Alpha Asher By Jane Doe

Chapter 167 – Many hit the trees, rocks, and earth, but even more hit the Vampire’s that stalked us, wrapping around their limbs, and tightening their grip much like a snake would. It was both beautiful and deadly, watching them pierce their skin, seeing the looks of apprehension and confusion as they realized I was capable of so much more than their previous ruler.

“Lola, remember you don’t want to k**l them.” I heard Tristan murmur, barely registering the sound of his voice over the roar in my ears. His hand ghosted across my shoulder in a gesture meant to soothe me, but all it did was break the haze the addictive power I wielded had over me.

Rather than show my emotions and express the ripple of doubt and regret that passed through me, I steeled my spine and faced them the way a true Queen would.

“You have all made a grave mistake coming here tonight.” I assured them, looking each one in the face from where they hovered several feet above the ground, wrapped almost entirely in darkness and shadow. “K*****g all of you is well within my power, and well within my rights, but I vowed long ago that I would be a different kind of ruler. Tell me, (why) have you come here and where is Lars?”

With eyes of varying shapes and colors, each Vampire stared at me. Two of the males, both Hispanic with heads of curly hair spat at my feet, while the other three remained silent. The only female of the bunch, the one nimble enough to evade my first a****k, snarled freely.

“You are not their Queen, Luna Lola.” A voice both masculine and feminine said, pulsating from deeper within the forest, like an echo that rippled and spread across the earth. “Their true ruler resides within the Land of the D**d. For now, anyway.”

Tristan sank into a crouch beside me, all too easily snapping out of his surprise.

I saw his face first, pale and covered in dark veins as his blank eyes stared at me through the night. The way he moved, hobbling as he pushed past the bushes and hanging foliage, unflinching even with the knife protruding just below his left eye, struck a chord deep within me.

His arms and legs moved as though they were heavier than the rest of him and dredged up a seemingly unimportant memory from my childhood.

Back when Mom and I had gotten along, she’d taken me to one of those puppets shows kids seem to love. I remembered all of the other children enraptured with the little dolls, ignoring the wires that controlled their limbs and jaws, ignoring the puppet master behind the curtain, directing their every move.

“You’re not Lars.” I stated, taking a step to the left as I began circling him, keeping my movements slow and steady.

I promptly ignored. The pull in my gut told me keeping my cool and feigning this indestructible confidence was the right move. Both my Vampire protector and Cassidy stuck by my side,

in a voice free of fear or doubt. It was one I only partially

in a grin that made the dark veins along his cheeks bulge sickeningly. His laughter was wet from the substance that coated his teeth, much thicker than blood even though it carried a similar scent. His laugh sounded both male and female, like two voices layered

He mused, his body uncomfortably still and his

Another gut feeling told me

Round and round they went, staining my thoughts a bright shade of crimson and bringing the scent

“You’re the blood-witch.”

remained rooted in place, a b****y g**h across the lower half of his face. “Well would you look at

here?” It was Tristan that sent the question hurling in her direction. “Why orchestrate this

I had to wait until that mate of hers left, but he’s a bit busy handling a mess I made. Not to worry, he’ll

sapping my strength. Slowly, the shadows were becoming restless, frustrated that I’d confined and enslaved them. Lars’s grin

with me?”‘ I scoffed, my expression giving

the prophecies foretelling the unification of Witches and Vampire’s, and it all begins

to my very core. What was important was this pack and the Vampire’s I swore I’d protect. Even the ones suspended in mid air, watching our conversation with conflicted eyes, were important. As I always had in the past, I let my stubbornness win out and spoke without

I can do. You won’t win, I promise you that much, and we will not go peacefully. Try and k**l us all, I dare you.

anything left of your soul, you’ll choose to be reincarnated.” She mused, the grittiness of Lars’s voice meshing with the silkiness of hers. “I suppose it’s time I take my leave, those dimwitted warriors of yours have finally snuffed out the presence of these

both of us coming to the same realization at the same

and the throats of the six Vampire’s suspended in mid-air were slit, raining crimson