The Alpha's Cursed Mate

Chapter 24

Winter tightens its hostile grip on my territory. The mountains have been bombarded by blizzards each night, and the last was no exception. Luckily, Alexei was able to traverse the fresh snowfall now piling under the evergreen canopies, but, until tomorrow morning, I must manage alone. A crispness has enveloped my keep, and the stone walls are ice cold. Firewood supplies diminish; the keep has enough to get by, but my people do not have such an excess.

My body turns cold as though the God has already taken my blood in exchange. Alexei said no more — rightfully so — but that cannot justify my people's suffering. I write a message to Alexei instead and query about a possible lumber transport if his reserves allow it. He should be arriving at his territory soon, but my messenger won't reach him until sundown. The sun is setting much too early, restricting travel for those even fierce enough to conquer the snow, and it can be impossible to climb out of deep powder once fallen in.

I walk along the upper hallways alone and stop at Tabitha's old chamber doors, yet another abandoned apartment in this keep. The key to it is on the same ring as my childhood chamber's key, and I am the first to unlock it since Tabitha's exile. I do so with a clear head and shut the door behind me. I don't want any passing housekeeper or servant to peer inside.

The curtains are drawn, so I open them to chase away the shadows, but all sunlight is diminished by cloud cover. Dust floats in the air around the windows and has begun to coat the room. Everything is exactly as we left it; she didn't have time to take these secrets with her to her grave. Against the windows, her dressing table is covered with vials, trinket boxes, and jewelry. The center drawer is open halfway, and among her silver and gold rings and earrings is my much larger knife.

Tabitha kept the dagger Alexei threw at my feet — the very one she tucked under my sleeping mat. The God armed me with this — what was meant for protection against Alexei and his men — and set me on stage to be an antagonist even greater than the villain I had made Alexei in my head. Maybe the God could have helped me somehow as he whispered he would before I left the cover of my tent.

I was nearly the bad one. Then the bond changed my mind.

Bundles of herbs hang along the walls, scenting the musky air. On a work surface beneath, jars of herb mix both pulverized and not sit unlabeled and unused. I take one and removed the lid; the smell tickles my nose and urges me to sneeze, so I seal the jar and leave it with the others. Additional jars filled with salts and unknown liquids line the shelves in front of her books. I remember her drawing circles with the salt like a transcendent paintbrush. She bridged us to His world, and I was always her offering.

I cross the room to her desk. Tabitha's velvet sack of seeing stones is spilling the future onto the tabletop. I pick one stone up and study its symbol though it means nothing to me. Perhaps this stone was the one that told me to increase my men along the lower bank during mine and Alexei's first battle — my turning point in our packs' war. Or maybe it was the stone that warned me of matehood just before my eighteenth birthday; a message I disliked for its threat to Tabitha and my plan.

We were supposed to rule the pack together, use my bond with the God and her skills as a witch to be a new sort of threat, and it worked so long as I didn't know the truth.

Was this the stone that solidified Tabitha's fate?

I leave the stone where I found it and advance my investigation to an open book. The pages are rough with speckles of green, yellow, and red, like pieces of plants and flowers. She must have made this book herself. The writing is her hand, done so with the quill resting in the slope of the binding. I cannot help but read from the top of the page.

My God says again, He wants Brea to kill her mate, but He underestimates the dominion of their bond. I know she will not be capable of it until her will is taken. Even so, she will not love Him. I pray He does not blame me for this. She will be what she is meant to be, but my God is stubborn and particular in His processes. He longs for what was and what can never be, and He desires it to be made tenfold.