by Alisa Woods
He whipped his gaze back to Circe. “We need to move this along.”
She took a deep breath. “Very well.”
But Sarra was already crossing the dozen feet of concrete floor between them, fists clenched at her side. Circe waved her hand over the tangle of his and Arianna’s hair in her palm. It slowly began to smoke, and Jak could feel it tugging on him, deep inside, bonding him to Arianna. He edged closer to her, taking her hand once more.
Sarra had stopped just behind the witch, hovering there with a murderous look on her face, like she was ready to shift and stop Jak that way. But Sarra couldn’t shift—that had been the problem all along between them, but really, only on her side. Plus her stubborn conviction that he deserved someone better than her, someone just like Arianna, for a mate. And maybe she was right in the end: he was right here, right now, doing the thing he was always meant to do. He could feel that in his bones.
And at this point, nothing could stop him, not even Sarra. She could try, but she wasn’t capable of stopping him physically. And he would just have to ignore her words.
“Jak,” Sarra hissed. “Can I have a word with you?”
“Little busy at the moment.” He avoided looking at her.
The smoking ball of hair in Circe’s palm had transformed into a tiny grayish cloud that hung just above it. She lifted her hand up to Arianna’s face, holding her other hand above it, as if cupping the cloud with both hands, while in reality touching neither. It was a ball of spell, and Circe was whispering incantations into it. Small lightning strikes appeared within the ball, sparking and crackling the air with magic.
Sarra shoved past the witch to stand right in front of Jak. She stared angrily up into his face. “I need to talk to you about this… now.”
“Sarra, please,” Jak begged her. “If you’ve ever loved me…” If he ordered her away, would she go? He just needed another minute to make this happen. With each snap of lightning in Circe’s spell, he could feel that twinge inside growing stronger, binding him closer to Arianna. He could already sense the two wolves within her: her own and Mace’s. He needed to focus, to draw Mace out when the time was right.
And Sarra needed to leave him alone. But she was still in his face.
“If I ever loved you?” She was spitting angry now. “I love you now, Jak Roberts.” She threw a pinched look to Arianna. “Not in the way she loves you. Or the way you love her. I don’t mean like that. I love you like a friend… one who wants to know what the hell you think you’re doing here!”
Jak didn’t say anything, just ignored Sarra and turned to look at Arianna. The bond between them was intensifying. He met her gaze, and there were fine lines forming at the corners of her eyes as she squinted with it, too. It wasn’t so much pain as… discomfort. Like Circe said. He hoped that was all it would be for Arianna in the end.
“Jak!” Sarra grabbed hold of his arm, forcing his attention back to her. She searched his face. He wasn’t sure what she wanted to see there.
Marco had come up behind her. He gave a nod to Jak then laid a hand on Sarra’s shoulder. It was a gentle touch, but she jumped from the contact, then threw suspicious looks back and forth between Jak and Marco.
“Oh my god,” she said, almost a whisper. “You’re in on this together.”
She knew.
Jak closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to stare Sarra in the face.
“You stop this right now,” she said, lips trembling.
“Jak?” Arianna’s worried voice punched him in the gut.
He squeezed her hand and threw her a soft look. “It’s going to be all right, Arianna. I promise.” Then he turned back to Sarra. “You always knew this was how it would go, in the end, Sarrabear. You even said it yourself. I was meant for someone else.”
Her eyes were wide, and her head shook back and forth in tiny movements.
He put his free hand, the one not holding Arianna’s hand, on Sarra’s shoulder. “This is the single best thing I’m ever going to do.”
She shook her head more fervently.
He grimaced. The bond was squeezing on him. “Don’t ruin it for me, okay, Sarrabear?”
She gaped at him, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He swung to face Circe, who was watching him with a razor-sharp eye, the ball of magic twitching and sparking in her hand.
“Do it,” he told her.
As fast as the lightning in her palm, Circe smashed her hands together then rent them apart, a piece of magic cloud in each. She quickly blew on each hand in turn, one long sweeping breath. The two clouds puffed over them, one into Arianna’s face and one into Jak’s.
Arianna gasped.
Sarra screamed, “No!”
Jak couldn’t pay attention to either one because it felt like his soul was ripping in two.
The bond he had with Arianna shattered. He fell to his knees, not so much with pain, but the sudden disconnection giving him massive vertigo. He reeled with the sensation of it. And yet… he wasn’t entirely disconnected. He still held her hand, but more… he could feel tenuous threads, like straws piping something, some essence, from her into him. It was like a thick oil sludge dripping straight into his veins, and each drip brought with it a welling up from deep inside him. At first it was an ache, like a toothache or a headache that nags at you all day, but never really makes its presence known. But it kept growing… and growing… each drip making it stronger, until it was the pounding, skull-splitting kind, the headache that lays you out for an entire day.
He tried to keep the groans inside, but it was getting harder.
Still the drips came, only now they were more of a pumping gush, filling him with a sludge that was drowning him, dripping into every tiny crevice of his body. Then the gushing stopped, and he could feel the entirety of it—almost like he had been wholly possessed by a dark spirit.
Mace’s wolf.
Jak’s wolf snarled and howled, but there was nowhere to turn, nothing to do. The enemy was inside him. He dropped Arianna’s hand and clutched at his stomach. He fell forward, but kept himself from falling on his face by bracing his hand on the cool concrete floor. He really didn’t want to throw up. He wanted the end to come with some kind of dignity… but the pain was really starting to escalate now. His wolf was howling in his ears.
Jak felt hands on him, urging him to turn, to lie down. His body was starting to cramp up, so he couldn’t resist them. His vision was blurred, white stars shooting across it from the rippling pain that was tearing him apart from the inside out. He blinked so he could see the faces hovering over him.
It was Arianna. Beautiful Arianna, her face all squished up and worried for him. Tears raced down her cheeks, but he couldn’t uncramp his hands to brush them away. Her lips were moving. She was saying something. But sounds seemed to come and go, like he was moving through a tunnel and cars were speeding past him, taking their blaring horns and near-misses with them. He tried to focus past the blinding pain. Tried to hear the things she was saying.
Somewhere in the background, Sarra was cursing like a sailor. It would have made him smile, except his face was frozen in a grimace. He strained to shut out the background and just focus on Arianna’s shining face above him. Her beautiful, brilliant blue eyes. If that was the last thing he saw in this world, it would be okay. It would be enough.
Her words leaked through the shrieking pain inside his head. “Jak… Jak… stay with me… please…”
He licked his lips. So dry, they cracked. It was such a small pain on top of the large one singing through his body—two wolves locked in a death dance at the DNA level. He tried to speak, but it was only whooshes of air, no sound. Just grunts… and he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get those last words out… the ones he wanted to say, but couldn’t. Not until the very end.
He concentrated everything he had on forming words. He thought of Arianna’s sweet hands, now on his face, holding his cheeks. Her tears dripping on him. And somehow he managed to get his lips to cooperate an
d make sound.
“You,” he gasped, speaking it just for her. The one word felt like a triumph. He pushed for more. “You… are meant… for someone better than me.” The words laced through the gasps, but he heard them. He hoped she could hear them too.
Her eyes went wide with alarm. And he knew that she knew in that moment. Knew that this wasn’t something he was coming back from.
“No, no, no,” she said, over and over.
But he wasn’t finished.
“I’m just…” he gasped out, and she stopped her tirade, bending low, placing her cheek against his, wetting him with her tears and bringing her ear close enough for his whispers to reach her. “I’m just… the one who… set you free.”
He heard her gasp. He saw her pull back, but the sounds were gone again. Everything was dimming… the bright morning sunshine of Seattle was darkening, like an eclipse had turned everything into the blood red of sunset. Then darker still. A creeping blackness.
The sludge inside him was waning too. All of it was fading.
The last thing he saw was a single tear clinging to the edge of Arianna’s sweet cheek. It clung, holding on to the bitter end.
Then it fell.
He wished he had the strength for one more kiss.
Then the world faded completely to black.
The final installment of Dark Alpha....
Dark Alpha Release Schedule - 2015
1 - Torment (1.19)
2 - Pleasure (2.2)
3 - Deception (2.16)
4 - Escape (3.2)
5 - Penance (3.16)
6 - Untitled (3.30)
Box Set (Dark Alpha 1-6) - releases 3.30
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Dark Alpha (Vol 1-6)
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Alisa Woods lives in the Midwest with her husband and family, but her heart will always belong to the beaches and mountains where she grew up. She writes sexy paranormal romances about alpha men and the women who love them. She enjoys exploring the struggles we all have, where we resist—and succumb to—our most tempting vices as well as our greatest desires. She firmly believes that love triumphs over all.
DARK ALPHA is Alisa's second New Adult Paranormal Romance serial. Find all of Alisa's books here.
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Table of Contents
Escape (Dark Alpha 4) Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Get The Next Episode of Dark Alpha
About Alisa Woods