Filed to story: Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel Free >>???
“It’s the only way to take things, sweetheart,” Zane murmured.
“But we’re supposed to take those steps together.”
Xander sounded a little angry but a lot more disappointed, and that made me feel worse than if he’d screamed at me.
Mason was the only one to come and put his arms around me. He pressed his forehead to my temple and both of us stared at the woman who’d once been our little girl…and ours alone. Back in the days when I’d forgotten the rest of my life. When the three of us had been a little family all on our own.
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Xander and Zane loved Stella, but Mason had been her father before either of them even knew she existed.
have.”
“I understand, love,” he thought to me privately.
“Where is this book? I want to read it?” Xander demanded.
“It disappeared,” I said.
“And it won’t come back,” Stella said. “Because you don’t need it anymore. I’ll answer any questionsyou Mason–
The five of us settled into our places in the living room. The last time Stella had sat in that chair, her legs. dangled. Now her feet reached the floor. They were bare, and it occurred to me that we’d have to get her a whole new wardrobe.
It was a stu pid thing to be worried about at a time like that, but I found it was easier to focus on the practical aspects of the situation to keep myself from disintegrating into a spiral of confusion. Because if I didn’t have something to focus on, I thought I might lose my s hit, just a little.
Not like my brother, though. Pulses of his Alpha energy kept swirling out of him. It felt like a rain of icy pebbles sca t tering over all of us. Our Luna and our Beta were doing their best to counteract him with warmth and soothing bursts of their own energy, but I also had to put in some of my own.
Alpha on Alpha-it was like two magnets touching the wrong ends. Every time I tried to help my brother get himself under control, we sprang violently apart.
“Daddy.” Stella’s calm voice surrounded all of us like the lap of waves on a shore.
She held out her hands, palms up. Light suffused the air around her. The ends of her hair floated, cr ackling, as more light built its glow until it when encompassed Xander. His eyes were blazing with his wolf, but Stella’s light reached him, he closed them.
“Daddy,” she repeated. “I have answers for every question. Everything is going to be all right.”
Zane and I shared a look. How was she doing this?
Stella was the daughter of an Alpha and a strong Luna who’d been blessed with unique gifts, and all of us belonged to the Moon Goddess in ways we didn’t fully understand. Was it possible that Stella had an Alpha and a Luna’s powers, maybe even some of a Beta’s? That was the only way I could imagine her being able to surround all of us in this glowing blanket of peace.
Lanie was the only one of us who didn’t look confused by what our daughter was doing. Whatever she’d read in that vanishing book had given her the heads’ up. I could see her mind turning as she watched Stella work her magic on her agitated father.
Magic, I thought to myself. That’s what it had to be. Some kind of magic none of us had experienced before.
Xander opened his eyes, fully calm. “Apologies, Stella I see now. I mean, I feel…hell, I’m not really sure what I mean. But I’m ready to listen to whatever to tell us.”
you have Stella grinned. “Good. I’m ready to answer any of your questions. Mother has one. I can tell by the look on her face.”
“Was the book true, Stella?” Lanie’s voice held a hint of tears but also something that sounded like hope.
A little fear. Pride, too. “Do you have every ability of every supernatural to ever exist?”
Stella nodded, her expression solemn. “Yes.”
Xander groaned and leaped off the couch to pace.
Zane’s head fell back against the cus hions. I just stared at our daughter and her mother as they held a long, solid look between them. I didn’t know what to do, say, or even feel.
“I am a Celestial,” Stella said gently to us all. “That means I am part of everything, and everything is a part of me.”
“From birth,” Lanie said faintly. “You’ve been able to do all of this since you were born. Again, Stella nodded. “Celestials are born aware, into the infant bodies of their parents. I can’t speak for any others, only myself, but…you wanted and needed me to be your baby, so that’s what I remained. At least as long as I could. I did what I thought was best…
with the Celestial ‘dream’, so you would have some awareness. I never wanted to hurt or frighten you, Mother!”
Lanie shook her head. “All of this must have been so hard for you. I’m only sorry you didn’t feel like you were able to tell us before now.”
“There was so much you and my fathers had to face. I didn’t want to add to that struggle,” Stella said.
“Until now? What changed?” Xander asked.
Stella raised her hands again to bathe us all in her warmth and glowing light. I closed my eyes to bask in it, letting it take away my worries. I loved my daughter, but more than that, I trusted her. I had to.
“I tried to be your child for as long as I could. I wanted to do all of this slower, for your sakes, but there isn’t time for that anymore.” Stella looked at each of us in turn. “Danger is coming.”
Lanie–
My heart stopped when Stella revealed that she’d had to grow up so fast because there was danger. To my surprise, Xander laughed out loud. Considering how upset he’d been moments ago, this guffaw sounded strange.
“Danger has been on its way for a’long da mned time daughter,” he said with a shake of his head.
“I know that. But until now, all of you have been able to handle whatever came along.” Stella’s smile was crooked. “You didn’t need help from me.”
“And now we do?” Zane asked.
Stella looked at him. “It felt right, Papa. That’s the best way for me to explain it. Mother was too worried about me to really pay attention to herself. It made her keep secrets from you. I couldn’t be the reason for that.”
Another rush of guilt tangled all around my heart.
“You can’t blame yourself for anything I chose to do, Stella. I was the one who decided not to tell my mates what I was discovering. Even though I had my reasons, it wasn’t right, but it also wasn’t your fault.”
My daughter’s eyes-so much like Malachi’s-shone vividly green. I saw no sign of a wolf inside them, and a pang twisted inside me. As a Celestial, Stella was in fact everything. Why, then, did she have no wolf? It seemed like the part of her I could most identify with was missing.
Then again, I’d spent so much time lately focused on the parts of me that were not wolf… From low inside me, Lily whined. I imagined her rough tongue lapping at my face, something that, of course, could never happen since we would never occupy the same space at the same time. I could become her, and she was always a part of me. “I’m not sure I’m getting this. You can do and be everything?” Zane asked slowly, his brow knitting.
“And you’ve always been able to?”
“She can choose her gifts,” I told him when at first Stella didn’t reply.
“So you can shift into a dragon?” Zane asked.
Stella nodded. “If I choose. Or a wolf. I can run as fast as a vampire and compel others with a vampire’s charm. I can cast spells and make potions like the witches.”
“And you can see the future,” I said as I ran through everything I’d read in that book.
Xander let out a grumble. “Nobody can do that. The future isn’t written in stone. Every choice we make shapes it.”
“True, Daddy. But Mother is also correct. I can see into the future. I can peel away time like the layers of an onion and see….well, all the possibilities. It’s so overwhelming, though.” Stella drew in a hitching little breath.
Xander went to her at once. He might be fighting his own rollercoaster of emotions, but I was so proud to see my mate being such a good father. He put his arm around her shoulders until she leaned against him. He kissed the top of her head.
“We’re here to help you,” he said.
Stella clung to him, pressing her face against his stomach. Her voice was mu ffled. “All the voices.
All the visions. It takes such effort to sort through it all. When I was small, I didn’t have to. My mind simply wasn’t big enough for it. I could pretend not to understand what I was capable of, but that time is past.
I have to step up. I just don’t know what to tell you all about the High Council.” Mason shot a look at me, then at Zane and Xander.
“What about them?”
“They’re coming for us. It’s been their plan for a long time. And I know you already know that,” Stella said before any of us could interrupt. “But they keep changing the plans. Every time I thought I had something concrete to warn you about, they’d change it again. Until they make a full plan and put it into action, I simply can’t get a full read.”
“So, we’ll just have to be ready for whatever those as sholes decide to throw at us,” Xander said grimly.
“I knew something like this was coming ever since we saw those pictures of Aldon.”
Stella nodded. “He’s still in the gray for me. He hasn’t yet decided the role he wants to play. His future is fuzzy. When I look at him, it’s like he’s a stone on the bottom of a pond. I can see him, but he’s distorted.
I think he could turn on you, Daddy, if the right opportunity presents itself. Don’t trust him.”
“I never would,” Xander said.
“Don’t even talk to him for now. It’s too soon. If you do, it could prompt him to make his choice,” Stella said. “And so far, there’s no guarantee that it will be the one that doesn’t lead to utter destruction.”
Xander–
I wasn’t used to taking orders from anyone, especially not my daughter.
“You want us to just ignore the fact that an Elder with ties to the High Council is lurking around the portal town to Brightsky?” I put my hands on my hips and shook my head. I tried not to sound upset, but there was still a hard edge to my tone. “That doesn’t sound like a smart way to go about this, Stella.”
“Not ignore it. Just ignore him. For now, anyway. Just until I can get a clearer vision of what is to come,”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?