Page 35 of The Alpha King's Mate

My Luna.

We took our places.

Our eyes locked.

Tonight, nothing lay between our souls. We were ready to be bound.

Marianne began the ceremony, praising the Moon Goddess—while I could only praise our brave mate.

The ribbon was wound around our hands, our wrists, our forearms. Red against her gold. Red against my ink. Binding us from fingertip to elbow, the way the first mates were bound, under the same moon.

Our lips touched the goblets at the same time. We drank—not to sustain, but to complete the final rite.

Calm, peace and love emanated from Malakh.

Nothing could ever break our bond. This was the Moon Goddess’s promise and blessing.

Thank you.

Our mate could never reject us. The missing portion of my being had been returned to me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

She clutched her throat.

The goblet tumbled from her fingers. Her eyes went wild with panic as she tried to drag air into her lungs.

The wretched sounds grew more laboured, and she fell. Before she hit the grass, I caught her in my arms.

“Aliana,” I roared, as pain seared my chest like a burning coal where my heart should have been.

Her body went rigid, back arching, her mouth trying to form words.

“Sor—in,” she gasped, clutching my lapel.“Sor… I—”

She began to convulse. Foam oozed from her mouth.

Then nothing.

Still.

Lifeless.

I sat clutching her, dazed.

A fracture ruptured inside me. Far worse than anything that had come before it. Ice-cold reality. My men gathered around me.

The others thumbed the safeties off their guns one after the other, until that was all I could hear.

“Lock down the compound.”

The voice sounded distant. But the words were mine.

Then Malakh roared, clawing at me to be let out, hurting me any way he could. What he didn’t understand was that nothing could hurt me again.

“Kill them all.”

Chapter 17

Aliana