I’m on a terrifying form of auto-pilot. The cheering, the insane rushing noise as everyone squealed at our good fortune was maddening. I was the centre of attention and couldn’t even think straight.Tange held my hand with a grip of steel, keeping me close to him. Nina was whirling around, so thrilled to be close to the wolf the Moon Goddess has chosen for her. His hand was warm, yet the skin roughened by years of working. Calluses grittily rubbed against my softer skin and yet under his touch my fingers curled around his welcomingly./Our mate! Our perfect mate!/ she cried over and over.Nina, I have to reject him. /No! No, we will never know this feeling again if we do that!/ Nina snapped.Is this feeling better than a kiss from Cillian? I chose to love him with my free heart and mind and now I’m meant to jump completely the other way? The way Cillian made me feel when I laid on that table for him. I could live a life with that being my only affection. This mate bond does not have
Franz dropped me and Zena off over ten miles outside of Cragstone. If I had had a wolf to grumble to about the lunacy of this, I'd have been deep in conversation. With only my own silent grumpiness, I follow Zena deep into the leafy forest, following a muddy trail. "Don't mention Zena to anyone," I reminded him."Obviously," he said drily, "see you both in a few hours then."Franz carried on without us in the battered grey truck. His brown eyes were rolling away, and his long brown hair pulled into a high knot. He could catch up and see what is happening at the pack in my absence. Get some truths.Maybe I'm paranoid, but I worry the way things appear when I'm at home is…coddled. Like I'm this Alpha baby who needs soothing or distracting into thinking everything is okay. Plus, Zena had insisted some alone time between us would be good. I had no idea what the hell she thought was likely to happen. I know I don’t require any alone time with her, but seeing as she's my only link to find
The night the mate bond was activated with Tange I didn’t sleep a wink. Not that the small room Briss so kindly lent me was not comfortable. He was truly sweet to have given me his small space.Only a few minutes after I locked myself in, Tange came looking for me anyway. Thankfully Briss was there.“My mate?” he growled. It shamed me but the deep husk of his voice instantly made my thighs clench. Nina begged me to speak, to run to the door and beg him to break the hinges off. I clamped both hands over my mouth instead.“She has asked to be given time to accept the situation Sir,” Briss replied calmly. “She asked for a safe space she could lock herself in with, this seemed an easy solution.”“Your room, indeed Briss, what’s your game here?” There was a possessiveness to his voice that made Nina keen with pleasure but I only clamped my mouth shut tighter.“There is no game. The young lady asked for help. She is only just eighteen-”“I should have been consulted!” and the sound of somet
It was dawn by the time she woke up. Even with me splashing her face with water, nudging her gently, roughly, full-pelt shaking her to try and get a response. She just fluttered her eyes, freshly awoken from a great night’s sleep once the dawn sun hit her. I am a wreck. Up all night watching Zena get her beauty sleep whilst Matilda wonders what games I am playing. “Morning, did you get any sleep?” she asks nonchalantly.“Are you for real?” I snap back at her. “You had a fit, convulsed and then just passed out for like eight hours!”“Oh yeah, it can happen. It’s very intense getting readings you know. Especially via fire. It’s very draining.”“So you knew this might happen. That I would break the promise I gave?”“Cillian…” she started but I had already set off walking. “Screw your prophecy! I just wanted to make sure you were alive.”Without giving her a second to answer I stormed along the muddy trail. My pulse thundered in outrage. I have never wanted to throttle someone so badly
Tange’s deep voice continued to seep through the doorway. There was no escape from his words and the effect on my body.“Come on kitten, you should be able to talk to me like an adult?”“I can talk…but I don’t want to come out. Not yet.”“Are you planning on rejecting me then?” his voice growing lower by the second. Shadows covered the light from under the door as he stood ever closer. Goosebumps raced up my skin, Nina was excited to know our mate was so close. “No…I just-” “Then talk to me. I want nothing more than you to be happy here.” Even with a door between us I could pick up the hint of his red pepper and grassy scent. My head was dizzier, clouded by his influence.“I…you are nothing like what I expected my mate to be, that is all.”He laughed loudly and the sound of his hand slapping the stonework around the doorway cracked loudly. Nina placed an image in my head of that same rough, sandpapery hand, the one I had touched to activate this bond on the dance floor making a sim
With a groan and a dozen filthy swear words I wake up and realise I need to find Zena. Quickly. The rain is bucketing down outside, the patter usually soothing enough to keep me asleep. Except I'm wired. Matilda’s sweet little face, the sensation of her kiss is taunting me. I can't burn the world down to get her back to my side without knowing if my prophecy even places us together in the first place.Fuck.I haven't spoken to Zeke either.Or Jackson since putting him on home leave after Anton's death.Ivan the Inferno wouldn’t have had this happen. Groaning into my hands there are so many things I need to do. Including getting a shave because this grizzled orange bear look is not doing me any favours. The crashing noise of a shattering glass silences all my selfish pondering. Cries rise up and panic races through the packhouse like a stiff breeze. Automatically, with no fear I leapt out of the bed, flung up the wooden window sash and swung down onto the porch. My feet thudded onto
Zena shifted awkwardly in the tree. The rain fell gently around us, pattering down on the leaves. War is coming. I’m going to end up in a war and see death and carnage brought to the place my whole life is meant to be about protecting.“Zena, what else did you see?”“I saw the same war, the very same battle but you are steel. Your face is twisted in hate. Your warriors are too afraid not to fight for you. Desertion is occurring. You’ve become cruel, bloodthirsty. Consumed by revenge and hatred into driving Shadowlands beyond a just war into something else.”“For what purpose though! If I don’t know who I’m fighting, how do I avoid turning into the second one?”“You’re seeing it wrong Cillian. War is inevitable. You cannot change that the same as you can't rearrange the stars.""How will I know I made the right choice, when it comes to this decision?""You have morals and principles don't yo"I growled lowly, "of course I do. I know right from wrong.""Then I'd keep doing things right
I’m an Alpha on my knees because that is what the newly widowed Bianca deserves. In the darkness of the night my knees are in the squelching brown mud, the fire torch of her doorway flickering between us. Inside the house bustles with activity as a mourning vigil begins. To my suprise Bianca offered me her hand. I had half expected her to be angry with me, for failing to protect two members of her family. Instead she tried to pull me upwards and invite me inside but I shook my head. “Alpha, he loved you so much-” she started but I interrupted her with a shake of my head. “I cannot. I cannot stop until I know who has killed him. My soul won’t let me rest Bianca I…I am asking your permission to head up north and investigate tomorrow.” “Not attend Jackson’s pyre?” her voice light and gasping. “There is no man, not any Alpha fit to light the pyre of such a man. You should do it,” taking her slender, shaking fingers in mine. Looking up at her from my mud-drenched stance on my knees.