Alpha Asher by Jane

Chapter 212 

We left that day for the safe haven, not bothering to pack or say goodbye to our families. 

It didn’t matter that I was on the verge of passing out, not when the place we promised would remain safe had

been attacked. There was no more time to wait. I needed to use my magic to protect them, and I needed to do it

now. 

Asher gave me enough of his blood to keep me standing up right. The only pit stop we made before peeling out of

town was to pick up Tristan and Giovanni. Now that the sun was finally setting, they could safely leave the house. 

I cried out with relief when Giovanni  passed two blood bags into my hands and  quickly tore into them. It wasn’t

nearly  enough, but it would have to be. 

We were just under a mile away and already I could tell something had happened. Smoke lingered in the air, crisp

and heavy like someone had started a very large bonfire. Even coasting down the main road, the gouges in the

forest were visible. Trees were knocked down  and bushes trampled into the dirt. It looked like a pack of very large

beasts had charged through at full force. 

I wasn’t at all prepared for what I saw  when we arrived. 

There wasn’t a single part of me that thought the safe haven would survive an attack without any damage, but

beyond all reasonable belief, I had clung to the hope that the damage would be minimal. 

We rolled down the main road intersecting the town slowly, giving me plenty of time to scour every single shred of

damage the witches had done. 

From the number of houses that had scorch marks licking up the sides, it was clear Ember had been here. 

So many of them were crumbling, halfway torn down with families hiding inside, clinging to the shadows as the last

hints of sunlight faded. 

It grew worse as we neared the center, so  much worse. 

Bodies were lined in neat rows, covered in white sheets stained grey with ash. There weren’t many, perhaps only a

dozen, but it didn’t matter. Those twelve carried the same weight as a hundred as a thousand, would. 

The sidewalks and street were streaked  with black marks, kissed by Ember’s  flame as she pillaged the town. Cars

were turned over, some halfway crumpled and smoking. The stench of burnt motor oil hung in the air, mixing with

the scent of  death. 

Tristan cursed, and Giovanni made a  sound of agreement. 

“Fuck, my mother and father are here.” 

I craned my head to stare at him in the 

back seat. If we weren’t surrounded by so much carnage and death, I might’ve  laughed at how absurd he looked 

crammed in the backseat with Giovanni. 

“Is that a bad thing?” I asked.  Giovanni snorted. “If you think Tristan is  unpleasant, wait until you meet his 

mother.” 

I glanced at Tristan, waiting for him to snap or explode on Giovanni, but instead he actually nodded in agreement. 

There was nothing to say that would ease their discomfort. In truth, I wasn’t too worried about Tristan’s family or

what opinions his mother would have. Seeing  what happened here with my own eyes, it outweighed everything

else. 

Asher’s hand grazed my own, his fingers sliding in between mine. I glanced away from the carnage and into his

eyes, not realizing how close I was to plummeting until I felt his presence glide down the mate-bond and into my

troubled mind. 

‘It doesn’t matter how many times they destroy this place. We will rebuild.’ He promised, his eyes severe and set in 

stone. 

More than anything, I wanted it to be enough, but it wasn’t. 

I stepped out of the car, barely noticing it had come to a stop. The slam of car doors. was quiet in comparison to

everything else, drowned out by the weight of the stares falling on our faces. 

A flash of brown curls flitted past as 

Breyona launched herself into Giovanni’s  arms. She tangled her fingers in his hair and let out her sigh of relief into

his neck. 

Deacon, Dina, and Spence were the next to approach. I imagine we all had the same expression on our faces, grim

without the barest hint of victory. 

More and more Vampire’s were traversing the cluttered streets to the center of the safe haven, to the  community

center that served as a sort of Town Hall. Children clutching ash stained stuffed animals padded behind their

mother’s and father’s, hiding behind legs and torso’s as they scanned their surroundings with frightened eyes. 

“This is the safe haven we’ve heard so  much about?” A refined and almost nasal  voice chimed. 

Deacon’s eyebrows lifted as he turned. Dina and Spence locked eyes, something private passing between the two

of them. Tristan made a sound low in his throat,  his icy eyes darkening. 

“Mother.” He said as a warning and not a greeting. 

I hadn’t even noticed her standing there,  the woman with soft blonde hair and an  upturned nose. She had a

delicate pearl 

necklace around her slender throat, one that matched perfectly with her powder blue dress and black pumps.

There wasn’t  a single curl on her head that was out of  place. Clearly she’d gotten here long after the fight had

ended. 

Her eyes swiveled to my face, recognition and disdain melting into one festering pool that I did not have the energy

to deal  with. 

“So, you’re our new Monarch. Lola, isn’t it?” She purred, the obliviousness in her voice as flimsy as her smile. 

I barely spared her a glance. 

Deacon cleared his throat. “Considering you’re on her land, why don’t you show some goddamn respect and call

her by her title?” 

Upon hearing his threatening baritone, I tuned out everything else. Tristan’s mother’s reply was shrill and fell on

deaf ears. One after another, emotions impaled me in the chest. The longer I assessed the damages, the more I

realized how long it would take to restore this place to what it had once been. 

Months of hard work reduced to rubble in  the span of two hours. 

“Honestly, you can’t actually expect us to live here, Tristan.” She scoffed; a delicate hand pressed against her bird

chest. Her voice lowered to a whisper that wasn’t nearly quiet enough to be an actual whisper. “Think about your

sister for Goddess sake. Do you expect her to live in  a hovel?” 1 

‘Don’t.’ I told Asher through mind-link, feeling him stiffen behind me. 

Anything this woman said was  meaningless, and empty words were not worth starting another fight. 

There was a little girl just a few feet away, clinging to the side of a man who had the  same facial features as

Tristan. His hair  was much darker, but his deep-set eyes, angular nose, and pouty lips were identical. The little girl

was the spitting image of Tristan’s mother, only younger and not nearly as sour. She waved timidly  when we locked

eyes, and I did my best to  muster up a friendly smile. 

Tristan’s father said nothing but judging how his eyes flitted from person to person, he was observing everything

carefully. They clung to my face the most, and I wondered if he was naturally this curious or if he had a habit of

gauging the emotions of the people around him. 

“Enough, mother. They didn’t have to invite you here, and you didn’t have to come. It wasn’t like this before.”

Tristan hissed. 

Tristan’s eyes found my face for but a split second before darkening. His mother was either genuinely oblivious or

had a talent for ignoring the things she found unimportant, because she didn’t seem to notice the tension in the air

or how all of it radiated from where I stood. 

All sound apart from her nasal whine faded into white noise, crackling in my ears like the vicious flames that had

eaten through over half of the houses here. The rough asphalt beneath my feet vanished, as did Asher’s calloused

hands on my  shoulders. 

I was suspended in time, an observer to  the damage and death the witches had  caused, all with Tristan’s mother 

bleating in the background. 

She pursed her lips at her son. “Not very safe, is it? What a pity. I was so hoping we could live here, but I won’t risk

your  sister’s life when it’s clear this place is undergoing attacks every other day. She might not be concerned with

us noble families, but I won’t forgo tradition-.” 

“Mother.” Tristan snarled, but he wasn’t looking at her. 

“Lucinda.” 1 

The man I had assumed was Tristan’s  father approached. His hand was on his  wife’s shoulder, but he wasn’t

looking at  her either. 

‘Lola, baby. You’ve got to calm down. The  shadows are reacting to your stress…’ 

Asher’s voice trickled down the mind  link, but it was faint, muffled by white noise like everything else. 

Night had quickly taken over, but now  that I was paying more attention, it  seemed darker than normal. Many of

the streetlights were destroyed, but even the few that remained did little to illuminate the ground below. 

The pinprick of a million little eyes hit my skin one-by-one. 

I turned around, and there they were. There were thousands of them, perhaps even more. Within every nook and

cranny, crawling over every piece of this earth that the moonlight failed to reach, the shadows writhed. They

crawled beneath smashed cars and into half  crumbled houses. 

A few brave ones slithered across the  ground and circled around my feet, whispering sweet words of vengeance

and blood. 

“I apologize, your Majesty. My wife has many talents, but holding her tongue is not one of them.” Tristan’s father

said in  a calm voice, one without the disdain and malice his wife’s held. 

Lucinda, Tristan’s mother, scowled at her husband. 

“Lola and I have worked tirelessly on this place. No one cares about it more than we do. Seeing it like this is not

easy for her.” Asher’s voice dropped low, and anyone with ears could hear the warning in his voice. 

Lucinda glanced down at the shadows pooling around my feet with eyes of ice. Her lips twisted and puckered,

deepening the fine lines that circled her mouth. 

“Clearly.” She said indignantly, then yelped and stumbled back when a few tendrils of shadow got too close for her

liking. “Honestly, your father couldn’t control those things either. Disgusting, foul creatures-” 

The tendons in my neck cracked as my  head snapped in her direction. 

All at once, every mind-numbing emotion that burrowed into my flesh,  turned to rage. 

“What did you just say to me?” I asked  her, unware that I’d stepped out of 

Asher’s embrace and towards the woman  that dared compared me to that—that  monster. 

There was a fleeting second where I  wanted to show her exactly how much  like my father I was. It bubbled so

close to the surface that the thought was right there, hovering at the forefront of my  mind, waiting for me to reach

out with  magic and breathe it to life. 

It was gone within a flash when I locked  eyes with a little girl with curly blonde hair and pouty lips, Tristan’s little

sister. 

Leaning to the side to peer around her father’s legs, she stared up at me with  eyes identical to her mother and

brother’s. That little girl was the tidal wave that doused my fiery anger, but even the ocean itself couldn’t tame the

magic that lashed recklessly in my gut, frantic and desperate to be used. 

My skin was slick with sweat, my fingers twitching and insides crackling with  energy. 

I’d been so close to turning it on Tristan’s mother, so close that I wanted to be sick. The damage I could’ve done,

the things I could’ve turned her into. It was all too horrifying to handle.  Instead, I put that energy towards 

something else. 

The safe haven. 

I promised these people I’d protect them, and I failed. Each body lining the sidewalk was a testament to that

failure,  proof that I hadn’t lived up to my word. 

Well, not this time. 

These people, the ones that called this place home, they would be safe. No one, not a soul who wished them harm

would be able to step foot in this town. 

The moonlight that shone down on us grew brighter, as though it were becoming tangible. Waves of liquid silver,

translucent and shimmering with magic, filled the air. 

Tristan’s little sister stepped out from behind her father, giggling and stretching on her tiptoes with cupped hands to

touch the magic I created. Vampires left and right halted in their tracks; heads turned upwards as they watched

with open mouths. Mason, Clara, and Sean were among the many, their eyes tracking the glittering waves. Deacon

reached out to touch one,  inspecting his fingers after they had passed through. 

Up and up, they floated, covering the  entire town like one big net. As each wave met the other, they sparked and

sizzled before merging into one. It grew to form a dome, exactly like the one I’d pictured in my head. 

A vicious, tearing pain split through my chest, but I wasn’t done yet. Through the exhaustion and the splotches of

darkness clogging my vision, I grabbed hold of my magic and forced it to obey. 

I couldn’t replace the lives lost, but I  could fix what was destroyed. 

Gasps rang out, one after another until they all overlapped. 

The rubble littered across the streets,  sidewalks, and front yards began to tremble. All at once, they flew into the

air, circling one another. They formed a cyclone of debris and trash, comprised of shattered bits of drywall, chunks

of  asphalt, and sheets of metal torn from  cars. 

Many Vampires’ dove to get out of the way without realizing my magic had a mind of its own. It knew I wanted none

of these people harmed, so it went the extra mile to ensure it. 

Broken glass skittered across the streets, attracted to their missing counterparts. They snapped together one by

one, the cracks slowly vanishing until a fresh sheet of glass remained. It careened through the air, whirling towards

a window frame that had been pieced  together by chunks of splintered wood. Once rejoined, they coasted through

the  air towards the nearest house and  snapped into place. Crumbs of asphalt  met to fill in gaping cracks in the

road, melting into one another to leave nothing  behind. 

It was like this for every house, for every  structure that the witches had destroyed. 

Like a reverse button had been pressed, the damage slowly undid itself. After  several minutes the last brick of a 

chimney clicked into place, and once  again, the town was whole. 

Deacon stared at me; his eyes so wide that I could pinpoint every fleck of grey  within the shades of blue. 

“You fixed everything.” He said, amazed. 

“No I didn’t.” I croaked, staring at the bodies covered in white sheets. “They’re  still dead.” 

If it weren’t for Asher’s hands on my  waist supporting all of my weight, I would’ve cracked my skull on the

pavement when my eyes rolled back, and  the world went dark.