The Alphas’ P**n Star Mate

Rodger

POV

"What was that?" I stood still when I felt an earthquake rumble beneath my feet. At least, I thought it was an earthquake. I hope it was that and not some kind of explosion. When we got word that Boyd had gone missing, Cindy insisted that I help with the search while he finished

debugging the computer he lent me.

I was rushing back to the pack house. Not to look for Boyd, but because I had this agonizing feeling inside of me telling me to go to my daughter. I couldn't ignore the urge to find her. I finished climbing the hill to the lawn of the pack house, and that was when I noticed something off.

It was too quiet. Nothing was making a single sound. Just a second ago, there were wolves howling in the forest, people shouting at one another, and engines running as some warriors went by quad and car to join the search. Nothing. Not a single noise was floating in the still air.

Then I noticed the people around the lawn. It was like they were frozen in place. Everything was still like someone had hit the pause button, and that was when this deep feeling of dread took over me. "Chloe," I breathed, then ran the rest of the way to the pack house.

Inside, it was much the same. No one even blinked as I swerved around them in the halls, my feet taking me to the Alpha's floor where I somehow knew my daughter would be. The hall outside of her bedroom was filled with warriors, her two mates ahead of them, all frozen in mid- stride, somehow stuck in time.

I couldn't understand what was happening. Did the dark magic of that snake man somehow do this to everyone surrounding the pack house? Was time standing still everywhere, for everyone?

When I got to the door of the bedroom, that's when I found her and I froze in place, not from magic, but from shock.

She was floating in the air, her and Boyd. They were floating on purple streams of magic, but only Chloe was moving. Her eyes were completely overcome with violet beams, illuminating Boyd's unconscious face. Her hands were grasping his cheeks and neck, sizzling magic leaving sparks around where they were contacting his body.

Lenny was on the ground against one wall, black veins spidering from his neck, and Estel was a short distance away from where Chloe was floating. I couldn't focus on either of them. My entire attention was on my daughter, and the powerful magic she held.

My shock only lasted a moment, because suddenly the magic receded back into her body, and she collapsed on the ground with Boyd, unconscious in a heap on top of him.

Estel POV

"NO!" Ada screamed in my head as the bond brought me closer to my crazed mate, and then her voice seemed to just cut off.

One second, her screams were rattling inside of my head, and then a fraction of a second later, her screams were silenced as I felt a tremor move over me.

It was like an earthquake that sent my body into a sudden shock. It took my mind a minute to catch up with what I was seeing. It was like I blinked and everything had suddenly changed.

What was more shocking than the quaking feeling was that Boyd was no longer snarling in front of me. He was lying contorted awkwardly on the ground with Chloe lying over him.

"Chloe?!"

It was Rodger's voice that finally made my body snap from the surprise at the rapid change in where Boyd was. Just a second ago he was about to snap at me, his jaws just inches from my face. Now, Chloe, who had been across the room, was lying on top of him on the ground, and both of them were not making any movements or sounds.

"Chloe," Rodger slid the short distance from the door to the ground and lifted his daughter off of my mate.

I just stared, in shock at how different Boyd suddenly looked.

When Rodger lifted Chloe, it gave me a clear view of his face. He was no longer half shifted. He was completely human, and there was a peace settled in his features I had never seen before.

Others started to rush in. Rodger was cradling his daughter, not letting her go even when her mates demanded it. Other warriors rushed in to help, some going to Lenny who was poisoned on the ground. When others started to surround Boyd, looking hostile as they started to move him, that's when my body finally reacted.

Ada let out a deep snarl, then lunged forward in my body, making me jump between Boyd and the warriors to protect him from whatever they were planning on doing to him.

No, he might not sense the bond. He might not even like me, but I still wasn't going to let any harm come to my mate. Not from something he couldn't control. I couldn't.

"Move, Estel," Peter, an old warrior friend, told me sternly. "He tried to harm the Luna."

"It wasn't him!" My knees gave out, but as I fell, I made sure to lay my body across Boyd's so they couldn't touch him without first getting through me.

Peter looked pointedly at Lenny, who was being injected with the medicine to counteract wolfsbane. Lenny didn't look good. I know he was injected with a lethal dose, but I still wasn't going to let them hurt Boyd, or worse, imprison and torture him again. He got enough of that from the enemy. I wasn't going to allow it to happen here, where I wanted him to feel safe and protected. Even from himself.

"Leave him alone," Chloe's weak voice demanded.

I glanced over to see her eyes slightly open, and she was using all the strength she could to stare at me and Boyd. "It wasn't him. He was possessed with dark magic, but it's gone now."

Miles was the one to growl, "You can't know that!"

Judging from everyone's expressions, I know they were thinking the same. Even Mick was looking at Boyd with enmity. Rodger, who was still somehow holding Chloe between her mates who had been tug-o-warring to get her, was the only one that looked like he believed her. "I can know that," Chloe whispered softly, her voice sounding rough, like she had been chain smoking all day. "It's all burned away. All of it. He was purified." She looked between Mick and Miles, then at Rodger for a few long seconds. "The snake is gone. I burned it to ash." Her mates looked confused, but Rodger just looked shocked. His eyes went wide, like he was suddenly scared.

"You?" Rodger asked in a hushed tone. "Are you saying you purified him of dark magic?"

Chloe bit her lip, and nodded slightly.

I was about to ask what that meant. Why was she suddenly all the way across the room and lying on top of my mate in less time than it takes to blink? Nothing was making sense.

Then, I felt a hand press into my back, and sparks erupted all through me. His figs and cinnamon scent was already wafting around me, but the sparks were about to make me come undone. I was scared to look back, not wanting to see that venomous expression on his face again like every other time I had looked at him. My heart wasn't ready for another rejection.

"Estel," Boyd's strained croak of a voice, made my breathing catch. "Estel," he said again, so much gentler than I had ever heard him speak before.

I slowly turned to look down at him. My arm was wrapped around his waist, awkwardly now that all the tension had left my body.

I expected to see that same glare as usual, but instead, I saw the most painstakingly broken expression. Tears were filling and spilling from the corners of his bruised eyes, and his mouth was twisted in the saddest frown.

"Estel," his voice came in a rough whisper, and I felt everyone else around go still, waiting to see what he would do. "I'm so sorry," he rasped. His hand was gripping my arm, like he was scared of letting me go. "I'm so sorry I couldn't recognize you."

A sob escaped me. It felt like my heart was in my throat. "You... you...."

He twisted his lips into a sorrowful smile. "Mate."