fate of the alpha - episode 3 by Tasha Black Page B

impossible to destroy. Until it feeds, it won’t even take a corporeal form,” Julian explained.
    “But once it’s solid, then we can kill it?” Ainsley asked.
    “It’s not that simple. moroi are able to shift into the form of any creature they’ve fed on, right down to the last detail — memories and abilities included. That is why they were imprisoned in the first place.”
    “So what do we do here?” Ainsley asked. “What’s our best chance?”
    “To bury the whole thing under a few tons of rubble,” Julian said, staring out into the trees. “And hope no one ever digs it up.”
    Ainsley followed his gaze. The way the wind stirred the golden leaves on the oak out front, it was impossible to believe that the town was riddled with dangers. That the very souls of Tarker’s Hollow could be eaten by a remorseless thing below the ground was unthinkable.
    The coppery smell of blood stabbed at her nose, and she bolted up in a flash.
    “Ainsley?” Julian said.
    But she barely heard him.
    That guy Grace had dated, Landon What’s-his-name, was staggering down the center of Princeton Avenue. His lip was split and there was blood in his dark curls and all over the white t-shirt that peeked out of the flannel he wore. He staggered a little as he walked, and squinted at the house numbers.
    Ainsley cleared the porch railing in one bound. It took all her energy not to shift. Her wolf was snapping her jaws at the surface of Ainsley’s conscience.
    “What happened?” she asked, as she met him in the street.
    He looked at her in shock and she slipped an arm around his shoulder to guide him toward the house.
    Julian was already on the front walk and he took the boy’s other arm. Together they led him to the wicker love seat on the porch, where he collapsed.
    “What happened?” Ainsley asked again, urgency pushing her voice higher. She could smell Grace’s fear on this young man.
    “Grace came over to my place,” he began.
    Ainsley’s wolf was on high alert. She heard Julian’s pulse speed and smelled his sweat beading. He was jealous.
    “We went for a walk,” Landon continued, “and then the shadows...” he trailed off, and his eyes went out of focus.
    He was in shock.
    “Landon. You have to tell us what happened,” Ainsley told him in her sternest alpha voice. “No matter how crazy it seems.”
    He blinked twice, then turned to her.
    “The shadows came to life. They swallowed up Grace. I tried to stop it, but they were so strong...”
    Ainsley stood and slipped her phone from her pocket. She paced over to the other side of the porch, and dialed 9-1-1.
    Julian placed a hand on Landon’s forehead. She listened with half her mind as she explained the situation into the phone.
    “You took a nasty spill over the handlebars of your mountain bike,” Julian told Landon in a silken voice. “You hit your head. The part with the shadows wasn’t real. Just a bump on the head.”
    By the time she got off the phone with the Springton dispatch Landon was looking relieved and leaning back against the cushions of the love seat.
    Within ten minutes he was being carried away in the back of an ambulance. If anyone noticed the lack of a bike at the scene, they didn’t mention it.
    As soon as they were alone again, Ainsley looked to Julian.
    “How much prana would the thing have to absorb to be strong enough to come out without the key?” she asked.
    “I don’t really know,” he replied uncertainly. “At least a dozen people’s worth, I would guess.”
    Ainsley thought of what she had seen inside the key — the strings, the lights of the townsfolk shining at the end of each, and Grace, eclipsing the brightest of them.
    “What about one really powerful person?” she asked.

                                   

    CHAPTER 12
    T he unshakable feeling of another presence in his room interrupted Erik’s dreamless sleep.
    He opened his eyes to see a dark figure sitting at the foot of