Taken For The Alpha ✔️ - 25 - Wattpad

Taken For The Alpha ✔️

by Midika

Taken For The Alpha ✔️

Werewolf

*18+ read at your discretion!* My hands tremble by my sides. "Don't sleep with her..." He steps toward me, his eyes dark. "Why not?" "Whatever you were planning to do to her tonight, do it to me instead," I whisper. *** Ayah has always been unremarkable in every way other than in the power she wields...

Word Count: 2109

I settle in my seat next to Iris, passing a nervous glance up at Zaon.

He rolls the amplifier around in his hand. I can feel the anxious energy pouring off him in droves. I'm not feeling inclined to comfort him. Being realistic is far better at preserving feelings, especially if this doesn't go as expected.

Which I get the uneasy feeling it won't.

"My mother always looked like this," I admit, watching him sink into his own chair across from Iris's bed.

"Like what?" He asks distractedly, unable to take his eyes off his sister.

"Peaceful." I note the slight upward tilt to Iris' mouth, like she is enjoying a pleasant dream. "It's so wrong. Nature never intended for me to use my powers this way."

Zaon frowns. "What way?"

"To prolong a life that may well be departed."

I touch Iris' skin, feeling how cold it is. Regardless of how warm Zaon attempts to keep this room, he cannot chase off the chill of death.

He doesn't appear hurt by my words. He's fiercely determined to return her to this realm of living, and my resignation will not cause him to waver.

"Iris is in there. She has to be," he states.

"You sound like my father." I grimace at the memory of him. "I think he knew deep down my mother was gone but he held on to the last threads of her life. I never understood how just her body could be enough for him, but that's the mate bond, I suppose."

Surprise litters Zaon's face as our gazes clash.

"They were mates?" He whispers.

"Oh yes." I pick up a chunk of Iris's hair, which needs trimming. "It's why I shall never find my mate."

The mate bond seems to mean the same to every wolf. I understand that I'm in the minority by not wanting to seek it out, but others have not witnessed what I have.

Even Zaon seems disturbed at my declaration against it. He strikes me as the type to ardently protect his mate, to put her before all else in his life.

I am terrified for whoever she may be.

"I don't think it's up to you," he murmurs.

"Well, I can only hope whatever divine power looks down upon us can see how finding a mate doesn't suit me at all." My shoulders sag with resignation.

For a while there's only companionable silence between us. I can feel him staring at the side of my face, trying to read what I don't want him to see.

"Love doesn't suit you?" He asks softly.

I shrug with one shoulder. "Not like that. Mate bonds are dangerous and disastrous. They make reasonable people do terrible things, like my father."

Maybe it's an excuse. Maybe I'm protecting myself from the reality that my father didn't truly care for me, as he put me behind his mate in priority. That would be the cruel reality if the mate bond wasn't what drove him to near insanity.

"You wouldn't do the same?"

"I definitely would. That's the problem." I hold his gaze. "For all we know my mother could have been suffering. She could have been withheld from some kind of peace for not having her body laid to rest."

If I found my mate, I couldn't be sure I would have the strength of will to make the difficult decision my father had to.

Zaon's eyes soften. "Do you miss her?"

"Not even slightly," I admit frankly, waiting for the usual flicker of guilt that doesn't come. "My father...somewhat. It's complicated."

I didn't know my mother, so I wouldn't know what to miss. While I miss who my father often pretended to be, this experience has afforded me a new perspective. I can't miss a man who would have killed me for the smallest possibility I could prolong his mate's life.

I don't even hate Zaon for taking me from my mother, and effectively killing her. In some demented way, I think he saved her.

He nods once, understanding that I don't want this conversation to continue. He produces a dagger in one hand, and the amplifier in the other.

"Shall we?"

"Yes, let's."

I take the dagger first, deftly slicing down my palm. I barely wince at the sting, handing it back to Zaon while I watch the blood well in my palm.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to you slicing your hand open," he admits with a grimace.

I take the amplifier with my other hand. "Let us hope today is the last time you ever have to see me do this, then."

He nods while I feel the weight of the amplifier. It's buzzing with magic, my own reacting to it, calling to it. It's a thrilling feeling that has me gasping for air.

This is going to work.

Wrapping my fingers around the rock, I place my bloodied palm on Iris's forehead.

Immediately I feel our connection interlacing. The wall is there, solid and strong, but I embrace the surge of energy the amplifier offers me, welcoming its aid.

The magic within it feels ancient and untroubled. It wars with my own, newer magic, fleshing it out, testing its worthiness. I call to it, beckoning it to help me as I approach the impossibly strong wall of Iris's sickness.

I make strong contact, shaking the foundation of it, creating cracks so thick and large in certain it's going to collapse.

Vacantly, I feel my body tighten and my eyes squeeze shut. I'm putting all the effort I have, fueled by the amplifier and the desperate need for this to work.

But it doesn't.

The wall forces the magic back, learning it, overcoming it faster than I can get through. The cracks in the wall heal, and my magic is completely rejected.

I slam back into the seat, my vision spinning, a breath choked in my throat.

With a couple of blinks I can see enough to witness Iris stir. It's such a small movement in her eyelids and fingertips that it could have been missed, but Zaon is watching her intently.

"Iris?" He bows over her bed, gently shaking her shoulders. "Iris sweetheart, are you okay?"

She doesn't stir again, the remnants of my magic vacating her system. I stay slumped in my spot, numbly watching Zaon's hopeful expression as he tries to rouse her.

"Iris can you hear me? It's Zaon." He grabs her tiny hand in his, giving it a squeeze.

"She's not-"

"She stirred. She's alive." He smiles at me, so brightly my heart aches with the guilt of not being able to do enough to reunite the siblings.

Once again, I've failed. My magic just isn't enough.

"It could have...I mean it could have been anything," I tell him hoarsely.

"It's working. The amplifier worked!" He gestures to where I still clutch it in my hand. The jagged edges have left indents in my skin from how hard I gripped it.