Page 62 of Rejected Alpha Mate

But I’m not listening to anything except the rushing, roaring sound in my head.

Nicholas.

Nicholas.

Nicholas.

I hurl my magic at Morganna, following her every time she tries to dodge. She’s fast and nimbly avoids my blasts of magic, and my power grows as if fueled by my impatience. Out of nowhere, with a crack of breaking air, another figure leaps into the light.

“Tobias!” Delilah shouts.

Tobias stumbles forward, his eyes flickering violently between red and blue as if two beings inside him are fighting for control. He stands between Morganna and me, chest heaving, face contorted with pain, with grief, eyes flickering to Nicholas on the ground behind me, a pained expression gripping him.

His voice is small when he speaks. “I’m sorry, Donna…” he whimpers, and my breath catches.

I already know where this is going. I can see it in his eyes. “Tobias! Don’t—”

“I’m sorry for everything,” he whispers again. “For what I became. For what I allowed to happen. For not stopping sooner.”

“Tobias, please, don’t…” I whimper as gold continues to pulse out of me.

But Tobias smiles, broken and tired, and takes one step back toward Morganna.

She’s screaming at him, clawing at his shoulder, trying to drag him away. “You fool! Don’t you dare!”

But he grips her wrist, and for the first time, I see his arm shift into wolf form, dirty, greasy cream hair rippling across flesh and extending into a claw that forms a vice-grip on her hand.

And for the first time since this nightmare began, his eyes are fully, painfully blue when he glances at me over his shoulder.

He throws me a sincere smile full of pain, full of apology, and says, “There’s something you need to remember, D-Dons….” His voice cracks. “I didn’t forget our friendship.”

“Tobias! No!”

But it’s too late.

Tobias shoves Morganna straight into the heart of my magic, gripping her wrist tightly, forcefully, so she can’t run away this time. The golden blast surges and devours the darkness, devours everything.

Morganna screams as her form dissolves into black dust particles inside the golden light.

Tobias doesn’t scream, he just…exhales, and the light takes him too, like a candle finally burning out.

Then…silence.

The wind stops howling, the earth stills, and the sky clears as the shadows evaporate enough to see the stars glowing above our heads like a clearing rain to wash away the sins of tonight.

The golden light fizzles out in my palms, and I collapse.

My legs buckle, and I drop beside Nicholas again, my hands trembling violently, uncontrollably, as if I’ll never recover from the use of my power to that extent. My breath comes out ragged, hiccupping sobs tearing from my throat as exhaustion slams into me.

Nicholas’s face is pale…too pale…and there’s no warmth radiating from his lifeless body on the ground where he hasn’t moved a damn inch.

“Nicholas…” I whisper through overflowing tears, pressing my palm over the wound on his chest. “Please…please stay with me….”

My magic flickers weakly across my fingers, glowing softer now, not wild and raging, but aching. It’s all I have left to give, and it sinks into his skin, warm and desperate.

“Come back to me,” I beg, forehead pressed to his shoulder. “Please. I can’t, Nicholas, please…I can’t lose you….”

My tears drip onto his chest, glowing faint gold as they mix with the remnants of my magic. The height of my magic, born of desperation, is now too exhausted to go on, too defeated by Nicholas’s unwillingness to wake up, to heal. My voice breaks completely,