The Alpha's Pack (Kit Davenport Book 6)

by Tate James

  Who the bleeding hell are you, and what the shit do you want with me? I projected my thoughts over to the armored creature, and his mount reared up to paw at the air.

  Fenrir, my brother, the creature continued, now that we have found you, we will stop at nothing to wreak vengeance on these insolent creatures who sought to hide you from us. None shall leave this realm alive, starting here...

  The presence slipped from my mind, and I knew our link was gone. The thing was wasting no time following through on his actions either, as he swung his mighty blade from atop his mount and cut down two fighters at a time. He wasn’t discriminating on who he killed, either. Like his voice had told me, he was making sure none walked away alive.

  Shit.

  Using my flames, I torched the next three idiots who tried to take me on, clearing myself a path to try and get to the beast on horseback. But the battlefield was becoming crowded, not just with fighters, but with the fallen too. More than once, my paws slipped or stumbled on the bodies of the dead and dying, and I quickly saw the futility in my plan. I needed to help the fighters in my section, not go charging off in a rage at some wanker who was probably just talking smack to get a reaction from me.

  Exerting the control I prided myself on, I turned my back on the mounted demon and dove for the wolf who had been about to pounce on Uncle Cam from behind. Sneaky fucker.

  Tearing the animal’s throat out, I dodged the spray of blood and moved onto the next.

  It had become clear when Bridget’s army appeared that several packs had aligned themselves to her, as wolves made up the majority of her people. Interspersed with all kinds of weird and mythological beings, that was. Somewhere to the far end of the battle, our frost giants were tangling with ogres, shaking the ground with every huge throw or hit.

  Poor Wesley would be tearing his hair out that he wasn’t able to take the time to observe and document. There were several species on the battlefield that I knew hadn’t been named in his bible of supernatural beings, so it would be killing him to think they might die here without ever being recorded.

  “Alpha!” Cole bellowed at me in dragon speech, swooping low on outstretched wings and torching two wolves on his way down. “Vixen needs reinforcements in her section. Try and tighten up this end to bring fighters in closer to the middle.”

  I jerked my head in acknowledgement and spat acid at a mage aiming a runed spear at me. With him dealt with, I turned my gaze back to Cole in dragon form.

  “Bridget is still alive,” he informed me with puffs of frost curling out of his nostrils. “No word on the fate of Vic or Lachlan. I will run another flyby to check on things.”

  Another head jerk to show I understood, then I turned my back on him to start corralling the fight together. He and Vali were flying passes over all the sections to check who and where needed help and, given that we saw no one on the opposing side with wings, it was an advantage Bridget didn’t have.

  But Bridget, still alive? That wasn’t good. Combined with the mounted demons, things were not looking up for our side.

  I knew what I needed to do.

  Despite the grudging, uncomfortable agreement we had found in order to use the hound form during battle—but not become the wild beast I had been last time—we were not a bonded unit. Not really. We were three parts of a whole, co-existing within the same body.

  The human, the Alpha, and the Hound.

  How the hell had I ended up like this?

  The hound whispered at me that he knew but wasn’t telling, and the Alpha growled a threat at the other beast. I ignored them both, though. They weren’t equal thirds of me. I was slowly coming to realize that no matter how strong they were, it was I who was in charge. If they took over, it was because I had let them.

  To that end, I needed to do away with the mental walls I’d erected between us all. They were no more than facets of me, so it was only harming us all to maintain such distance.

  First thing, the cage had to go—before I lost my nerve. I’d been proud of myself for giving the cage a door that allowed the hound out—when I chose. Like now, when I needed the hound’s strength. But that wasn’t enough, and I was seeing it now.

  A young wolf came flying at me, jaws snapping and drool flying, but I dispatched him with barely a thought. These juveniles didn’t stand a chance.

  Glancing around and finding no immediate threats, I sent my thoughts inward. Wasting no time, I smashed the cage to pieces, then turned my attention to the various other mental wards I’d erected between the parts of me.

  There was no finesse in what I did—Kitten would cringe and the twins would be horrified—but it achieved the goal I aimed for.

  The second my wards were smashed, the three parts making my supernatural self slammed together as though magnetized. For a moment, my whole world exploded with color, and all sounds were too much to bear.

  But when it faded, I was changed.

  I was complete.

  30

  KIT

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

  My mind had deteriorated past comprehensive sentences and moved right on through to repeated cursing. It was all I had. That or blind panic.

  Everywhere I looked, my rag-tag army was falling to Bridget’s superior forces, and she, the bitch herself, was practically sparkling with glee. At some stage she’d started riding an armor-wearing lion and was using her raised position to throw flesh-eating spells in my soldiers’ faces. It was horrific, and I wanted nothing more than to beg her to stop. Stop the pain, stop the killing. These people didn’t deserve to die for Bridget’s ego.

  Just when things started looking the most hopeless, when my strength of will started failing and my previously unshakable faith in our victory dissolving, another soul-shattering sound ripped through the salt flats, accompanied by a blinding light that caused everyone to pause and shield their eyes.

  When the light faded, I blinked rapidly to clear my vision and looked around. Cole and Vali had landed not far from me and were covering their faces with their huge wings, but despite the lack of active fighting, everyone seemed exactly as they were moments ago.

  Everyone—except the Four Horsemen.

  They each lay writhing on their backs, knocked from their mounts by glowing beings with radiant, eight-foot-wide wings outstretched behind them. Those same beings now stood over the Horsemen with the tips of their gleaming swords pressed to the junctions between armor plates on the demons’ necks.

  “Get fucked,” Caleb breathed, appearing beside me and staring in awe. “Are those...?” He trailed off, his jaw working but no sound was produced.

  “Angels?” I murmured back. “Sort of looks like it, doesn’t it?”

  “Shit yes,” Wesley said softly, coming up on my other side. “Cal you owe me a hundred bucks for angels being real.”

  Tearing my eyes from the seemingly angelic beings, I frowned at the two of them. How had they ended up so close to me when we were all supposed to have been spread out down the battlefield? Now that I knew what to look for, I spotted Austin a scant fifty feet away and the panting form of a huge black hellhound just past him.

  Fuckers didn’t trust me to stay alive all on my own.

  Bridget seemed to recover moments later, and I watched as she tried to kick her lion into motion. The poor shifter, though, was still staring awestruck at the winged creatures and didn’t move an inch.

  Growing visibly frustrated, she formed a ball of mage fire in her palm and made as if to lob it at one of the new arrivals. But even a moron could have guessed that this was not the right time to reignite a fight. These beings had just appeared from nowhere and thrown a bucket of ice water on the entire battle. Not a single person—other than my psychotic mother—made more than the slightest of movements.

  “Stop!” A voice like peeling bells echoed through the silent battlefield.

  Bridget’s hand froze—I assumed against her will—and the fire extinguished from her palm. Directly in front of her, another f
lash of blinding light flared, and when it cleared, a fifth winged creature in flowing white robes stood towering over her.

  From where we stood, I couldn’t make out the angelic creature’s face, but her hair was cropped short and her delicate arms held out a sword that stood taller than most men. Certain this was not someone I wanted to get on the bad side of, I stayed still and silent. Observing.

  “Bridget of the Ban Dia, you are guilty of many crimes against our combined magical races, and it is my supreme pleasure to be tasked with delivering your sentencing.” The creature’s voice was like windchimes when she spoke, but even I could hear an element of smugness in those words.

  Looked like Bridget had been poking more than one hornet’s nest recently.

  The being raised her voice, projecting it in a way that not a single combatant could have not heard what she said next. “All of you misguided fools who fight for this woman, you are being afforded one chance at redemption. This battle has been lost. Leave now, and your transgressions will be forgotten in the records of the eternal powers.”

  Countless supernatural beings from Bridget’s side scrambled to do as had been suggested, loads using portal runes to disappear right there on the spot, while scores more just started running full tilt across the salt. Whatever it took to get the hell away from this failed war they’d been involved in.

  “Generous of them,” Wesley whispered under his breath, and I flicked him a quick look, not wanting to take my eyes off the angelic creatures for too long.

  “The Horsemen have no place in this realm. What have you bargained in exchange for their help?” the leader of the winged things demanded of Bridget. Her wings were somewhat wider than the other four angels, and the feathers seemed almost like they were edged in gold, making them look both beautiful and deadly at the same time.

  I needed to strain my ears to hear Bridget’s response.

  “My soul,” she admitted in a strangled sort of gasp.

  Oh, you dumb bitch. And to think she called me arrogant...

  “Oh dear,” the angel murmured with what sounded a bit like a chuckle. “Well, in that case, I won’t mete out your punishment myself. You have sealed that all on your own.”

  “You... you’re not going to kill me?” Bridget babbled, and my eyebrows shot up.

  What the actual shitting fuck? They’re surely not letting her go...

  “I’m not,” the angel confirmed, then turned slightly to point a slim, elegant finger at me.

  Wait. Why is she pointing at me?

  “I leave your fate to your blood daughter. Isn’t that fun?” This time there was no mistaking the amusement in the angel’s voice, and it was becoming rapidly clear that maybe they weren’t the impartial holy beings they were always made out to be.

  “Me?” I squeaked out.

  At the same time, Bridget exclaimed, “Her?”

  “Yes, her.” The angel removed her sword from where the tip had been resting against Bridget’s chest and unlooped a glowing cord from around her waist. With a flick of her wrist, the cord snaked around Bridget’s form and tightened, effectively trapping her inside a straightjacket. “Because I think Kit damn well deserves the closure she will get from handing down your sentence.” The angel turned toward me then, revealing her face for the first time, and I sucked in a sharp gasp at her familiar features.

  “You, my sister, have the power to end her pathetic existence right here and now—condemning her soul to an eternity of torture. Or you can let her live. It’s your choice.” She raised her eyebrows at me when she suggested letting Bridget live, and gave a pointed look at Ruptura around my neck.

  Ah-hah, sneaky, sadistic Lucy. Some things never change.

  “That’s quite the choice,” I murmured, pretending to think on my options as I stepped closer and marveled at my best friend’s new—and improved—form. While before she had barely scraped five-foot-two, she now towered over me. Part of that, I was sure, had to do with the enormous wings holding her hovering above the ground.

  The hollow darkness inside me that had taken up residence ever since that horrible day—ever since holding Lucy’s lifeless form on the floor of the atrium and knowing that my mother had killed her—was gone. In its place, warmth and light sparked. Hope was sparking.

  She was here. Lucy was freaking right in front of me in a physical form… It was all I could do not to throw myself at her and start sobbing like a damn baby.

  Then again, I’d probably get snot all over those glossy white wings of hers, and I doubted whether that was really the ‘done thing’ with angels.

  “My rope will hold her magic bound until your choice is made,” Lucy advised me, quirking a brow like she could see what was going on in my head. “So, there isn’t a rush.” She paused, looking like she was debating her next words for a moment. Seemingly decided, she let her bare feet touch down on the salt ground in front of me.

  “Luce...” I whispered, feeling a lump form in my throat and I needed to swallow past it.

  “Hey girl,” she whispered back, keeping our exchange private. “Thank you for everything you did to avenge my death.”

  This squeezed a sob out of me. “But you are? Dead?”

  “Sort of,” she gave an elegant shrug, and her feathered wings rippled. “Maybe I can come back and explain it all to you sometime, but right now”—she mimed looking at a watch, which she wasn’t wearing— “I have to go. We’ve already broken a few rules, but you know me.” She gave me a mischievous wink, and my heart squeezed painfully inside my chest.

  “Will I see you again?” The question came out in a cry, and tears streamed down my face.

  The grin Lucy gave me lifted my spirits though. “Now that I have my wings? Just try and freaking stop me, Kit-girl.” She smacked a quick kiss on one of my cheeks, then glanced over at Bridget, who was furiously tugging at her glowing bonds. “Take your time on this one, and keep my cool, glow-y rope thing safe when you’re done? It’ll give me an excuse to come back and see you. Now watch this cool-ass shit.” Extending her wings wide again, she beat them once to lift herself a foot from the ground. “Love you, chick.”

  Without waiting on my reply, her wings flapped again, but this time they pushed so much force into the ground that she rocketed into the sky and disappeared with a flash of light.

  For a long time, I stood there staring up into the sky at the spot she’d just disappeared from... but there was no further sign of her, and I had an insane Ban Dia with delusions of world dominance to deal with.

  “Where did the rest of them go?” I asked, looking around and noticing that the other four angels and the Horsemen were all gone.

  “They all took off at the same time,” Wes answered, picking his way over the corpse of a snake creature. “It was scary-well-coordinated, really.”

  “The Horsemen, too?” I scanned what was left of our battleground and saw no sign of the demonic creatures and their mounts.

  Caleb mimed a puff of smoke and shrugged. Sounded like they’d taken Angel-Lucy’s advice and high-tailed it home as well. Leaving us alone to deal with Bridget.

  “What do we do now?” Wes touched a light hand to the small of my back, and I leaned into his comfort. “And was that seriously just Lucy—Lucifer—with wings?”

  I barked out a harsh laugh, wiping away the excess tears from my eyes. “Yeah, so it seemed.” I sighed and looked down on my pathetic, bound bio-mom. “Caleb, can you and Aus start portaling our troops out of here? This fight is over. Make sure they’re getting the medical attention they need.”

  “Sure thing,” he responded, eyeing up the struggling Bridget. It seemed like the more she thrashed, the tighter her bonds became. “What about her?”

  “She’ll keep,” I murmured, reaching down and hauling her to her feet by her blood-crusted hair. “Let’s get this cleaned up first and find out if Lachlan and Vic are still alive.”

  Caleb nodded, rubbing at tired-looking eyes. “You got it, Kitty Kat.”

  “N
ow then”—I gave Bridget a toothy grin— “let’s let you stew in fear and anticipation for a little while, shall we?”

  Her cheeks blanched, but to her credit, she didn’t break eye contact with me. Maybe I got more than just my looks from her after all.

  31

  It didn’t take long, thanks to the help of magic, to entirely clear the salt flats of supernatural soldiers. There were far more bodies than I would have ever hoped to hear about, but this wasn’t the time to dwell on how I was responsible for those lost lives.

  The deceased were all transported out, along with the living and injured, back to Omega Headquarters, where we had medic mages set up and waiting.

  Soon, all that was left on that wide-open space was my kneeling mother and my six dianoch. The once pristine white salt was stained crimson and brown with the blood of many, and it seemed eerily fitting that this was where we would end it all.

  “If you’re going to kill me, then get on with it,” Bridget spat, curling her lip at me like I was some abhorrent creature. Like she hadn’t tried to behead me with a freaking sword just hours ago. Talk about drawing the short straw on the family front.

  Giving her a toothy grin, I cracked my stiff neck and played with the chain of my amulet.

  “Now, why would you think I’m going to kill you?” I asked her. Quietly, I wasn’t totally sure I could kill her. After all, both Lachlan and Vic had failed.

  Bridget glared at me in fury. “Oh, please. As if you’re letting me go after all of this.” She cast a quick gaze around us at the vivid red stains. “Besides, someone must have told you along the way that direct Ban Dia blood relatives can kill one another, if they put enough effort into it.”

  I pursed my lips at this information—information that I didn’t actually know. “With enough effort” must mean decapitation. Otherwise my gunshot to her head would have done the trick.

  “So, if roles were reversed here, you wouldn’t think twice about taking my head off and condemning my soul to an eternity of torture at the hands of the Horsemen?” I narrowed my eyes at her, and she scoffed.