Filed to story: Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel Free >>???
“You can’t be that grownup if you had to bring along your mummy for support,” he shot at her, but there was a sense of inevitability in his tone. He sighed and waved a hand toward the couch. “You might as well have a seat. Get this over with.”
Stella didn’t rise to his attempt at an insult, and I was proud of her for that. I might not have had as many years to raise her as I’d expected to have when I found out I was pregnant, but I was happy to see that at least some of my lessons had landed.
We each took our seats. To my silent curiosity, my grandfather looked tense. He literally sat on the edge of his seat. He linked his fingers together, palms pressing against each other, like he was trying hard to not clench his hands into fists.
“I’ll get right to it,” my daughter began many eyes, and I am not so easily dece “You may have everyone here in Brightsky fooled, but I see with His eyes narrowed. “It’s no deceit to give everyone the illusion they crave, child. And yes, despite your size and your talents, you are still a child to me.”
Stella didn’t take the bait this time, either.
“Nevertheless, there’s no point in keeping up the pretense with me or my family.”
“Why is that?” he asked, leaning forward. “What is it that you’ve seen?”
“Hello? Anyone want to tell me what you’re talking about?” I demanded.
They both turned to me, and I realized something upsetting. In their battle of words, they’d bothforgotten I was there.
Lanie–
I tried not to be insulted by the way they were ignoring me. An Ancient and a Celestial certainly didn’t have to consult me on anything, even if I did have blessings from the Moon Goddess. Even so, I was her mother, and Stella had asked me to come along.
This back and forth between her and Malachi was leaving me in the dark. I waved a hand at them, trying to catch their attention.
They finally both looked at me. Stella’s gaze was calm, but my grandfather looked cold and distant…
and very, very much like an Ancient vampire. I focused on my child.
“What’s Malachi doing?” I asked her.
Stella sighed and looked at him. He gave her a familiar flick with his fingers for permission. She cleared her throat.
“The leadership councit is a farce. Brightsky is supposedly built up on the concept of equality, inclusion, and democracy, but the truth is-”
“I’m the only one in charge,” Malachi cut in. He stood abruptly. “It’s all me. Oh, I pretend to give the council a say in anything that has to do with running this enclave, because everyone likes to think they have input. But in the end, I’m the only one with any real power.”
“They all turn to you for advice, and you allow them to believe you take their concerns and desires into consideration, when in fact you cast a veil over their minds any time they try to balk you.” Stella frowned and shook her finger at him. “That’s quite rude, you know.”
Malachi rolled his eyes and leaned back in the chair.
He still looked tense but was relaxing at least a little bit. “It’s impossible for an Ancient to be rude, Stella We do what we know must be done. This enclave cannot run under according to the desires andwhimsies of group. We’d be overrun by our enemies within days if I didn’t keep a tight control over everything that goes on inside these walls. It’s exhausting.”
I shook my head, digesting everything I’d just heard.
“I knew you were arrogant, but this is…”
“Please, don’t tell me it’s shocking,” he said. “You can’t possibly be truly stunned.”
“I’m disappointed,” I admitted. “You made such a big deal about how Brightsky is this wonderful place where all kinds can mingle and have a say in what happens. After what we had to deal with from the wolf High Council, it felt so much better to be in a place like this.”
He shrugged. “To you and everyone else who suffered injustice on the outside. What nobody seems to understand or at least wants to see is that the old saying is true: too many cooks do indeed spoil the broth.”
“Brightsky isn’t a pot of soup!”
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His lip curled. “No, but it is a cauldron, bubbling full of ingredients. Too much of this, not enough of that, a pinch here or there of something unexpected…salt can ruin a meal with having too much or not enough of it, and any community is the same. Everyone might think they want an equal say in how things run, but in the end, what they truly want is only to feel as though they were heard. So long as they have that, nothing else matters.”
“He’s right. As long as the community is happy, it can succeed,” Stella murmured. She put her hand over mine, which had clenched into a fist on my knee.
“And the residents of Brightsky are happy, Mother. It runs smoothly.”
“Like an oiled set of gears,” Malachi put in proudly.
“At the end of the day, that is the goal,” Stella explained. “So, what’s the problem then?” Malachi asked with an edge of both irritation and relief in his tone. “Are you planning on pulling away the curtain to review the big, bad wizard behind it? Should I prepare myself for the coronation when I take my crown as king?”
Sarcasm dripped from his tone so thickly I could almost see it.
“You could give her the respect she’d due,” I told him.
“Hear her out. I realize how hard it must be for you to give anyone that consideration.”
The bright tinkle of Stella’s laughter t winkled through the entire room, bright as the stars she’d been named for. That brightness filled me and made me want to laugh, too. She turned her glowing smile toward Malachi, and slowly, to my surprise, he smiled in return.
“Even when I can tell you’re using the powers of the Flora, I still find myself succumbing to it. Flower nym phs,” he said to me. “You wou have heard of them. Known for their incessantly cheerful natures.
They can intoxicate you with joy.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing,” I told him.
“Forgive me, Mother. I thought it would help with what I have to tell you next. Give a sort of buffer,”
Stella said.
Silence fell as we waited for her to speak.
“The wolf High Council has found a way to exploit Brightsky’s weakness.”
Lanie–
Despite the Flora happiness my daughter had infused into me, my shock was hard and cold and more bitter than anything I’d ever tasted.
It lashed at me with the sting of a thousand whips before it subsided into a bearable weight. I couldn’t help but wonder if Stella was helping me to bear it, and I hated feeling like my own child had to be strong for me. I vowed then and there that I would do my best to never make her carry me this way again.
There was an inevitability to this feeling as well, this discovery that those who’d meant to lead, guide, and protect our kind were working so very hard to hurt us.
It felt like what we’d been waiting to find out for sure for so long. I hated that, too, but I could hardly be truly surprised. I’d always known it was only a matter of time.
At least now, I hoped we’d get some answers.
“What weakness?” I managed to say.
“They can’t have. Of course, they think they have,”
Malachi retorted at once. “But it’s impossible for them to actually breach our defenses. Believe me, others have tried with better methods than any the High Council could ever employ, and they’ve all failed.”
Stella touched her fingertips to her temples and bowed her head. “I see many pathways, but despite the many branches, each one leads to the same end.
The destruction of Brightsky. You can continue to deny it, or you can face it and save the enclave and all those in it.”
“What do you mean, exploiting the enclave’s weakness?” I held up a hand when Malachi began to spea “Please. I want to hear what my daughter has to say. I believe and trust that she has insight into thingsyou might have blinded yourself to.”
Malachi sighed irritably. “Fine. Speak away, all-knowing Celestial.”
“They’ve managed to find a way to kill the spiders,”
Stella said.
I waited for his reaction, which was cold, hard, and icy silence. Confused, I turned back to my daughter.
“I don’t get it. What do spiders have to do with anything? Spider shifters?”
“Enclavian spiders,” Malachi said. “Empathic, telepathic, tiny little guardians to us all. Generation after generation, they’ve evolved to serve and support the enclave.”
“And now they are connected intrinsically to Brightsky in ways they were never meant to. Ways that have remained unknown to you all,” Stella explained.
Malachi’s eyebrow quirked. “Not to me.”
“To me, though,” I said. My heart pounded a little faster. “Forgive me for needing the crash course, but get me up to speed, please.”
He turned to me. “The spiders control the lights, the heat, the water. All of the utilities. They are the eyes and ears of the enclave, our silent s ervants, keeping everything running to perfection. They light the paths we walk.”
“If you’ve ever wondered how you find your way from one place to another, it’s usually because of the spiders helping you without you being aware of it,”
Stella said. “But there’s more to it than that. Over the years, they’ve also grown more powerful. Their telepathy and psychokinetic powers are linked, not only to the spiders that live in Brightsky, but they’re starting to connect with their distant relatives in other enclaves.”
“I’ve never even seen a spider here…” I began.
Malachi laughed. “They’re tiny. You wouldn’t see any one of them unless they want you to.” “Or you need them to,” Stella said. “And the wolf High Council has found a way to hurt them. To kill them, actually.”
I was putting the pieces together, one at a time. Far more slowly than my brilliant daughter would be able to, but I was doing the best I could…and, it seemed like I was doing it better than my grandfather.
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?