Filed to story: Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel Free >>???
My eyes were grainy with exhaustion, but my heart raced. I hadn’t slept at all. At this point, I was running. on caffeine and adrenaline.
“I think I have a solution.” I dug enthusiastically into a bowl of pasta with meat sauce Gabriela had insisted on putting in front of me before I started talking. The moment I took the first bite, my hunger roared into life so strong there wasn’t any way to stop myself from gobbling up half the bowl.
I looked up to see everyone staring at me.
Mason looked impressed. Zane, amused. Xander looked pi ssed off, which was no surprise, since feeling his Alpha energy and anger since I’d shut the door on him. Gabriela, on the other hand, looked.
satisfied.
“You’re burning energy twice as fast right now,” she said with a glare at Xander when he acted as thoug he meant to say something to me. “You hush and let her fill her belly. Whatever Lanie has to tell us can certainly wait a few more minutes while she fuels herself, Atush of giddiness overtook me at the way the big Alpha was put in his place so thoroughly by his mother. I reached to pat his hand, though, I didn’t want him to be angry and upset.
I took another bite and chewed more slowly this time. The flavors of meat and sauce burst on my tongue, and I felt new life surging through me. When I held up my hand, wiggling my fingers, the glow around them spread out in wispy waves of shining glitter.
“Incandescent,” Mason murmured. “Goddess, Lanie. You’re almost on fire.”
“How long have you been shining that strongly?” Zane pushed a basket of garlic bread toward me, and I eagerly tore off a hunk of it with my teeth.
I had to finish chewing and swallowed before I could answer, I shook my head. My hunger was slowly sating, but I could still feel the energy coursing through me. Burning.
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying attention. I was just working on a solution…” Another wave of hunger roared through me, and I dug back into the pasta.
“You all might as well eat, too,” Gabriela ordered. “She’s going to be a while.”
Xander shot her a look. “You know what’s going on with her?”
” told you. She has to fuel herself. She’s burning an immense amount of energy. Lanie, my girl, you’ll learn how to adjust yourself and control all of this, but for right now, you feed yourself as much as you need.” Gabriela looked proud.
“I’ve never been this hungry,” I admitted. “Maybe when I was pregnant, eating for two…
All three men stopped and stared at me.
Went wide, “Im not pregnant,” I told them all. “Just starving.”
“Not pregnant with a baby, no. But you are creating something. Growing it,” Gabriela said as she thickly buttered a bite-sized piece of bread and tucked it neatly between her lips. “One of the advantages of that Luna gift is being able to eat basically most anything you want. But you won’t always feel like you need to.”
As the men dished up bowls of pasta and sauce and started eating, I was finally able to ease off a little bit. I wiped my mouth with a napkin and took a long, grateful drink of water, followed by a few sips of the good red wine Gabriela had set out for us, too.
I was glad she’d poured wine. It felt like we were going to have a reason to toast. I sipped again, feeling the wine’s warmth flood through me. The shine hadn’t abated, even if my hunger had softened.
“How long was I in there?” I realized I’d lost track of time.
“Just overnight. Almost twenty-four hours,” Xander sounded gruff as he drank some wine.
Now that I was out of the room, he was feeling relieved.
“I still owe you some time with just us,” I whispered through the link. “I just needed some time alone. It had nothing to do with not wanting to be with you, my love.”
“When? I need you. Want you.” Not only Xander, but Hunter’s voice reached me.
Lily stirred. My wolf had been so patient, but now she huffed out a growl that I almost made out loud.
“Want you. Running.”
“Hello,” Zane said, waving his hand in front of Xander’s face. “When the two of you are ready to share with the rest of the class…?”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. I eyed another piece of garlic bread with longing, but forced myself to take a deep breath, instead, I couldn’t stop the big grin spreading over my face, “I think I’ve found a way to get Zane out of the promise he made.”
Lanie–
“lve been on the dark web,” I said.
Zane’s jaw dropped. “The f uck is that?”
“How the hell did you manage to get onto it?” Mason demanded.
Xander growled. “You were where?”
Gabriela, on the other hand, only nodded with a secret smile. “I wondered if you were holed up in the doing something like that.”
“Something like what? What’s she talking about?” Xander swiveled to stare at her.
“The dark web for wolves is all backdoor entries, really illegal-” Mason began.
“The f uck!” Xander interrupted with a glower. His big fist pounded the table, making all the bowls and silverware jump.
I sent a surge of soothing calm out in short pulses. He blinked rapidly and sat back in his chair. Gabriela’s grin got bigger, and I could feel her pride rolling out of her.
“How did you even know about it?” Mason asked I broke a slice of garlic bread into bite-sized pieces so I could let myself really savor each one. Now that my raging hunger had eased a bit, I wanted to enjoy the food. Every bite I took sent small bursts of energy through me. It felt like I’d been an empty cup, and now I was being filled to the brim.
“I started just with some basic searches, but I’d heard about the underground resources a long time ago,/ mean, everyone’s heard of the dark web, right? Even if you never accessed it.” I let the warm butter coat my tongue, followed by a luxurious sip of wine.
Zane’s eyes had been following the movement of my lips and throat, and now his gaze connected with mine. “You were able to get there using what, your laptop?”
14 took some time. And money” added. “You’re going to see a hit to the accounts. It’ll look like we subscribed to a bunch of different…um._toy boxes.”
“Toy boxes? Like, for the babies?” Zane asked, sounding confused.
Gabriela snorted soft laughter and shook her head.
“Toys for the adults.” I corrected him and was tickled to see what looked like it might’ve been a blush creeping up his throat into his face. “Some of the subscriptions are real, so we’ll actually get the boxes. There will also be some makeup kits, curated clothing boxes, stuff like that. And oh, I invested in a mushroom farm. I also think that’s real.”
“Af ucking mushroom farm,” Xander said in a voice full of admiration and wonder.
“The money went to all those things, but it was really paying to get the codes and locations of how to get into the dark web,” I explained. “Like Mason said, it’s illegal. I couldn’t just log on,”
I shivered for a second, thinking of some of the information that had come up on my first searches; things I didn’t want to see and hoped to never see again.
“How did you figure out how to do all this?”
Tm not sure. I just…knew.” I sat back in my chair and held out my wine glass for a refill, which Zane took care of immediately. “I can’t really describe what it was like, only that I started getting these images in my mind. One after the other. Almost like when we communicate through the mind link, but without words…at least, not words in a language I speak. And yet, I had no trouble understanding it.”
A fresh outpouring of pride and understanding swelled toward me from Gabriela. Tears glinted in her eyes. I felt something else, too…a small sadness. Bittersweet regret. The faintest tinge of envy colored outer edges, but when our eyes locked and she nodded at me, it went away.
“The Moon Goddess has been guiding you, my daughter.”
“That’s how I knew where to look and what to do.” I replied and took her hand.
For a few seconds, we were the only ones in the room. Two women, bound together in the supporting light from the Moon Goddess. A spark leapt from Gabriela’s fingers to mine, and we both gasped and shivered. Gabriela opened her mouth to speak, but the voice that came out did not sound like hers. Deep tones hummed all through it, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Our fingers linked, zapping more energy.
“The hand of the Goddess has guided you, Lanie. You are tapping into your true Luna powers. The more you use them, the closer you will become to the strength and power of the Goddess herself.”
Gabriela and I cried out at the same time. We pulled our hands apart with a cr ackle and flash of glittering light. An electric heat rolled all over me, there and gone as fast and fierce as a lightning bolt.
That’s when Gabriela’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, showing only the whites. Her head fell backward as her body shook so hard it rattled the table. Then, she fell forward, face down on the table with a thump.
Xander–
“Ma!” I shouted.
I’d been almost hypnotized, watching my mother and my mate joining their hands. The voice that had come out of my mother had reverberated through me, echoing like she’d shouted into a deep well even though she’s barely raised it. As soon as she fell onto the table, though, I jumped up to help her.
Zane was on her other side, while Mason went to Lanie. She waved him off.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. “Is Gabriela okay?”
I helped my mother sit upright. Blood trickled from her nose, and her forehead had a bruise alrea blooming on it. She blinked rapidly, eyelashes fluttering, and then her eyes popped wide open.
I’m fine,” she said, trying to wave me away.
I didn’t let her go. “You just face planted so hard I heard a crunch, Ma. You’re not fine.”
“Let me get some ice,” Zane said. He went to the freezer and started pulling out the ice cube trays to filla plastic baggie.
My mother gingerly touched her nose and then her forehead, but she gave Lanie a huge grin. “You see what a blessing you’ve been given, Lanie? I’d hoped, but didn’t want to say anything, in case I was wrong. spent hours opening my mind and heart to the Moon Goddess’s guidance without luck. I knew she hadn’t simply abandoned me, but I couldn’t be sure she was finally granting you the full and true Luna gifts that rightfully belong to you now.”
Mason rubbed Lanie’s shoulders. “I thought Lanie already was the Luna. She’s mated to two Alphas, right?”
“We take nothing for granted when it comes to the Goddess,” Gabriela said. She took the ice pack from Zane with a grateful smile and pressed it to her forehead with a wince. “When Orion died and your Alpha powers were awakened, the mate bond between you and Lanie was tied to Xander, and through him, Zane. You four already knew you shared the mind links and that connection, which is something I genuinely have never heard of happening before. I worried the Goddess wouldn’t bless the union, that she might deny Lanie the full realm of her powers.”
“I’d have been the Luna in name,” Lanie added, “but I wouldn’t have been able to access all the Luna gifts.
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?