Mated to the Alpha and His Beta (Lanie Stanton) novel Chapter 447

Chapter 447
Xander

My father grabbed the front of my shirt with fists as cold as ice. The moment he did, that same ice began to fill me. It centered around my heart. He was digging his fingers deep into my chest, tearing through muscle and bone. Blood spattered on the floor.

I fought him as hard as I’d ever fought anyone or anything in my life. I thought about the foggy hand crushing the captain. My father was trying to do the same to my heart.

“Fight him, Daddy!”

The more I tried, the harder he crushed. Memories flashed across my mind. My father had been there the first time I gave my wolf control. He’d taught me how to fight. He’d trusted me enough to take his place as Alpha in our pack, even though he could have kept the spot until he died.

“I love you, father!” I screamed.

A blast of bitter, stinking wind sucked the breath out of me. The fist squeezed. I could no longer stand. The only thing holding me up was my dead father’s claws digging into the meat of my heart.

That, and my brother’s hands.

***

Mason

“I hate you!”

I’d spent most of my life hating Orion. Faced with him now, though, my heart tried to leap out of my chest. His other hand slammed into me, his fingers seeking to gouge a canyon in my flesh the way he was doing to my brother.

With every wrench of his fingers inside us, Orion’s form grew more solid. The pain was excruciating and relentless. It seemed like I should already be dead, and still his hand kept squeezing. Twisting. He wasn’t going to be satisfied with simply grinding our hearts to a pulp.

He was going to tear them out of our bodies.

I could hear Stella screaming at us both to fight him. Waves of love and hate flowed around us toward the specter sucking us dry. I grabbed my brother’s hand. Palm to palm, we fed each other the last dregs of our strength, and the forces of our determination mingled.

I felt a hand on the back of my neck. Zane stood behind me and Xander, his hands cupping each of us. He stood straight and tall. His Beta strength filled us. Sustained us.

Orion fell back a step.

The dead were sucking everything out of Stella.

She swayed but kept to her feet. Me, Xander, and Mason leaped toward her at the same time, but we fell back from the inside of the barrier. Lanie stood on the edge of it, her hands toward our daughter. Sending her waves of brilliant Luna energy, pulsing strength that bypassed the shields and filled Stella.

“Together!” Xander cried. “Stand with her together!”

Two shields of Alpha energy pulsed toward her. I added my Beta strength to it. The four of us stood, loving our daughter with everything we had inside us, and the dead gobbled it up faster than she could absorb it.

Stella no longer looked like the little girl she’d been or the young woman she’d grown into. I couldn’t say what she looked like. Something ethereal and otherworldly. To call her a goddess would have been a disservice. She was something beyond anything I’d ever imagined.

But she was faltering. Growing weak. She wasn’t going to be able to keep the dead outside the protective circle much longer, and there didn’t seem to be anything any of us could do to help her.

The doors flew open.

The High Council had found us.