Triple Alpha's Threat

(GN) Ch. 108 - Weak

Chase POV

My insides were boiling for days, projectile vomit from every hole, and my skin constantly felt too hot to touch. That wasn't even the worst part. A nagging voice kept compelling me to give in. I knew it was the forest, and I would never give those damn demon spirits the satisfaction of taking my soul.

"You look like shit!" River entered Drake's library smoothly. He was still in pain, but nothing like what I was experiencing.

I knew it was because the bond Kiera and I shared was completely severed. It made my stomach churn, remembering that night I rejected her. I was such a fool.

"I feel worse than I look," I grumbled. I had never been sick a day in my life, and this felt like I had the damn plague.

Drake closed his book and then stood to grab another from the pile we collected earlier. We were determined to figure out every dark secret of the forest and our forefathers.

There had to be a way to end all this. The slim possibility of freeing us of this curse and then graveling at Kiera's feet for forgiveness kept me alive. Otherwise, I would have ripped my own heart out by now.

"Here is another reference to dragons. There is a lot of lure about them from before our time." Drake scratched the day-old stubble on his chin.

"Are you actually thinking dragons once existed?" I teased him.

"No! That's impossible." Drake quickly stated. The way his voice wavered, I knew he thought it was possible.

"Nothing is impossible," River added, sitting beside me and grabbing a book. "We know more powerful beings existed before us; Lupa and Dietus are revered as gods, but they once roamed this same earth. The stories speak of their immense power to wield magic, and Lupa was the first known shifter. It's possible large reptiles existed tens of thousands of years ago, too."

"Holy shit!" I laughed, then pathetically coughed. "You are both thinking dragons once existed. If we find an egg, I'm claiming it as mine!"

"There are no dragon eggs, you fool." Drake raised his hand to smack me upside the head but quickly lowered it. I was knocking on death's door and couldn't take so much as a strong wind. "Even if they once existed, they have are all extinct now."

"We would have found bones or some remnants of them, though." River suggested.

"We don't know how many existed or how they came to their end. They could have been incinerated, leaving no trace of their existence for us to find." Drake flipped the page of his book as he spoke. "Wait! Here, it says it again."

Drake abruptly stood, and River and I leaned closer to hear what mystery unfolded. "Dragons carried the balance of magic." He began reading. "Those of purple eyes held the greatest power and were revered as leaders of the rest."

His finger skimmed a few lines before he spoke again. "It says a woman of great power imprisoned one of these majestic creatures. She was a witch and believed to be able to break her bones to morph into other creatures. She was determined to control the balance of power, spending years experimenting on many types of dragons."

"Did she figure it out?" I asked impatiently.

"Yeah, fuck!" Drake slammed the book closed.

"Well, what did it say?" I insisted.

"I think it was Lupa. She needed more power than any before her to perform a spell that would trap all those she wished to imprison. She harvested the dragon's power and nearly destroyed this entire world."

"How?" River asked, growing as annoyed as I was that Drake was taking forever to get to the punch line.

"She ate the hearts of the Dragons. It gave her unimaginable power, and her eyes and skin turned a shade of purple hue. Then, she performed her spell, separating the magic within her people's souls. Lupa believed too much power existed within one soul, so she took it away. She created the prison world to hold any that held darkness , and the rest that lived were half-human and half-shifter. Lupa believed the human half would be our voice of reason, while the shifter half of our soul would carry the magic but be at our mercy."

"Damn!" My eyes widened in disbelief. "So we are all descendants of Gods? That means our wolves aren't a separate part of us, but the part Lupa separated us with magic from a freaking dragon heart. That goddess was a fucking beast."

"We don't know if this is all true," River added. "Every story has its twist and, I'm sure, exaggerations."

"We know Kiera's eyes are purple, though, and she is powerful." Drake thought about everything we just discovered for a few moments. "Lupa had the purple hues from digesting the dragon's magic. She must have passed down this magic through each generation somehow."

"Goddess!" My hand rested over my heart. Kiera just became a thousands times more sexy to me. "Our mate is part dragon. I want her!" I whined out.

"We have to stay away from her until we figure this out," Drake spoke sternly.

"We have to stay away from her forever." River huffed in annoyance.

"Why?" I asked. "She is our mate for a reason. We should be doing this together."

"You are barely breathing, idiot!" River yelled at me. "How can you want to go running back to her? She left us for dead." River abruptly stood, kicking his chair from the table.

"She didn't know a rejection would cripple us like this." Drake looked sorrowful at River. He hadn't decided what he wanted yet.

I knew without a doubt my only purpose in life was to try and win her back. River obviously wanted to wipe his hands clean of her, and Drake was stuck in the middle.

River began spitting out all his hate, and it made me whine again. He was the one making this so difficult. "She saw us! She knew it would weaken us, and she still left without a care. Kiera doesn't want us, and I say good fucking riddance. Once we heal, I will finish the rejection and never look back. I don't want that woman anywhere near me ever again." He was being childish, leaning into the hurt of being abandoned. He also had a significant ego, which Kiera crushed when she didn't accept him as her Alpha.

"Reject her if you must, but once I heal, nothing will stop me from being by her side for every second of my life. There is nothing I want in this world other than her." I stood on shaky legs and stared down at my brother.

"Enough!" Drake yelled. "We can't be with her right now, so let's curb this conversation. We are brothers, three of one soul. We belong together, and we need to fight together." Drake looked right at me as he spoke his following words. "If you want to help Kiera, then we have to do that together... from here."

"Whatever!" I painfully shrugged my shoulders and left. I didn't agree with either one of them. We belonged with our mate, and nothing else mattered.

As I slammed the front door of our packhouse, the voice in my head made me dizzy. "Come to me, son of darkness. Let me release you of this pain." The tone was soothing, almost compelling. I knew whatever the dark forest offered included a reprieve from this pain I felt. I wouldn't be so naive to think there weren't severe consequences to accepting help from the darkness though.

"Your time is over, and you must return to the forest." The voice continued to haunt me as I made my way to Drake's cottage. My head felt like lead as I laid it on the pillow. Forcing my eyes closed and mind to rest, I found restless sleep, praying that the pain would pass so I could be strong enough to find my mate again. I needed to make things right with Kiera, and I needed to be at her side, even if it meant leaving my brothers forever.