Twice Tempted: Between Two Alphas (Mia and Cameron) novel Chapter 54

Chapter Fifty-Four

“Hello husband.”

Holy shit. It’s Ashley.

She’s here. Walking into the courtyard in a long floral dress that hangs on her frail body. Her hair is pulled back and even sickly, she is beautiful. Her voice is like a siren’s song and I wonder if this was one more deal she made with the witches to be able to entrance others so easily.

As the sound fades, I shake my head to clear it.

She turns to our mother. “Adriana.”

My mother nods. There is something in her expression that is haunted. Is it acceptance or regret? The recognition that all of her choices have led to this moment of reckoning. Or maybe it’s just seeing her two daughters whom she’d abandoned together. Finally.

Then again, it could be the gun in Ashley’s hand.

Ashley sniffs the air. “Well, I must say, this feels familiar. Fucking her again, Cameron?”

He doesn’t argue or apologize. “It was only through your treachery that I was separated from my mate in the first place, Ashley.”

His voice is calm, patient even.

What is that sound? The singing is back only it isn’t coming from Ashley now, maybe it wasn’t her in the first place?

The melody… it’s distracting me, drawing my attention to the mist.

Mia! It’s Eric. He’s in my head. My sister…

“Corinne,” I whisper. “You need to leave.”

She points up to the balconies.

And then I see them. Wraiths. Dozens of them.

They’re human…but not. They smell like death. They are death.

And their insatiable appetites mean we will have a hard fight to break free of this place.

They’re in the mist, a part of it, and the singing in the air drowns the jazz and hisses of the wraiths.

“Why the hell would you bring me here!?” I shout at my mother.

It was her map.

I came to find her, seeking answers and instead I led us all into a trap.

“You brought me here,” Ashley says to me. She laughs cruelly.

Oh my God. I’ve caused this.

I set us on this path.

And in doing so, I brought my love and my Alpha, Corinne and her warriors, into this place.

“Corinne. Run!”

“Too late for that,” she says.

I turn to Cam. “You need to get out of here. Now. You need to get back to our kids.”

He’s already shifting. His body expanding and his face morphing into his lycan form. He won’t run. He won’t leave me.

“Ashley,” I try to reason with her. “Please don’t do this.”

“I have lost everything!” she reminds me. “And it’s all because of this bitch!”

She lifts the gun in her hand and shoots our mother. At such a short range, the bullet goes straight into Adriana’s heart.

The blast echoes in the courtyard.

It is the signal the wraiths are waiting for.

They leap over the balconies and pour out of the mist before my mother’s body hits the ground.