The Alpha's Temptation

"Can you define the feeling again?" Biham said. "Did it feel like magic?"

Kinshra looked away from him and stared out the window as if mulling over it. A few moments later she said, "You know Biham, there's a difference between dark magic and inherent fae magic."

The way she said his name, strings strummed in his heart and he felt his wolf stirring inside him. How could she still have this effect on him when he had rejected her? A soft exhale left his lips. As the fog of his mate's attraction cleared from his mind, he managed to croak, "What difference?" He took her hand back in his. They were so petite and pretty. He started rubbing her knuckles with his thumb inadvertently.

"Dark magic is... dark. It will slither over you like glue, like a snake. It will give you a creepy feeling, as if something is very wrong, as if nothing in this world can be this bad." She tilted her head and glanced at their joined hands. It would be a lie if she denied how her heart fluttered. "That was the feeling it gave me. And I have to say that the magic was very strong. Not everyone can have such a powerful command on that kind of magic. Even witches would have better magic than it. Being a fae, our magic is supposed to be the strongest and if I perform it on you, you won't even feel it unless I want you to feel it. You will only see the effects. But dark magic--it is acquired. It is acquired after a lot of sacrifices and not just the sacrifices of others, but even sacrificing your own soul. When it is performed on you, you will get a sick feeling. And that is the reason why that magic is never good."

Biham's brows furrowed deep as he grasped her hand. Tension shook him from the inside. Kinshra had gone through so much and he could never know it. "You are a fae. Your magic is far greater than the dark magic. Why couldn't you ever slip out or break that spell?"

"I wish I could. But the thing was that the magic was performed on me when I didn't know, when I was unaware. Sirrah would keep me busy in the conversations and I think that was the time Murel performed magic on me," she said. "By the time I was aware of it, the magic would have done its work on me."

"How can you say it was Murel?" Biham's stomach twisted in knots.

"Murel was always chanting something. When he was around, I could feel dark, ominous aura around him. There was something with him that I could never point. He smelled of brine and sea and seaweeds. He was... it was..." her voice trailed off.

"What Kinshra? Tell me!" Biham was getting impatient.

"He always seemed very uncomfortable. He didn't seem like a werewolf to me." Kinshra pursed her lips in a thin line and shrugged. "Once again, I do feel that I was imagining. But he was very odd."

"Sea?" Biham was now completely confused. He had met Menkar a number of times, but Menkar never smelled of sea. Only mermaids smelled of it. Like Fafnir, Draka's General.

"I think you should ask Sirrah about it. She would have the answers to it. She was the one who brought him to Pegasii." She picked up a pastry and ate it. She offered one to him and he couldn't eat it. His mind was racing at so many scenarios that he couldn't rest. Biham got up and walked to the mantle where he picked up a snow globe and shook it as if trying to shake his mind. nothing made sense. He was sure that it was Menkar who was performing dark magic on her, but now there was a new twist in the tale. If it wasn't Menkar then who was it? He had to talk to Tania about it. How did Menkar smell?

Kinshra continued, "I have thought about all that happened with me for so long that I have come to one conclusion."

He turned to her. "And what is that?"

"Sirrah was with Murel. She was the one who wanted to use the dark magic to oust me." She bit her bottom lip as if feeling bad for accusing her.

Biham looked at her incredulously. He went to her and knelt in front of her. "Please don't feel guilty, Kinshra. You are done with feeling guilty. You have to tell everything about Sirrah. You don't know what all she has done to our daughter. She tried to kill her multiple times and once even tried to sell her to Nyxers."

"Oh my God!" Kinshra placed her hand on her heart as her eyes became misty with pure horror. Suddenly she remembered something. "You know Biham, something was terribly wrong in the kingdom of Pegasii."

Biham searched her face. "You have to elaborate on that Sirrah," he said, impatience shaking him on the inside.

Kinshra's cheeks flushed as if she was caught stealing a cookie in a jar. "I was so irritated by Sirrah that I spied on her, and I found a letter that was half finished. She was writing it to someone called Alphard."

Biham's blood drained from his face. "Alphard? Are you sure?" He felt his stomach had plummeted to the floor. Alphard was the General of the army of Hydra.

"Yes!" Kinshra nodded firmly.

"What was in the letter?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"It was about staging an attack on Pegasii."

"What the fuck!" Biham's mouth fell to the floor.

"The letter mentioned that she wanted the king of Pegasii to be out of the kingdom for a few days. There was something very important that had come up." Kinshra bit her bottom lip. "The letter was not finished. I read it and placed it back. I thought of telling it to you. I thought you would never believe me because you were already under a lot of tension. The Elders were asking you to leave me. Moreover, you would get extremely irritated at every small thing. So I went back to get the latter, but it wasn't there. A few days later you had to go again because there were Nyxers creating mayhem in the border villages."

"What happened in my absence?" he asked.

"Sirrah returned and once again I found myself in the grip of dark magic..." her voice trailed off. "I did try not to meet her, but Sirrah's hold on everything and everyone in the palace was so strong that she drew me out. And at that time I was in full term of pregnancy. I would get so riled up by her tricks that often I would ask my maid Cordea to take me elsewhere to escape her. But Sirrah would find me. And I would find myself in strangest situations. The man or the woman who performed dark magic on me must be very powerful. I would make a wall of protection magic around me, but the moment I let it slip, I was getting trapped in his dark magic. It had become very frequent."