Alpha Divided (Alpha Girl Book 3)

This was what I was missing. We’d been too sad last night to really do anything, but I ached for him. My wolf craved him, and so did I.

Dastien bit my lip and rested his forehead against mine. “Call me if you need me.”

I wished I could say the same, but I doubted I’d be free to leave the compound for anything related to the Weres. I kissed him lightly. “I’m going to miss you.”

Since I’d stopped running from him and trying to escape St. Ailbe’s, we hadn’t really been apart. I saw him everyday.

As soon as he stepped beyond the gates, it was like he’d been ripped away from me. If I couldn’t see him with my own eyes, I would’ve thought he was dead. The sudden break in the bond left both of us gasping.

“Holy shit. This is worse than it was last time.”

“That’s because you were distracted last time. Now you know what that feeling is like.”

I ignored the icky sensation and reached over the gate to feel him. As soon as my hand touched his skin, the bond snapped back into place and I instantly felt better. “This is really going to blow.”

He gave me a sad smile. It wasn’t very reassuring. “I know.” He stepped back and shifted. It took less than a second, and then I was staring at my mate in wolf form. His boxer briefs were under his feet. He nipped them up with his teeth and passed them to me through the gate.

I stood there and watched him run until he disappeared around the bend in the road. I tried to reach him along our bond, but it was gone. Not just muted, but gone. A side effect of being on separate sides of the barrier. It was meant to warn other supernaturals away, and it would’ve worked if I weren’t being forced to stay here.

I closed my eyes for a second. My head knew that Dastien was fine. He was running home, back to his cabin, back to the pack. And he was safe. But my heart, my gut, my bond, told me that everything was completely and totally fucked.

It was time I dealt with the coven for good. Maybe if I did whatever Claudia and Raphael needed, I could go back sooner than planned.

I let myself back into my cousins’ house, and walked into the tchotchke-loaded living room. Claudia and Raphael were sitting on the floral-printed couch talking softly, but Luciana was gone.

Thank God for small favors.

First things first. “I can’t deal with all the smells. Did Dastien get rid of everything?”

“Yes,” Raphael said.

I could still smell the roses, orange, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves and a million other things from all the potpourri and candles that had been everywhere in the house. “Can we open some windows? Air it out?”

Claudia started into motion. “Yes. Of course.”

We went through the house, opening all the windows. She had a fan in her room, and I snagged it for the living room. Texas didn’t have a ton of wind this time of year, and the downstairs was the most offensive room in the house. I aimed the fan to blow out the window.

“Better?” Claudia said when it was all done.

“Much. I couldn’t think with all that.” I sat on the couch. “Let’s talk. What’s going on?”

“There’s something wrong with Luciana—” Claudia started.

I snorted. No shit. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Some of us think she needs to be replaced, but with you gone, it’s a little hard. We’re hoping that you can help us with a change of power,” Claudia said.

“I would’ve done that regardless of my relationship with the pack. You didn’t have to stop the ceremony.”

“But we couldn’t have accepted your help if you were fully bound to the pack,” Raphael said. His voice was very matter of fact. I could’ve chosen to take offense at that. They wouldn’t accept my help but they needed it. It made me want to thumb my nose at them and take off.

But for now, I was committed to being here, so I listened as Raphael continued. “The coven’s divided, and the anti-Luciana group isn’t the majority. Our side doesn’t want war, but I think she does no matter what. Over the years, she’s developed a thirst for power. It started out as restrictions on us, but now it’s grown. She wants more territory. She wants to move off the compound and practice out in the open. She wants the wolves gone.”

That wasn’t going to happen. “I don’t care how much land she has or where y’all live, but practicing in the open and taking out the pack? That’s too far.”

“We agree,” Raphael said. “Things are like this for a reason. Humans…they wouldn’t understand. We already had one season of witch burnings, and none of us want to go through that again.”

I could definitely understand that.