MATED TO THE ALPHA AND HIS BETA - Season 5 Episode 45

Lanie

The waves did not calm, and the storm did not cease. The wall of fog in front of us had looked like it was getting farther away, but now it stayed in place…and we got closer. We were heading right for it. We were going to collide, and yet I wasn’t afraid.

With every note my daughter sang, the fog shifted and changed in time with her melody. It was like no song I’d ever heard, and her voice was also not quite her own. She sang with a thousand voices, all at once, none I’d heard before. And yet, I would’ve known the sound of her singing anywhere. In any time, in any life.

The Moon Goddess had told me to TRUST. That was all I could do. Everything I must do.

I joined her. My mouth opened and filled with the slashing salt of rain and waves, but a song came out of me that could not be drowned, no matter how fiercely the water tried. It joined with Stella’s, the melody rising and falling as I harmonized. There were words, in a thousand or more languages I didn’t know and would never learn.

The song filled the air and blocked out the sound of the storm. As we sang, the fog began to thin. I could see the edges of what looked like land. For a second, my voice faltered.

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The fog wall slammed back into being totally opaque. The yacht veered along it instead of going through. I fell onto the deck, hitting it with my face. My mouth filled with blood, but I spit it out, over and over, until I could sing again.

My first notes were low and soft and broken, but I let my heart lead. Soon, the song flowed out of me again with a force greater even than the storm. Lightning flashed and struck the deck inches

from my face. The burning smell of electricity crackled through my nose, but the strike didn’t even leave behind a mark on the wood.

Strong hands yanked me up to my feet. Xander and Mason held me up between them. Their mouths moved with words I couldn’t hear over the sound of the song I shared with our daughter. They were shouting encouragement at me.

Zane joined them, all three of my mates supporting me and keeping me from flying backward as the yacht rose and fell. It hit the water with the force of a boulder hitting concrete. My teeth slammed together, and my scream of pain mingled with the sounds of our song.

Their love surrounded me with an almost physical force. It was as much a wall as that fog had been, but it didn’t hide or obscure anything. The love of my mates made everything stronger. More clear.

The four of us turned to face our daughter, still at the front of the boat. The wind and rain had drenched everyone else, but she looked as though not even a drop had touched her. Her hair flew around her, individual strands lighting and flashing with each similar flash of lightning. When the thunder rumbled and the hail battered us, her song got louder.

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My mates helped me forward. I didn’t try to stand next to her, but instead kept my place behind her. Ready to catch her, if she fell.

Stella didn’t fall. She faced forward, and the prow of the yacht parted the water as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. Then, it nosed the wall of fog. It split it like a curtain, or a bride’s veil being lifted.

A single fist had crushed the life out of our captain. Now a multitude of hands formed out of the mist. Fists, and clenching, clutching talons. Hands the size of berries and some bigger than the entire yacht. They all reached for us as we slipped through what had been a solid wall. Hands at the ends of long, snaking arms, attached to nothing.

They yanked at our clothes and hair and tried to grip our arms, legs, any part they could reach. Tiny hands tried to slip inside our mouths and nostrils, into our ears. They tried to poke our eyes. Bigger hands tore at the yacht’s rigging. Claws dug into the wooden deck.

A piece of the railing flew away, clutched in a phantom hand. The wheelhouse windows shattered under the pounding of a hundred ghostly fists. Deck furniture flew past us to shatter on the water when the foggy hands dropped the pieces, like once they discovered the chairs and tables weren’t alive, they didn’t want them anymore.

The yacht lurched with a horrible scraping noise as we hit the shallow water. Me and my three mates fell onto our knees as the boat went ashore. Stella collapsed and fell off the deck and onto the sand.

Both of us had stopped singing. I was already forgetting the tune. The words. Only the soreness in my throat remained.

My mates helped me off the boat and onto the beach. I ran for our daughter and gathered her into my arms. I rocked her, desperate to make sure she was alive.

Stella turned her exhausted face toward us.

“We’re here,” she said in a voice as dusty as an attic. “Welcome to Fallen Crest. The island of the dead.”