78

78
Haylee's POV

The power coursing through me is like liquid fire, melting every cell in my body to something more powerful, to something greater. The Alpha strength of my father combines with my Luna nature to create powers I never knew could exist. Xavier staggers back as I reach my feet in all my glory, energy dancing around me like fireflies.

“No way,” he mutters, and his half-shifted face contorts in disbelief and rage. "You're just a Luna. "You can't have Alpha power."

“I’m not just nothing,” I inform him — my voice tinged with a fresh self-confidence that even the shadow creatures seem intimidated by. “I am all that my father was, all that I have been, all that I wish to be.

Xavier rushes me in desperate rage, teeth bared and claws sharpened with shadow magic that flies around him like a cyclone. Now, his moves feel slow, few times predictable. I dodge his attack and catch his wrist, transmitting pure Alpha power into my hold.

The shadow rot pulls back at my touch, and hisses in reprisal the same way acid hisses in water. Xavier shouts as the dark magic snakes away from his arm, leaving ordinary skin behind.

"How?" he breathes, looking at his unpolluted hand in horror.

“Light overcomes darkness,” I whisper for a crisp conclusion. "It always has."

I let him go and take a step back, hands held up to the shadowy bodies that continue to wrestle with our defenders. Inspired by my father’s memories of leading the pack, I use my Alpha command and raise my voice.

“You don’t belong here,” I say to the creatures, and the force of my voice is that of finality. "Return to your realm. Now."

To my surprise, some of the lesser minions actually follow suit, melting into dark tendrils of smoke that are carried away on the wind. The bigger ones are going to fight me, but I see confusion in their glowing eyes.

"They're bound to me!" “Xavier yells, attempting to take control back. “You can’t demand what’s mine!”

“Mais ils sont liés à la magie d’ombre, je les ré-intercepte, avançant pas à pas. “And I’m able to cleanse shadow magic.”
I point by extending a finger toward the nearest creature, a great wolf with too many teeth. When my power touches it, the dark corruption burns away, and I see the spirit of a normal wolf. The animal gazes at me gratefully before slipping peacefully away to wherever sounds the next phase.

"Mom!" Kael yells frantically behind me. "Something's not right with the mate bond. “I can feel the hysteria of Dad through you.”

His words shoot an ice-cold dagger through my body. I extend my connection to Aiden wide open and the onslaught of terror that crashes into me nearly sends me to the floor. He’s in grave danger, facing something scarier than even his own death.

"Lior," I whisper, the realization hitting me in full force. He’s located Lior, but there’s something wrong.”

Xavier laughs, a laugh like shattering glass. "Of course something's wrong. You thought saving one child would be easy? Arielle has dozens of supernatural offspring in that place and now your little mate has to decide which live and which die.”

"What facility?" I plead, yet even as I do, I know what the response will be, feel it with my heightened senses. The industrial complex further to the north of her vibrates with tainted energy and through my link with the local ley lines, I can sense the dimensional membrane surrounding that site weakening.

“Oh, shit,” I exhale, finally getting a sense of just how much of a disaster this is. “It was never about managing the merger. It was not about making a controlled demolition.

“You finally got something, did you? Xavier is grinning despite his injuries. "The sect had never intended that I wield ultimate power. I was always supposed to be the sacrifice that fed the last stage.”

And with a little more awareness I'm able to apperciate the magic reality that lies beneath everything in this physical world. The veils that bind our world to the shadow world are falling apart. What began as pinpricks is turning into a gaping tear that will swallow whatever is within a fifty-mile radius.

“‘You children,”’ I suddenly realize with increasing horror.” 
“Aiden and Lior are at the epicenter of a dimensional implosion.

“And you can’t do anything to prevent it,” Xavier taunts. "Even if you now kill me, it’s too late. In under an hour, this place will be overwhelmed by dimensional anarchy."

I sense the reality of his statement as they resonate within my link with the supernatural realm. It would be the only way to save the city from utter destruction, to sacrifice my own life in order to keep the barriers in check, that I give the seal all of my Alpha and Luna’s power. But I can’t leave my family when they need me most.

“Unless”, I say slowly, and an idea begins to form,“I don’t fight you here. Not at all.”

There’s a flicker of doubt on Xavier’s face. "What?"
"Kael, Kael," I'm saying to my son, without looking at Xavier. “How much do you feel connected to your brother?”
“Strength is power,” Kael replies quickly. The more is he in peril, the closer wraps our bond. It’s like … like he’s crying out for help and he doesn’t even kow it.”

“Could you use that link to lead us to him?”

"I think so. But Mom, what about—"

"Everyone evacuate!" I scream of my alpha to boom across the battlefield with greater authority. All magical creatures, fall back at once! Now get at least sixty miles from here!
My hearing Elder Patricia's voice through the melee. "Haylee, what's happening?"

"Dimensional collapse! Move now,or perish, when the reality will be ripped apart!"

The defenders who are still standing do not hesitate to obey me. Werewolves, witches and other mystical beings flee in all directions, the will to survive taking precedence over the will to keep fighting.

Xavier's looking at me like I'm crazy. "You're going to run away? You're just going to let me—”

“You are not the actual threat,” I cut him off. "You never were. You're another brainwashing casualty and I haven't time to waste on you."

Kael is coming toward with our car and I look at him. “Will you be able to stay connected while we’re traveling?

“Yes, but Mom what about Xavier? What if he follows us?"
"He will," I say grimly. “But that actually might help us.”

We sprint to the car and I can just make out Xavier screaming behind us, his voice breaking with anger and desperation. We’re on our way to the industrial complex: Kael slouches in the passenger seat and his face scrunches as he shuts his eyelids tightly.

“Make the next intersection a left turn,” he says, his eyes closed. “Lior’s afraid, but he’s not hurt, not yet. ” And Dad … Dad’s trying to do something very dangerous.”

The scenery shifts around us as we draw near to the epicenter of the dimensional disruption. Trees contort in ways that defied the possible, their trunks reaching up toward a sky that flickers between the light of day and a star-filled depth of void that is the realm of shadow.

“Mom,” Kael whispers, “I can see things through Lior’s eyes sometimes. It’s such a children’s haven.” Dozens of them. They are all going to die if the building falls.”

“Your father won’t allow that,” I say, but there is a sense of panic through our connection and I can tell Aiden feels desperate. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, and it’s beating him down.

Up out of a hollow, we crest a hill and look down on the industrial complex. And the whole building of it kind of slides into and out of existence, kind of like flickers between here and somewhere else entirely. I stare out through a transdimensional rift and can actually glimpse the shadow realm spilling out-a desolation of folded steel and blackened dusk.

"One there," Kael gestures at what appears to be the main structure. "That's where they are."

I can feel the force of the dimensional instability resting on my shoulders as we near the complex. I may be the son of my father, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fix this. The forces that are working here are magical unlike anything I've seen.

It’s Xavier’s voice shouting behind us is why.

"You really thought you could get away from me that easily?"
I give my head a turn and there he is pushing through the dimensional tears But he's different. The unstable magic has sped his transformation, morphing him into something that is neither pure werewolf nor pure shadow creature. His eyes seethe with tainted energy and reality distorts around him in rippling waves of heat.

“I’m interconnected with the dimensional barriers now,” he says, voice strangely echoing. “Shoot me and it falls 10 times as fast. Spare me and I can slowly gather back enough energy to finish the fusion on my own terms.

“There’s got to be another way,” I say, but without conviction.

“There is,” Kael says, seizing my hand. ‘Mom, I’ve got an idea, you just have to trust me 100 per cent.”
I gaze down at my kin, my brave, impossible son, and see the ghost of Aiden, myself, in his stubborn face. "What are you thinking?"

"The twin bond," he says. “It’s not just about me and Lior. It's about balance. Light and dark, our world and theirs. What if... what if we’re not meant to prevent the merging? What if we were supposed to control it?

Before I can reply, the central building wobbles and becomes flesh, and from its windows I glimpse Aiden fighting to liberate the trapped children. It’s the last second, and my son’s crazy idea might be our only hope.

“Tell me on the run,” I say to Kael, and we fly toward the building where our family’s future is about to be determined.
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