Chapter 42
Again?
Has Alara gone bananas?
Lifting that stone just once took every ounce of strength I possess. Sweat beads on my forehead. My muscles are weak. My mind fatigued.
“I’ll need more than a few minutes to recuperate,” I tell her.
“You won’t. You will endure.”
“But, Alara—”
“Stop!” She holds up a hand and her violet eyes light with fire. “Have you forgotten?”
“Have I forgotten what?” I ask.
“The wolf father of your child is with his true mate, Hannah. His true mate. But don’t forget that his mate is not who she seems to be.”
I drop my jaw.
I’ve been so focused on losing Rogan, taking care of my unborn son, and listening to Alara that something slipped to the recesses of my mind.
“The two vamps,” I say softly. “She… She cut out their hearts. Mutilated them.”
“She did.”
“Why?” I ask, more to the universe than to Alara or anyone else. “They were already dead. Rogan admitted to killing them. He thought he had to do it to protect members of his pack. And to protect me. Or his mate, who he didn’t know at the time. Who he then thought was me. But it isn’t.”
To think I questioned myself only weeks ago. Thought my demon stepfather might have some kind of psychokinetic control over me.
How could I have ever doubted myself?
“Self-doubt is natural,” Alara says.
“Would you please stop doing that?” I demand.
“It’s simple intuition,” she says. “You know I can’t read your mind. I’ve told you I’m not clairvoyant.”
“I’m not so sure,” I mumble.
I rub at my forehead, trying to ease the thoughts racing into my mind.
The memories. The lies.
“You said the vamps threatened me, and that’s why you killed them.”
“Yes.”
“Why, then, would I take their hearts? They were already dead. The threat had been eliminated.”
“I don’t know, Hannah. I don’t believe it was you, at least not the you that I know.”
I rub at my forehead, trying to ease the axe that’s hacking into my skull.
This isn’t right.
This isn’t right.
My stomach clenches, and I double over in pain with a gasp.
“Princess!”
Rogan grips my shoulders, but I hold up a hand to keep him back. I dry heave onto the dirt. Nothing comes up. Not even Rogan’s blood.
Good.
I need the blood.
I need the strength.
Because I know what I must now do.
War may be raging, but I have my own battle. A battle for my very soul.
If I truly mutilated two bodies—and I’m not at all convinced that I did—I must find out why and who manipulated me into it.
“I didn’t do it, Rogan,” I choke out.
“Hannah... I love you. That won’t change.”
“You can love a person capable of such a horrific act?”
“You love me, don’t you? I ended their lives because they threatened my mate. You.”
I sigh as my nausea subsides. I rise and face him, my beautiful wolf.
“I do. I love you, Victor Rogan. I love you, and I’m going to prove to you that I did not do this.”
As the memory fades away, I face Alara. “I told him I’d prove to him that I did not cut out those hearts.”
“And you have,” she says. “He knows now that you’re not his fated mate.”
“Which means he knows his true mate—the wolf he’s with now—is the one.”
“Yes,” Alara says gently. “And she’s no doubt filling his head with reasons that he’s making sense of because of the force with which he’s being drawn to her.
She lies to him, speaks in ways only he can understand because of the energy between them.
” Alara’s eyes darken and her jaw tenses.
“She means to harm you and your son, Hannah. Rogan will be forced to choose between those he loves and the person to whom he’s drawn, body and soul. ”
“But not heart?” I ask.
“No. His heart belongs to you and your child. She will never have that.”
“How am I supposed to compete with fate?” I shake my head, ball my hands into fists. “I love him, Alara. His child needs him.”
“His mate means him no harm,” Alara says. “She’s feeling the same things, after all. But she’s not who she seems to be.”
“Who is she, then?”
“I don’t know. I wish I were clairvoyant so I could help you figure it out. But she’s hiding something—something she may not even be aware of—and there is one threat to her.”
“Me,” I say softly.
“Yes, one threat for now.” Alara drops her gaze to my abdomen. “Soon there will be two, and Hannah, you must listen to me carefully.”
I swallow, nodding.
“Your child must survive. The livelihood of everyone on this planet depends on it.”