remind me of the plan again, Lils?” Her dad wrung his hands together, his pulse jumping beneath his jaw, sweat slicking his brow. She sighed. They’d been over it a thousand times – and there wasn’t that much to remember at all, really – but clearly he needed something to focus on, something to distract him
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