Chapter Thirteen #2
I stopped trying to think of something clever to say. Because she was right.
The unsettled feeling that had been plaguing me since we’d arrived, the restless energy that wouldn’t let me sit still or focus, the magic crawling beneath my skin like it wanted out, it was gone. Completely. As if it had never existed.
In its place was something warm. Solid. Almost electric.
Like standing in the charged air before a thunderstorm, except instead of fear there was anticipation.
Instead of danger there was possibility.
The magic inside me had stopped reaching and started.
.. settling. As if it had found what it was looking for.
As if she was what it was looking for.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I feel it. It’s the same with all of you?”
“Every time one of you is close, the magic responds. It’s like it’s been waiting for us to be together, and now that we are, it wants...” She trailed off, searching for the word.
“More,” I finished.
Her eyes met mine, and the air between us changed.
Charged. Like the moment before lightning strikes, when every hair on your body stands on end and the world goes electric and still.
I could feel her magic pressing against mine, warm and golden, and everywhere it touched felt like fingertips trailing across my skin. My breath caught. Hers did too.
“Show me what you can do,” she said softly.
I reached for the magic. Not carefully, not cautiously the way I usually did, as if it might bite me if I moved too fast. I just reached, the way you’d reach for a hand in the dark, trusting it would be there.
And it came. A rush of wind that swept through the training ring, lifting dust and petals from the ground in spiralling columns that caught the fading sunlight.
Alyssa’s magic answered immediately. I felt it before I saw it. A pull in my chest, a warmth that spread outward, and then her power was there alongside mine. Not competing. Not clashing. Playing.
Her fire danced through my wind, carried higher, burning brighter.
My lightning arced between her streams of water, illuminating the droplets from within until they looked like liquid stars scattered across the air.
Her earth rumbled beneath my feet in a heartbeat rhythm while my wind carried the scent of her magic to me, something like honeysuckle and thunderstorms mixed into a single intoxicating perfume.
We started out playful. Testing. My wind chasing her fire across the ring.
Her earth trembling beneath my feet while I sent sparks skittering across her skin.
She laughed, and the sound was caught by the breeze and sent swirling around the ring like music.
I grinned, sending a gust that whipped her hair across her face, and she retaliated by making the ground shift beneath my feet so I had to windmill my arms to stay upright.
But then it started to build.
Every brush of Alyssa’s magic against mine was a brush against my skin.
I could feel it. Actually feel it. Her fire was warmth trailing down my arms, across my chest, pooling in the base of my spine.
Her water was cool fingertips tracing my neck, my jaw, the sensitive line below my ear.
Her earth was the solid press of a palm against my chest, my stomach, lower.
My breath stuttered. The playfulness in the air shifted into something heavier. Something charged with the same electricity that was sparking between our palms.
I met her eyes and saw that she felt it too. Her lips were parted. Her chest was rising and falling faster than it should have been. And her magic wasn’t playing anymore. It was reaching for me. Wrapping around mine. Pulling me closer without either of us moving a single step.
It was euphoric. Electric. Like nothing I had ever experienced.
Every nerve ending was alive, singing, overwhelmed by the sensation of her power tangled with mine.
I wanted to close the distance between us.
Wanted to put my hands on her the way the magic was putting itself on me.
Wanted to feel her skin instead of just the phantom touch of her power.
So, I let go.
Not partially, not carefully, not with one hand on the reins the way I always kept myself controlled.
I let go completely, and the magic surged through me like a river breaking through a dam.
The wind howled, whipping around the training ring in a vortex that should have been terrifying but felt like freedom.
Lightning crackled in the air, dancing between us in arcs of white-blue light that left afterimages burning on my retinas.
It was effortless. I wasn’t forcing it. I wasn’t shaping it or wrestling it into submission the way I had to with everything else in my life.
I was just a conduit, nudging it in the right direction, and it responded like it had been waiting for me to stop fighting it.
Like it had been begging me to let go for months and I’d been too afraid to listen.
The wind embraced us, wrapping securely around us both before it lifted us off the ground.
When my feet left the ground and for one heart-stopping moment, panic seized my chest. But Alyssa’s hand found mine, her fingers threading through my own, and the fear dissolved.
We hung in the air, suspended by my storm, her magic woven through it like golden thread through silver silk.
The sensation of her hand in mine was amplified a hundred times by the magic, until I could feel her heartbeat through our joined palms, feel the rhythm of her breathing echoing in the wind that held us aloft.
Lightning danced between us, but it didn’t burn.
It tingled where it touched my skin, leaving trails of sensation that made my breath catch and my toes curl.
The electricity spread outward, reaching the stone columns, crawling across the ground, covering the entire training ring in a protective lattice of crackling light that hummed with power.
At first, I thought it was coming from Alyssa. Her power was stronger than mine, always would be, and it made sense for something this spectacular to be her doing. I was just the conduit. Just the sidekick, along for the ride while the real magic happened around me.
Then I heard my wolf laughing.
Not mocking. Not bitter. Laughing with a joy I’d never heard from him before. A fierce, triumphant howl that reverberated through every part of me.
You might be a beta, he said, and there was pride in his voice that made my throat tight. But you’re a beta that was made to be a king.
It was all me.
The lattice. The wind holding us aloft. The lightning dancing between the columns like a living fence.
The storm that had built itself around us, beautiful and terrifying and utterly, impossibly mine.
All of it was pouring out of me with an ease that felt like breathing.
Like it had always been there, a river dammed behind walls I’d built myself, and all I’d had to do was stop holding it back.
“Ryder.” Alyssa’s voice was breathless, her eyes wide as she looked at what I’d created. At what we’d created together, except the foundation was mine. The power was mine. “This is you.”
“I know.” And the strangest part was that I wasn’t afraid. It felt so effortless. So natural. Like it had always been a part of me, sleeping in the depths, waiting for the right moment to wake up. Waiting for me to stop being afraid of it. Waiting for me to stop telling myself I wasn’t enough.
“I think it always was,” Alyssa said, and I realised I’d spoken the last part aloud. “It’s the only explanation. This power was always yours, Ryder. You just needed the right moment to access it.”
Slowly, gently, I let us back down. My feet touched the ground, and then hers, my hands coming to her waist as I sought any excuse to cling to her.
The wind finally settled around us like a blanket and my hands slipped back into hers, our fingers threading together.
The lightning dimmed but didn’t disappear entirely, tiny sparks still flickering between our joined hands, reluctant to let go.
“I was never special,” I said, and for once the words didn’t come out self-deprecating or bitter.
They came out wondering. Like I was seeing my own history with new eyes.
Every moment I’d been told I wasn’t enough, every time I’d believed it, every joke I’d made to cover the hurt of being overlooked.
All of it reframed by the power still thrumming through my veins.
“No,” Alyssa corrected me, stepping closer to press herself against me.
I could feel the warmth radiating from her skin.
Feel her magic pressed against mine like a physical touch, and every nerve in my body lit up in response.
She was close enough that I could see the gold flecks in her eyes and the slight part of her lips and the way her gaze dropped to my mouth for just a fraction of a second.
“You were always exceptional. You just couldn’t see it. ”
Then she kissed me.
It wasn’t desperate or hungry or fuelled by fear the way so many of our kisses had been.
It was slow. Sure. A promise made with lips and breath and the gentle press of her body against mine.
Her hand came up to rest against my chest, right over my heart, and I felt the magic pulse between us, warm and steady, a rhythm that matched our heartbeats.
She was everything. Paradise wrapped in a package of perfection that I still couldn’t believe had chosen me. Chosen all of us. It only made sense that she could save a world, because nothing could ever stand in her way. Not Arik. Not prophecy. Not the end of everything.
Not with her mates at her side.
When she pulled back, the training ring was still crackling with residual energy. My energy. My power. Mine.
I looked at the lattice of lightning, still flickering faintly between the columns. At the wind that still swirled lazily around the ring, carrying petals in slow spirals. At the woman standing in front of me with eyes that held galaxies and a smile that could bring a man to his knees.
“I think,” I said slowly, “I might actually be able to do this.”
Alyssa smiled. “I never doubted it for a second.”
My wolf howled in agreement, and somewhere in the distance, thunder answered.