MATED TO THE ALPHA AND HIS BETA - Season 5 Episode 13

Lanie

Despite the Flora happiness my daughter had infused into me, my shock was hard and cold and more bitter than anything I’d ever tasted. It lashed at me with the sting of a thousand whips before it subsided into a bearable weight. I couldn’t help but wonder if Stella was helping me to bear it, and I hated feeling like my own child had to be strong for me. I vowed then and there that I would do my best to never make her carry me this way again. There was an inevitability to this feeling as well, this discovery that those who’d meant to lead, guide, and protect our kind were working so very hard to hurt us. It felt like what we’d been waiting to find out for sure for so long. I hated that, too, but I could hardly be truly surprised. I’d always known it was only a matter of time. At least now, I hoped we’d get some answers. “What weakness?” I managed to say. “They can’t have. Of course, they think they have,” Malachi retorted at once. “But it’s impossible for them to actually breach our defenses. Believe me, others have tried with better methods than any the High Council could ever employ, and they’ve all failed.” Stella touched her fingertips to her temples and bowed her head. “I see many pathways, but despite the

many branches, each one leads to the same end. The destruction of Brightsky. You can continue to deny it, or you can face it and save the enclave and all those in it.” “What do you mean, exploiting the enclave’s weakness?” I held up a hand when Malachi began to spea “Please. I want to hear what my daughter has to say. I believe and trust that she has insight into things

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you might have blinded yourself to.” Malachi sighed irritably. “Fine. Speak away, all-knowing Celestial.” “They’ve managed to find a way to kill the spiders,” Stella said. I waited for his reaction, which was cold, hard, and icy silence. Confused, I turned back to my daughter. “I don’t get it. What do spiders have to do with anything? Spider shifters?” “Enclavian spiders,” Malachi said. “Empathic, telepathic, tiny little guardians to us all. Generation after generation, they’ve evolved to serve and support the enclave.” 1/2 “And now they are connected intrinsically to Brightsky in ways they were never meant to. Ways that have remained unknown to you all,” Stella explained. Malachi’s eyebrow quirked. “Not to me.” “To me, though,” I said. My heart pounded a little faster. “Forgive me for needing the crash course, but get me up to speed, please.” He turned to me. “The spiders control the lights, the heat, the water. All of the utilities. They are the eyes and ears of the enclave, our silent s ervants, keeping everything running to perfection. They light the paths we walk.” “If you’ve ever wondered how you find your way from one place to another, it’s usually because of the spiders helping you without you being aware of it,” Stella said. “But there’s more to it than that. Over the years, they’ve also grown more powerful. Their telepathy and psychokinetic powers are linked, not only to the spiders that live in Brightsky, but they’re starting to connect with their distant relatives in other enclaves.” “I’ve never even seen a spider here…” I began. Malachi laughed. “They’re tiny. You wouldn’t see any one of them unless they want you to.”

“Or you need them to,” Stella said. “And the wolf High Council has found a way to hurt them. To kill them, actually.” I was putting the pieces together, one at a time. Far more slowly than my brilliant daughter would be able to, but I was doing the best I could…and, it seemed like I was doing it better than my grandfather. “The lights. The power surges. That was from the spiders being killed?” I asked her. Stella nodded solemnly. “I haven’t been able to see exactly how they did it, because the spiders themselves don’t know. But they’re frightened, and that alone should tell you of the danger. I can tell you one thing, however. The only way that anyone or anything could bring harm to those spiders is if they also have access to Brightsky.” “Someone on the inside is feeding the High Council information,” Malachi said in a voice as dark and co and deep as the void. “That’s the only explanation. Stella nodded. “Yes. And while I haven’t been able to find out how they killed the spiders, I can tell exactly how they got the information they could use to do it.” Malachi’s eyes blazed crimson, and I felt a similar glow in my own eyes. Not my wolf, but my vampire side, reacting. Stella’s gaze swirled with multiple flashes of color. “You know who their source is?” Malachi asked. Again, Stella nodded. “Yes. It’s Gabriela.”