The Alpha's Gamble - Chapter 110: Chapter 110

MADELINE
It wasn’t for the others to stay back. Even if Malania had a crush on the witch, she was a warrior first and foremost and knew the dangers of witchcraft and those who wield it.
With one foot pressing against the block and fingers coiled at her sides, she was ready, even though she couldn’t get through, she was prepared to try. Noah had to pull himself back more than once, shifting like there were ants crawling on his body. Logan, however, was abnormally calm, relaxed where he stood with arms hanging limp and shoulders down.
One minute I was watching them, taking in their worry and smiling whenever Noah’s eyes met mine—and one minute later, my eyes shut, I think. Everything went dark at least, and a laser show sparked madness in my vision. The crickets were back, multiplying by the second and chirping through speakers that could power a large city.
Freya moved her hands to each side of my head, and I felt how every bone, starting from my fingers and toes, froze to blocks of ice, and shards cracked in the foundation of muscles broke from the pressure.
“That’s enough, Freya.” Noah’s voice was muffled in the void behind the crickets, but I knew it was him.
“Freya, stop!”
“Shh! I’m almost in.”
Someone make her stop!
It would’ve been kinder if she’d just killed me at that point. The pain of entering my mind wasn’t something I’d ever given any thought to, why would I? But it wasn’t like anything I thought magic would be like. It was more akin to someone using a saw to cut open my skull and a drill to make a hole they could peek through to find the bitch.
Yet I felt it, her entering my mind, Nasha being forced out of hiding, and now I knew why she had been quiet-why I hadn't felt her.
There was a trace of blood leading to her shadowed cave, a dreadful energy, faint to the touch of her powers, but it grew stronger when Nasha limped out of her corner, baring her fangs. With cuts and wounded flesh showing on her side, blood gushed from the sliced skin across her snout, gracing the corner of her eye.
“What the…” Freya breathed and pressed her fingers against my skull.
“You’re weak,” she said, speaking not to us but to Nasha.
“You have eyes, good to know.”
“Who helped your vessel make the shift?”
Nasha snarled, a sinister laugh that must’ve taken the last of her strength to muster up.
“Another witch. She told us you might come around.”
Wait, what?
“Tell me a name.”
Freya’s voice was strong, and despite being a servant of nature, led by light and trusting in the good of her calling, she apparently had a bit of that darkness lurking in her fingertips as well.
Nasha’s leg buckled beneath her, the bone cracked, and she whimpered against the floor as her wounds reopened, fresh blood seeping out through the cracks of her skin.
“You’ll never win against her,” Nasha said.
“I’m not going to fight her, but he who will has much reason to succeed.”
“How so?” she snarled. “Because he’s the son of an Alpha who had his title taken away?”
A wind blew in and silenced the crickets. The throbbing of air slamming against the walls of my mind peeled at the fabric of my sanity, and gravity pressed Nasha down until she lay flat on her broken leg.
“No. Because he has something to lose.”
A pain-stricken growl had me gripping the chair with every ounce of strength I had in me, and in the distance, behind a veil of shadows and pain, I heard snickering. It was quiet and fleeting, but I caught it. Nasha caught it.
She lifted her head, her gaze locked on Freya’s as the life slowly drained and seeped out with her blood.
“You already know.” Her neck, too tired to hold her head, bent and her chin rested on her folded knee with blood pooling around her paws.
Freya flew back a step, the dome surrounding us retracted and vanished, and the fire was put out all at once like it had never been lit.
“What does she mean?” I asked. I couldn’t get up. I’d faint—I knew I would—so I remained seated and held onto the chair for dear life as the room made a few laps before slowly starting to settle.
Freya turned, ignoring my question, and looked at Noah.
“I guess I was wrong,” she said. “It was never talked about. She must’ve hidden her well.”
“Hidden who?” Noah asked.
She cocked her head and looked at him. No words passed her tongue and it was almost tangible—the pity around her aura stretching towards Noah.
His eyes widened a fraction and his lips parted.
“She had a daughter,” he said.
“Not to be a self-centered bitch or anything, but can someone tell me what the fuck her cryptic messages mean and how we get her out of my head? It’s really rude to prance around there and then talk in code.”
I tried to stand. It was a little shaky, but the second I rose, Noah ran to my side and let me lean on him.
“When the Obsidian Pack helped defeat a dark witch who was helping rogues rummage packs in return for their children’s lives, we thought it was the end. Nobody had known a darkness like Nathilda’s, and when she was defeated by Jack Reed, we were warned by nature to protect the sanctity of light magic. To never let darkness grow so large again that its defeat would be wished upon. Ever since then, we have fought against dark magic before the roots grew too deep, but I see now that someone slipped through the cracks.”
I remember hearing about Nathilda. We all had, as children. She harvested her powers by killing young werewolves and picking out their hearts. What she did with them was unknown, and frankly, I’d never ask. It was too gruesome to think about and it broke my heart imagining all of those young lives being sacrificed for the greed of the grown.
“Wherever she is, she’s not that strong. I felt it on Nasha. The witch didn’t know that she put Nasha into someone with Alpha blood.”
I snapped my head around and locked eyes with Freya.
“How did you know?”
“I knew the second I touched you. You’re stronger than an ordinary werewolf—it was either Beta or Alpha. But when you let me into your mind, it became clear.”
A soft smile softened her features and she looked less afraid, less pitying. Despite what we were up against, it was comforting to hear that the witch wasn’t that strong.
“Can you find her?” Noah asked.
Freya shrugged carelessly. “I already have. All I needed was to touch the magic she’d used, it’s like a fingerprint.”
When Freya pulled up her phone to insert the approximate whereabouts of Nathilda’s daughter, I noticed that it wasn’t very narrowed down.
“That’s not a small area to cover,” I said and grazed my eyes over her screen.
“Did you expect an address?” There was that sass again, but I didn’t like it as much this time around.
I rolled my eyes and gestured for the door. Guess we’re going on a witch hunt, and hopefully Nasha will be out of my head before sundown.
“Let’s go.”
I took one step and was hauled back, my backside pressed against his front and his hand was flat against my stomach.
“You’re staying here. Malania and I got this.”
He spun me around, hand planted on the back of my head, and our lips collided in a kiss filled with the passion and anticipation of all the kisses we hadn’t had the last couple of weeks.
Every kiss, wrapped up in one, and it was bruising and rough, and loving and perfect.
His hand came around my neck and wrapped around my throat as he deepened it, pulling me in by my hip, and I forgot that anyone else was in the room. They weren’t. It was only us for a moment.
When Noah pulled back, we both caught our breath and I grabbed his hand.
He nodded his head, but his eyes weren’t on mine—they were on Freya’s—and he kissed my knuckles before walking away.
“What if I can help? What if I need to be there in order to get Nasha out?”
I walked with them but a hand on my shoulder stopped me before I reached the door.
“I’m sorry, Maddie, but you have enough on your mind right now, and you going with them would cause more harm than it would do good.”
I couldn’t move. I tried. I’d been training for weeks, doing nothing but rot in this room and think about the Ember Ring. The distraction of fighting a witch sounded like a vacation.
“You’re enough.”
Her words came out of nowhere and I realized that she was standing in front of me.
It wasn’t her hand on my shoulder anymore—Logan stood behind me, eyes dark and grip tight to keep me still.
“What did you say?” I said and turned back to Freya.
“You’re enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone. What happened to you is not your fault. You were a child, betrayed by the ones who created you. It’s not your fault, Maddie. But what becomes of you now is. Take back your power, and live better than the life that was chosen for you. It’s in your hands now. It’s all you.”