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.
It is becoming harder and harder not to break. The small room Briss so kindly gave me feels like a prison. Especially when Tange spends hours of the day outside it. He insists he wants to get to know me. Yet he knows his scent is flooding the room. His wolf’s call to Nina is almost over-powering.That red pepper scent that reminds me so badly of Cillian, merged with a murky mossy tang, is everywhere. It means my dreams are now lust-fuelled assaults of my mind. I curse Nina each morning as I wake up with slick thighs and a hoarse throat.I have given the room key to Briss, making him promise not to unlock it during the night. I do not trust Nina one bit. She is so desperate to match with Tange’s wolf that I half expected her to make me sleepwalk straight into his bed. I have not spoken to her for several days. I know what games she is playing.The past two nights, I dreamt of unlocking the door, standing naked, and beckoning my mate forward. I offer my body to him like a sacrifice, sta
I can do this. I swore to Zena I wouldn’t do anything rash until we knew how to get Vez back. Right now, it is taking every sinew of strength not to punch that smug bastard in the head. He knows exactly what he is doing. Every stroke of Matilda’s hair, every squeeze of her smaller body into his, he has his eyes on me. He knows this is killing me.Maybe if he had been genuine. If he had truly sought to comfort her sadness for Jackson’s death, then maybe I could start to get a handle on this. Instead, he is peacocking. He is showing off his ownership of her instead of caring. His eyes have a peculiar gleam. Grey tinged with fierier shades of orange and yellow where once there was more orange. He is taller, prouder and stronger in every way.This place is grim too. It is not for Matilda. So much grey concrete, the tall pine trees sapping all the daylight and happiness away. I hate myself for imagining Matilda living at Cragstone, with me. The rising sun would bathe her perfect skin ever