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his head slumped lifelessly onto his chest and his face began to
shrivel and age like an old rotten piece of fruit. Alex, now shifted
back into his human form, stood still over the body, his eyes
transfixed as it completed its change.
Jacob’s eyes met Alex’s, and he nodded.
It was over now.
Murdock was dead.
They weren’t the only ones who noticed. The crowd of
supernaturals that had flooded the room earlier had begun to stir,
rising from the floor, dazed, as if they had all just awoken from a
dream. Alex gazed around the room at them, his body tense, a fire in
his eye Jacob recognized from when he’d attacked the wolves earlier.
If there was to be another fight, he wanted to be ready for it.
There wasn’t. As Alex turned to see the masses of supernaturals
on the floor, they halted halfway in their movements, bowing their
heads. They didn’t rise from the floor, not all the way, not altogether.
Instead, their bodies made a single motion, rippling through the crowd
like a wave as they turned to look at the man who had killed
Murdock, who had freed them from his psychic grip.
They were kneeling.
Alex stared at them, looking just as uncertain with the kneeling
masses before him as Jacob had been with his ability to command
them. Curious, he swung his hand out again, but noticed no change in
the masses now that Alex’s wolf wasn’t lurking inside his body. So
much for that. Alex crossed to Jacob now, mindful of the gaps that
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Ellen Ginsberg
were still yawning up from the floor where several open red doors
lined the tile. The light was still radiating out of them, bright as it had
been before or, if possible, brighter, as Alex reached the bed and
Jacob reached out to his open arms.
He felt a rumble underneath him as their hands touched, and
looked up. The high ceiling of the room was cracked, and light was
shining in from outside it. The cracks grew deeper, and a piece of
plaster crumbled and fell, sailing to the floor dangerously close to
Alex’s head.
“Look out!”
Alex wrapped his arms around Jacob, pulling them both out of the
way of the falling plaster, but more cracks had begun to rise in the
walls and ceiling, and more of the room had begun to crumble around
them. The floor shook again as it began to give way, and the throngs
of supernaturals dropped down into the lighted doorways and between
the cracks.
Jacob fought to stay on the bed with Alex, nearly sliding off the
edge and plummeting off of it. He slipped from his mate’s grasp, but
Alex’s hand shot out and grabbed his, so tightly he worried he might
pull it from the socket.
“Hold on,” he said, and Jacob tried to scramble back onto the bed
as the room exploded into light. There was no ground left to stand on,
and he was certain any moment they would either free-fall into that
endless light or be swallowed up by it altogether.
Whatever would come of them, he held onto his mate’s hand,
worried that once again he’d feel him slip away as they tumbled into
whatever strange space awaited them. He wouldn’t let it happen. It
couldn’t, not anymore. He had seen exactly what the two of them
were capable of now that their souls had united.
And nothing in this world was ever going to tear them apart.
Jacob at the Break of Dawn
161
Chapter Nine
Jacob opened his eyes, and he was in Alex’s arms again. He didn’t
remember falling through the planesgate, only waking up, cuddled
against his mate just the way he was before the wolves came and
captured him, as if the whole thing had been a bad dream.
He blinked his eyes, turning in Alex’s arms to face him and
nudging his mate until he started to stir. “Mmm?” he asked sleepily.
“What happened?” Jacob asked. For the life of him, he didn’t
know if he’d been on another plane or if he’d just had the longest and
weirdest nightmare of his life.
“Nothing, angel, go back to sleep.”
“Okay.” Jacob nodded against Alex’s chest, his heart pounding,
his breath quick and heavy. He didn’t know if he could go back to
sleep, but God, he was glad he was safe for the moment.
Suddenly, Alex’s eyes flew open, taking Jacob in. His hands,
already wrapped around Jacob’s stomach and shoulders, grasped at
him desperately.
“Oh my God,” he panted. “Oh, Jesus, I thought I’d lost you. You
were—”
“On the Red Plane,” Jacob finished. “I don’t know how I got back
here.” His eyes searched his mate’s, looking for the answers that he
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