Crossed Fates by Lexi C. Foss

Makayla

“You totally set me up,”I accused, folding my arms.

Sapphire blinked her bright blue eyes at me. “Hmm?”

“You heard me.”

“Did I?” She returned her focus to the ring in her hand—one Marc had found on Bortex’s corpse moments after her arrival. He’d removed his helmet, mostly because Sapphire had told him to twice, then he’d checked the hybrid’s pockets and all but threw the ruby-stoned ring at her.

She’d caught it and blown a kiss at him in response.

He’d rolled his eyes and muttered something about her sanity before stalking off toward Savannah’s cell. My brother had gone with him, as had Alaric.

Nathan and Jude had secured the other rooms, including helping Hawk, Hardt, and the two remaining enforcers wake up. And now they were all focused on the human cages in the other hallway, leaving me alone with a distracted blue-haired witch.

She held the ring up to the light, examining every crevice, then hummed happily. “Thanks for keeping this safe, Mak.”

“Keeping it safe?” I repeated.

She slipped a chain from her neck and threaded an end through the ring before reattaching the necklace at her nape. Then she thumbed the bright blue sapphire amulet situated at her breastbone. The ruby ring glistened beside it, the magic seeming to spark to life.

I half expected her to create a portal and jump through it, but instead her dazzling gaze lifted to mine, the blue irises displaying a clarity I rarely saw on her.

“Your new portal stone has some…” Her head bobbed back and forth as she considered how to continue. “Unique qualities,” she finally finished. “It still allows you to move between realms. But it also does some other things.”

“My new portal stone?” I asked, looking at her amulet.

Her fingers brushed the precious sapphire and smiled. “Oh, yes. It’s a ruby, too. Just like the ring. I thought it would be quite pleasant for you to match the family jewels.”

I stared at her. “You’re not making any sense.” Which was pretty par for the course with Sapphire.

“Earrings,” she murmured, her expression brightening. “Protection and all. But the earrings don’t portal. They just glimmer with love. So much love, Makayla.” She grabbed my hand. “Oh, I’m so pleased for you!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I admitted.

She sighed in response, low and dramatic. “Always have to spell it out.” Then her eyes widened, her lips curling into an excited grin. “Oh! Spell it out. Get it?”

I just continued to stare at her, aware that she would find her point eventually if I didn’t give in to her insanity antics.

She giggled.

Then sighed again before saying, “Fine, fine. The amulet is my real gift to you for saving me all those years ago. The ring was just temporary, and I need it back now. It’s a Romanov heirloom and the key to finding the famous Queen of Slayers.” She brushed her finger over her lips. “But, shh, that’s a secret for now. Maybe we’ll invite you out to play. Maybe we won’t.”

Her eyes took on her usual faraway gleam.

“The future is murky,” she whispered. “Depends on choices. So many choices.”

She shook her head as though to clear it, the witch rarely remaining in the present for long.

“Anyway, the new amulet—which I believe Nathan has just retrieved from Jude in the other room—is the one you seek.” She glanced down the hallway toward the main room. “It has all the same properties, and new ones. Did I mention the new ones?” Her blue eyes danced over me. “When did you find clothes?”

I huffed a laugh at her abrupt subject change. “Marc brought them for me.” A pair of jeans and a tank top, plus a pair of socks and sneakers.

“Jean-Marc,” Sapphire mused, her expression twisting into one of pure amusement. “Sexy man, that Jean-Marc. Bit of a dick, though.”

“You’re just as fucking charming as ever,” Marc returned as he stepped into the hallway. As a vampire—and a French royal one at that—he had excellent hearing. Something Sapphire obviously knew.

Their “relationship” seemed to span multiple decades, or maybe even centuries, something Marc had failed to mention when he’d recruited me to help retrieve her from this realm all those years ago. He’d just called her a nuisance of a witch with a penchant for fortune-telling. I’d later realized that she’d reached out to him for a reason—she trusted him. To an extent, anyway.

They weren’t dating.

Actually, it was rather clear that they didn’t even like each other at all.

But she helped him with cases, and he returned the favor by occasionally saving her ass when needed.

I didn’t know all the particulars because I didn’t ask.

“It looks like Savannah’s going to be okay,” Marc told me, ignoring Sapphire.

“Very okay,” the witch chirped. “So very, very okay. More than okay. Purrfect really.” She gave him a bedazzling smile as he turned to glare at her. “Wolves should learn to purr, don’t you think?” she asked him.

“Why are you even here?” he demanded.

“For this,” she said, gesturing to the ring at her chest. “Obviously.” She gave me a look like I should agree with her, then she shrugged. “I also wanted closure. This whole mess is finally coming to an end. Assuming you check the hard drive over…” She trailed off, considering the rooms. “Well, it’s around here somewhere. All the other locations. Research files. Everything to content your pretty little head.” She reached out to pat him on said head, and he growled at her.

“Fuck off, Saph.”

Her lips twitched in response. “You love me.”

“I absolutely don’t.”

I left them to their bickering while I focused on Savannah. She was awake now, but her mental presence felt a bit murky. Probably because I hadn’t fully explored this new hive mind yet. I used to only be able to connect to Nathan as the alpha, and now I was the alpha as Alaric’s bonded mate. It was still rather alarming to even experience and feel, but the rightness of it made it easier for me to accept.

Alaric is mine. My true mate. My alpha.

Damn straight I am, he replied without missing a beat.

Is this how it’s going to go? With you always lurking in my head?I wondered, heading toward him.

Not my fault you’re practically shouting your possession, sweetheart,he returned as I entered the room. His blue eyes glittered with promise, but his expression held a somber note to it.

Savannah was still on the table, her cuffs unfastened and the machine pulled free, but she didn’t appear fully lucid yet. She kept muttering something about a mate and flinching every time she sniffed.

“Do we know what they were pumping her full of?” I asked softly, grimacing as Savannah curled into a ball on the metal bed.

“Some sort of cocktail of various shifter blood laced with silver,” my brother said, his focus on a computer screen near the pumping machine. “It seems like they’ve been testing different toxins on a variety of shifters. Savannah was tolerating it better than the last female subject.”

“Valaria,” Alaric clarified. “Her record is among the electronic files. There was one on Kristen, too. But Kristen’s was much shorter.”

“They declared her demeanor inappropriate for testing,” my brother added in a low growl. “But Valaria withstood a few hours of treatment before they deemed her unviable.” His jaw clenched as his blue eyes met mine. “These are some sick motherfuckers. And you let yourself be captured by them?”

“Well, only initially,” I said. “When I had my ring. Then they…” I trailed off, my brother’s thunderous expression telling me not to continue that statement.

“Then they kidnapped you from Alaric’s lands,” Nathan finished for me. “Yeah, we’re aware.” His presence was hot at my back as he met and held my mate’s gaze, their animal pheromones mounting in the small space.

“We had a traitor in the pack,” Alaric replied evenly. “A traitor that has been sufficiently dealt with.”

Nathan said nothing.

I reached out to open my connection to him, to tell him to cut it out. Then I remembered my link to him no longer existed. Because of my ties to Alaric. “Shit.” I whirled around to face him. “I can’t feel you anymore. Like at all.”

His focus remained on Alaric for another beat, his expression unmoving. Then he slowly looked down at me. “Because you’re no longer one of my wolves.”

I winced. “Nathan—”

“You found your true-mate match,” he continued, cutting me off. “To the new alpha of Silver Lake, in this realm. And it seems your mating has provided him with some unique abilities.” He shifted his attention to Alaric again. “Right?”

“Telepathic links underlined in energy,” my mate replied.

“Not just energy.” Nathan studied him. “Immortality. Your entire pack is linked to it now.” He folded his arms, his expression pensive. “I’m betting your children will be naturally born shifter wolves, too. No more need for biting.”

“You’re saying Alaric is immortal? Like me?” I asked, hope sparking inside me. That’d been an outstanding issue… one I wasn’t sure how to address.

“Not just Alaric. The entire pack.” His silver irises flicked to me. “Can’t you feel it, Makayla? As mate to the alpha, you’re just as connected to them as he is. The life source is infinite, isn’t it?”

I wasn’t sure I’d describe it as infinite, but I definitely felt it pulsing through me. “It’s… deep?”

“With no end in sight.” He gave me a small grin. “That’s the immortal pull of energy. It can end, but it takes a lot. As I believe you’ve both found to be true through this experience, yes?” Darkness kissed his features, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t ever put yourself in a situation like this again, or I’ll kill you myself.”

Alaric growled.

Nathan growled back.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like I did this for fun,” I muttered.

The two alphas squared off, eliciting a small whimper from Savannah that immediately had the males toning it down several notches. She released another soft sound as my brother laid a palm on her shoulder. Alaric moved forward, his mental vibes telling me he was going into protective mode, only he paused midstep, his eyes widening.

Savannah’s connection to our pack flickered again, her mental state seeming to blink in and out of focus. Alaric’s gaze lifted to me, a question in his eyes.

But Nathan responded before I could say anything. “Well, that’s interesting.” He took a step forward to stand by my brother, their gazes on the girl. “I can sense her in my web.” His silver eyes lifted to Alaric. “Do you feel her trying to leave?”

“I don’t know enough about the hive mind to explain it, but she’s…”

“Blinking in and out,” I finished for him. “Fading and reappearing.”

Nathan nodded slowly. “Like she’s shifting packs.”

“Why?” Alaric asked. “Because of the toxin?”

“Maybe,” Nathan said, his attention back on the girl. “Or maybe it’s something else entirely.”

A mating bond,I thought, glancing between him and my brother. Maybe?

Alaric ran a hand over his face, his thoughts confirming he’d heard me but didn’t know what to say.

“How about you let us clean up here,” Nathan offered, his demeanor a little less aggressive now. “We can work with Jude to take down the other cells, give you and your pack a bit of a recovery break. And we’ll… touch base on Savannah’s state.”

I felt Alaric’s wolf bristle in agitation, not wanting to bend to the other alpha.

He has the resources to take care of her and mend her back to health,I quickly pointed out. And he’s not going to hurt her.

I could also sense her agreeing to this path in the web, her psyche searching for a new beginning, a way to start over. And something about my brother and Nathan had her gravitating toward them.

Maybe it was all in my head.

Maybe I read the strands wrong.

But I felt the rightness of the decision in my gut.

Jude entered before Alaric could reply, his features carved into lines of annoyance. “I can’t figure out how that shock wave gadget worked.”

Nathan snorted. “Toy too big for you to handle?”

Jude just looked at him. “Play any chess lately?”

My former alpha’s amusement died. “I seem to be missing an entire set. With the exception of a single piece.”

“Oh?” Jude arched a brow. “Shame, that.” He glanced at me, then held out an amulet. “This is from your brother, by the way. I had intended to give it to you after the meeting, but you were out on patrol. Which was why I’d stayed. And then shit hit the fan.” He shrugged. “Anyway.” He dangled the necklace for me to take, the ruby on it matching my ring.

I took it from him and studied the amulet. “This is what Sapphire was talking about.”

“Yeah, she made it with a few tweaks,” Nathan said. “One of them is an activation key that’ll tell us if you’re in trouble, which is what Jude decided to test.”

“Technically, Makayla was in trouble,” Jude pointed out.

“I totally had it handled,” I lied, earning me a snort from someone behind me.

Marc.

He stepped into the shrinking space and eyed the others. “The crazy witch just disappeared. Something about Dimitri’s waning patience.”

That earned a real grin from Nathan. “He finally going to take back his kingdom?”

“Fuck if I know,” Marc muttered. As a Monarchie du Sang, a fancy term for the French royal vampires of my realm, he tended to stay out of the Russian Vampire Dynasty drama. He rolled his neck. “All right, we have a lot of cleanup to do. Jude’s men have already moved the other humans out and handed them over to mortal law enforcement. Hardt and Hawk are with the other wolf down the hall, and—”

“Gloria?” I asked, hopeful.

He nodded. “Yeah. They’ve already notified her pack, and her wolves are on the way. She was just unconscious, not yet experimented on. Her file said they were waiting on her mate’s capture. The sick fucks intended to test their mating bonds.”

My stomach soured at the thought, aware of what that implied. It made me want to kill them all over again. But Marc had taken care of HJ and Bortex, and my brother had taken out Bendy. I guessed that Jude had handled Cuntcake, which I allowed since he’d been tortured by him. Which reminded me… “You healed very fast,” I told the E.V.I.E. director, glancing at his hands.

He took in my working thumbs and smiled. “As did you.”

“Yeah, but I’m a wolf. I should heal fast.” And having the pack tied to my psyche certainly helped with that, too.

“Hmm” was all he said before sharing a long, knowing look with Nathan. “Well, I think we can start wrapping up here. We have several other sites to hit, according to the drives my men are going through.”

“Do those drives confirm his goals?” I wondered out loud.

Jude studied me for a minute, his arms folding in a similar manner to Nathan’s. “The auctions were a smoke screen for the experimentation. They took girls, tested their blood for viability, then sold the ones they couldn’t use. It helped give them a profit to continue their science projects, which involved super-soldier technology that E.V.I.E. is confiscating.”

“Confiscating,” Nathan repeated. “How fortuitous for you.”

“Nothing about this situation is fortuitous,” Jude shot back. “But I will be figuring out that shock wave tech, just like I’ll be taking one of your helmets that miraculously protected you from it.” The statement was pointed and resulted in a smirk from Nathan.

“I make it a habit to prepare appropriately for my opponents,” he drawled in response.

“I know,” Jude replied, a measure of respect in his tone. “Which is why I’m borrowing your helmet.”

Nathan didn’t argue, but he did appear amused.

“Super soldiers,” Alaric repeated, bringing the conversation back to Bortex’s apparent goals. “Was that what he considered those humans to be out in the woods?”

Jude unfolded his arms and slipped his hands into the pockets of his dress pants. “It appears so, yes. They were under orders not to kill.”

“Yes, I know. They wanted to take you alive for questioning.” A note of suspicion underlined my mate’s tone.

“Fascinating how it all worked out, isn’t it?” Jude asked, a dare lurking in his question. “They try to kidnap me for questioning, yet I end up with all their tech. Almost like fate put me in the right place at the right time. Similar to you and Makayla ending up in the city together. Just imagine what life would have been like had you chosen to follow your alpha path a decade ago? You might not have ever met. And your pack would still be plain old Bitten wolves, too.”

His statement reminded me a bit of Sapphire and her proclivity for altering destinies.

She’d deliberately set me on Alaric’s path.

But it was our decisions in life that had truly crossed our fates, placing me in the right place… at the right time… just like Jude had said.

And because of my ties to Alaric, his pack was stronger, immortal, and forever enhanced. I’d finally accomplished what I’d originally intended to do—I’d helped those who were weaker than me, by literally giving them my strength and improving their chances for survival.

I almost smiled.

Fate could be twisted and fucked up.

But in the end, it always served a purpose.

And I’d finally served mine.