Page 66 of Betrayed Alpha Mate

“This ends now.” I don’t scream. I don’t rage. I just release as gold erupts from my core in a controlled detonation, washing over the last evil witch like sunlight through fog. The shadows dissolve, and the Veilcaster vanishes.

For one breath—just one—there is stillness.

Then, the ground shudders. The cemetery trembles. Earth splits. Cold, ancient magic claws upward from below, vast and furious. I stagger as something old stretches beneath the island, and Sean catches me instantly in human form.

I lift my gaze to the cracked grave at the edge of the clearing.

Merlin Grimes.

“He’s coming,” I whisper, letting Sean steady me as I exchange knowing looks with my sisters.

None of us is afraid or uncertain. Not even the alpha wolves by our sides. We’d just effortlessly taken down all three of the evil witches, and there’s nothing that can stop us now.

Not even Grimes rising from the dead.

Chapter 25 - Sean

I curl my arm around Emily’s shoulders, feeling her trembling in the aftermath of using her powers so boldly against the three evil witches. Tonight is the culmination of all her training over these past few weeks, and she’s outdone herself.

But there’s no time to celebrate the victory of the fall of the wicked witches when the ground quakes beneath us. The ground doesn’t simply split, but it peels back, roaring to life.

Stone curls back from itself like rotting skin, roots snapping and screaming as they’re torn free, the earth buckling inward as if something massive beneath the island is finally stretching after centuries of confinement. The cemetery convulses, headstones toppling over, bones cracking audibly as graves rupture one after another.

Emily stumbles, and I catch her before she can fall, her magic flaring instinctively around us in a shield of gold. The air goes frigid, the temperature plummeting so fast my breath fogs instantly, frost blooming across broken stone.

And then the shadows come, not creeping in slowly, but pouring in like a tsunami hitting the mainland. Black smoke coils upward from the split earth, thick and oily, writhing as if it’s alive. Faces surface briefly in the dark with screaming mouths and hollow eyes, before being dragged back into the mass of the gaping hole in the ground. The smell hits next: decay, iron, something burned, and ancient enough to make my wolf recoil and send acrid bile to the top of my throat.

“Hold formation!” Dominic shouts, already shifting mid-command.

Wolves explode into motion around us, bodies tearing free of human skin in flashes of fur and bone. The witches move in practiced synchronization, hands weaving sigils as light and symbols snap into place, forming layered defenses.

Emily stays rooted beside me, and the bond tightens. She’s not panicking, but she’s focused. She feels what is coming, feels the weight of it, the vastness pressing against her awareness like a stormfront rolling in.

The shadows begin to shape themselves in the air, a spine forming first, twisted, elongated, looking and feeling wrong. Ribs push outward next, cracking into place with wet, obscene sounds. The darkness condenses, hardens, flesh knitting itself together from magic alone.

Merlin Grimes rises from the ashes of his grave. He’s not human anymore. Not entirely.

His body is hideously tall, limbs stretched unnaturally long, joints bending at angles that make my skin crawl. Black veins pulse visibly beneath corpse-pale flesh, shadow crawling beneath his skin like something trapped and furious. A black cloak made of shadows and death covers his body. His face is gaunt, eyes sunken deep into their sockets, glowing faintly violet as he lifts his head.

And when he smiles with blackened teeth, I feel Emily flinch through the bond.

“Ah…” Grimes murmurs, his voice layered, overlapping itself like multiple throats speaking at once. “The children return.”

His gaze sweeps over us, dismissive at first, like the wolves and witches standing at the ready to fight him don’t faze him until his eyes land on Emily, and the air changes.

“That glow,” he says softly, reverently. “I would recognize it anywhere.”

Emily’s magic responds without her permission, gold flickering beneath her skin, radiating outward like sunlight straining against storm clouds. My wolf presses forward, hackles raised, a low snarl rumbling from my chest.

Grimes laughs.

“You feel it, don’t you?” he continues with a snarl, eyes never leaving her. “The island remembers you. The blood in the veins of this soil remembers you. Your grandmothers fought me here.” He clicks his tongue. “Brave, foolish women. They burned me, but they could never get rid of me.” He chuckles, the vulgar sound echoing around the entire island.

“That’s what we’re here for!” Arianna shouts, her chin held up high as Tyler stands beside her in wolf form. “We’re here to put an end to you for good!”

More chuckling from the inhuman, dark warlock. “What makes you think that you can defeat me? Your grandmothers failed, and so will you.”

“We’ll see about that!” Gwen roars, and the witches attack first.