Fated To the Alpha by Jessica Hall
Chapter 267
The lights flickered a few times before the generator kicked in, and they remained on. Both Jonah’s and Kyan’s phones start ringing loudly. Kyan snatches his phone off the bedside table and glances at it before chucking it to Jonah. “Floor Manager,” Kyan says as Jonah catches it before he picks up his own phone that was on charge.
“And I get security,” Jonah says before answering it. He rejects the call on Kyan’s phone before walking over to the closet and pulling a shirt on. He talked to whoever was on the phone to him before hanging up and coming out of the closet dressed in black slacks and a b*tton-up shirt.
“I’ll handle this. Will you be right alone with Mara?” Jonah says, eyeing me worriedly. Kyan nods and waves him off before Jonah leaves the room and the apartment. Kyan watched him go before turning back to face me.
“You had the visions?” Kyan asks, biting the corner of his lip, tilting his head to the side, and watching me worriedly.
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“I need to speak to Kaif,” I told him, and his brows furrowed in confusion.
“I need to speak to him alone, Kyan. I don’t want you listening in,” I tell him.
“You’re not going to reject him, are you?” Kyan says, his voice trembling.
“What? No, of course not. Please, I just need to ask him something?” I tell him, reaching for his hands. I squeeze them gently.
“I’m not going anywhere. I saw what Kaif did, but I know he had his reasons. Kaif did nothing I wouldn’t have done if our roles were reversed,” I rea*s*sure him.
Kyan’s anxiety through the bond was loud and clear; he feared why I wanted to speak to Kaif, yet also scared Kaif would do something to me now that the darkness had been awoken and given to me. But darkness was a part of me. I was born with it. It couldn’t taint what was already stained and made of darkness.
“I can handle Kaif Kyan; I am not worried about Kaif hurting me. Besides, I will just kick his a*s with your father’s magic,” I chuckle. Kyan seems to think for a second; he rubs a hand over his face before nodding and standing up.
“And you’re not leaving me?” Kyan asks.
“I swear on the Moon Goddess,”‘ I tell him, and he laughs.
“Just try to be quick; I don’t enjoy being in the dark with him,” Kyan tells me before leaning down and gripping my face in his hands; he k*isses me softly. I answered his k*iss instantly, knowing he needed me to, still disbelieving of my intentions with Kaif. He lets me go and stands up.
“I want Kaif in his form,” I tell him.
“You want me to shift completely?” Kyan said. He was a little taken aback. But I knew Kyan could press forward and rein back control in human form. Kaif’s form not so much, and I knew Kaif could block him out entirely in that form.
“I will be quick, then I will make him give you control back,” he sighs and reluctantly shifts. I watch as his clothes shred, his skin turning to fur. His bones cracked and elongated until his head was scraping the low roof. He tilts his head, looking down at me.
“Couldn’t have picked the living room?” He says, knocking on the roof with his fist before lowering himself to the ground and sitting with his knees bent.
“Sorry, I forgot you’re nearly 8 feet tall,” I chuckle.
“7.9,” Kaif says, leaning back against the bathroom door frame where the wall was strongest. Kaif watches me, his eyes calculating, like a predator watching its prey, looking for some weakness, some fault.
“Are you looking to see if what I saw changed me?” I ask him, and he nods, looking away guiltily.
“I am not like the rest of them; I’m aware of your reasons, Kaif; You don’t scare me, and I’m not scared of our future, so you shouldn’t be either.” I tell him.
“It always repeats, Love. Forgive me if I am a little skeptical,” Kaif says, and I bite the inside of my lip.
“We haven’t had a baby yet. I’m not looking to be a kidd*ie k****r anytime soon,” I tell him, and his eyes darken, his thoughts turn clouded, and he stares at the floor for a few seconds.
“But the ghosts of my past know you are different. They could try other ways, but I don’t believe you would let them win.”
“Then why are you worried?”
“I guess I’m worried you would hate me, especially for the last few,” Kaif says.
“Because you never even marked them? You k****d them without even trying to break the curse. Because they weren’t tainted yet?” I ask him, and he nods.
“It still would have been the same with them; I just eliminated the threat before it became one,” he says, his eyes flicking to me again. The look he gave me made me s****w, and I could feel my heart beating faster at his words before I regained myself. “I have a few theories after everything I have witnessed or envisioned. I picked up a few things, but first, I want to ask you a question?”
“I’m all ears,” he says, wiggling his ears on top of his head. I laughed and shook my head at him.
“Kyan can’t overhear us,” I ask him, and he nods.
“He can’t hear anything, but I am curious why you don’t want him to hear what you wanted to talk to me about.”
“I don’t want to get his hopes up, and until I know for sure it needs to remain between us, not even Jonah is to know. So promise me you will say nothing about it to either of them. Kyan has enough heartache. I don’t want him to suffer anymore; I think we have all suffered enough, don’t you think?” Kaif sighs and nods. Kora presses forward, getting a feeling for what I wanted to ask him, and I feel the recognition hit her and her reservations about it.
“Are you sure?” she asked me.
“I am pretty certain. I am just not a witch, so I don’t know if it is possible,” I tell her.
“And the other thing?” she asks.
“It’s worth a shot. Something tells me not to ignore my intuition about that one.” I tell her.
“Yeah, I got the same feeling the moment you thought it,” Kora agrees. She remained forward to listen, but she was also reeling with this odd sense of clarity we both now shared.
“Dominic told me my magic anchored him. That’s how I have a connection to him because he gave me his magic, anchoring him to me,” I tell Kaif, who seems to think my words over.
“Is it possible that he isn’t d**d?” I asked.
“He is d**d, Love; I watched him be buried,” Kaif says. I sigh, trying to figure out what I am asking.
“Okay, give me a second,” I tell him, rubbing my temples and remembering what Dominic has told me.
I blow out a breath when a thought occurs to me, making me look back at him. “Lycan’s need vessels right to come back?” Kaif nods his head.
“Yes, but not just any vessel. We can’t last in a human body. If that makes sense, only a werewolf’s body is strong enough, human Lycan hybrid?” Kaif tells me.
“Is that possible for witches?” I ask him, and he seems to think.
“Depends,” he says, and I could tell he was really thinking hard on that one.
“Why?” he eventually asks.
“I don’t think Dominic is d**d. He keeps saying to break the curse and set him free. The last visions, your past visions, he walked through them with me. He said the same thing he always says, but to get him Celeste’s grimoires, he would take care of the rest,” I tell Kaif and he whispers something under his breath.
“But how would he return if his body was d**d?” I ask Kaif.
“Easy a Preservation spell. Witches used to do them to remain young, which would be easy without a consciousness. Witch power deteriorates the body and the waking mind faster than humans,” Kaif says.
“So it is possible to preserve a body, but how long for? I’m not sure exactly.” Kaif adds, then shrugs.
“The longest I have seen someone leave their body for was Celeste when she was first f0rced into the Moon Goddess realm. Her body physically stayed in this realm.
It took years before she could break the barrier on the Moon Goddess realm to f0rce it open so she could portal between, but at first, we had guardians that protected her body until she returned to it.” Kaif tells me. His brows furrow and he growls.
“That’s where I got the spell to make Jonah my guardian, a blood tie, we couldn’t trust just anyone to guard her body, they could have destroyed it so she blood tied them to her, if they k**d her body it would kl them,” Kaif explains scratching his chin.
“Dominic said he is my guardian in a sense, that he anchored himself to me with his magic,”
“Yes, because a witch isn’t truly gone if their magic has been set free…That’s why witches can channel power, the essence of their magic remains long after the body is dd, however, they are dd just their magic lives on not the person,” Kaif says and he sits up straighter.
“What about their life f0rce? Can that be preserved?”
“I suppose, in theory, but they would need a lot of magic to do that. No one could harness that sort of power alone. It would need a strong-”‘ Kaif pauses and looks at me.
“It would need a strong anchor and an infinite power supply,” Kaif explains and I could tell he was trying to put this puzzle together as well so it made sense.
“So it is possible. It would also explain why he said he wasn’t really d**d, not here, but not part of the shadow realm. When I…” I look at Kaif, who growls.
“When I k**d myself, I could feel I was dd, but something was holding me still,” I admit.
“Yes, we were trying to revive you,” Kaif answers with a growl.
“In the shadow realm, I flickered, while the rest of those trapped were ghostly transparent figures. Dominic was the same as me; we both looked different from the rest of them. Now Dominic said he gave me the shadows and his magic. What if I am the vessel just like Kyan is yours, except instead of a vessel for a Lycan? I am the vessel for his magic which anchored him to me?”
“You think he is alive?”
“Is it possible?” I ask.
“Well, yes, but he has no physical body to return to unless he preserved it, and I am not sure a body can be preserved for that long, Marabella. Then there is also the question of where he would get a power source from that could tether his life f0rce to it?”
“But is it possible?”
“Well, yes, but unlikely,”
“Is there any way to know for sure?”
“Yeah, dig up his body…wait… His coffin was spelled shut. We tried to get into it years ago but couldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“The talisman. Kyan dropped it in there when he was a boy. We tried to get it back; the talisman in the past has also been used to keep me in line. It can drain me of energy and keep me weak when worn. We thought the talisman spelled it shut, but what if we were wrong?” Kaif murmurs.
“How so?”
“We couldn’t open it. Usually, only the person who locked it can open it when something is sealed. We couldn’t and thought the talisman locked it. But what if it didn’t?” Kaif says, looking at me. I smiled, figuring out what he was getting at.
“I have Dominic’s magic,” I smile.
“You can open it, but that means Dominic had to have spelled it shut before he d*ied, meaning had to have known Kyan would chuck the Talisman in there,” Kaif seemed thoughtful.