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012 | WITHOUT WORDS
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Somehow, two weeks had passed in a blur. I didn’t want to think about why the time had gone so quickly, but the ridiculous pounding of my heart and the way my bones melted beneath my flesh every time Ares was near pointed it out whether I liked it or not. Even now, sat in the banquet hall, pale sunlight sending colours from the stained glass scattering across the dented wooden table, I could feel his presence more keenly than I could feel the bite of the cold air that swept through the room every time the door was opened.
I picked at a stale hunk of bread, tearing off a small chunk and balancing a thin slice of cheese on top of it. The meagre portion of bread, cheese, and berries we were given every morning for breakfast was something I was slowly getting used to, but my stomach ached for cinnamon buns and jam-filled pasties and fresh squeezed orange juice.
With no suitable farmland in their territory, the Winterpaw Warrior Pack relied solely on the goods they
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Alpha Ares 013 | A REALM OF STARLIGHT
I chewed on my bottom lip, stewing over what to write back to my parents. I hated lying to them, but in this instance I knew I had to. I couldn’t very well tell them that the Beta of the pack I was now living with wanted me dead, and probably a good handful of the Omegas that served me every day did too. So far, all I had managed to write was ‘Dear Mum and Dad,’ and I wasn’t even sure about that because the letter I’d received had been from Dad, not Mum, so maybe I should have started with his name first… I had to get a grip. I adjusted my seat on the stiff-backed wooden chair, winced as a splinter poked at my calf muscle, and took a deep breath. I just had to focus on the things I could be honest about. By the time Ares returned to the room I’d not only finished penning my letter – making sure to leave out anything that a sneaky Omega or worse, a duplicitous Beta, could read before it got sent – but I’d tidie
Alpha Ares 014 | FROSTBITTEN
Our dinner had long since gone cold on the table. I’d forgotten about it, swept up in the excitement of seeing a new part of Ares’s territory. More than that, I’d wanted to go somewhere that meant something to him. I wrinkled my nose at the idea now, my face hidden by shadow as he lit a fire in the hearth. My heart was a frostbitten thing. The fire took, crackling and sending heat spilling into the room, but even it could not thaw my heart. He lit the torches hanging from the walls in silence. I’d started to think of our altercation as an argument, but it had been nothing of the sort. It was worse: a dreadful acceptance of the fact that, no matter the mate bond holding us together, we could never work as a couple. The hope I’d felt earlier dissolved into ash, suffocating my heart even as the mate bond gripped it tighter, pressing me to apologise when I had done nothing wrong. We were from different worlds, and there was no way to bridge th
Alpha Ares 015 | BAD MOON RISING
Even though Ares did not know exactly where the body was, and Cendres and Nazte both did, he assumed the lead as we marched across Winterpaw’s territory. I had tried to keep pace with him, but Nazte had tripped me more than once and, somehow, I’d ended up at the back of the pack. I glared at all three of their backs; I would have folded my arms haughtily, too, but I needed them to balance as we slipped and skidded across the compacted snow. Maybe I should have simply been grateful that I had been included, but the slight in forcing a Young Luna behind a Beta and Gamma was something even I turned my nose up at. One day, I vowed to myself, stomping through a patch of deep, powdery snow that had spilled onto the slick pathway we followed, I would get Nazte back. I did not know when or how – I just promised myself that I would. “Should she be here?” Nazte muttered, too loud for it to have been a coincidence that I’d heard him. “Yes,”
Alpha Ares 016 | HATRED AND DESIRE
The snow, which rose in mounds around the training grounds, glittered in the morning sun. It was splashed in hues of brilliant, resplendent red, dark as blood upon the pallid landscape. It had been the same all week: every fragment of beauty I saw became a portrait of horrors. Even the novelty of seeing in colour could not bring my thoughts from the dark mire they had tumbled headfirst into. I pulled back, sliding my booted foot across a patch of ice and feeling the bite of dawn air slicing at my midriff. I shivered, losing focus for half a second and giving my opponent an opening to swipe at me. The brown wolf lunged, baring its teeth at me; I skidded on the ice and slipped, managing to catch myself at the last second due to luck alone. The wolf – a woman called Valeria that I often ended up practicing against, simply because she was one of the few Winterpaw werewolves amicable enough towards me to fight me without biting my head off, literally – drop
Alpha Ares 017 | PLAN OF ATTACK
I was falling for Ares.I knew it now, for he resided in every fibre of my being. I woke and I thought first of him, where once I would have thought of my pack and of my duty to them. I fell asleep with my legs tangled through his, heat radiating from his chest and the steady beat of his heart lulling me into dreams that were, almost always, about him.I felt like a love-struck teenager: the sort that got giddy over penning their initials and his in a little heart down the sides of their parchment in lessons and linking their hands together beneath the table, imaging their fingers were his and squeezing. That was so far from the person I had been for the last twenty years of my life that I found it hard to look in the mirror each morning, because the flush to my cheeks and the glazed, dreamy look in my usually sharp green eyes did not belong to me.Even as we sat in a council meeting, in a dimly lit room deep inside the cavernous mountain, I could not tear
Alpha Ares 018 | YOUNG LUNA
I pressed my paws into the snow, feeling its sharp bite even through my thick brown fur. Snowflakes swirled through the air, dusting my coat with white and sending shivers rolling through me.I was envious of the Warrior Wolves behind us – they were pressed so tightly together, holding the line that marked the edge of Winterpaw’s territory, that they must have been warm from the flush of body heat. I’d been forced to the front with Cendres and Nazte. The one small saving grace was that Hanna and Hans Pewer were marching around the Warrior Wolves, ensuring they were in the correct formation, so I was saved from their torturous company at least.I wrinkled my nose, flicking my gaze over to Nazte’s huge white wolf form. One of his paws looked like it had been dunked in chocolate and sprinkled with icing sugar from the snow. He stood completely still, his icy blue eyes fixed on the horizon as we awaited the arrival of the Bloodpelt Prowler Pack. The
Alpha Ares 019 | THE BLOODPELT PROWLER PACK
Everything around me was colour, bright and bold and wholly overwhelming. I swerved and darted between wolves, unsure which ones I was meant to be fighting and which ones I was meant to be defending. I didn’t know Winterpaw like I did Blue Moon; I couldn’t pick out a member of my new pack in their coloured forms, let alone the greyscale I was more used to.Blue Moon ran in my blood. It was built deep into my bones. Even if I’d wanted to be part of Winterpaw Warrior, it could never compete with that.Two wolves knocked into me at once. I growled, low and rumbling in my throat, yanking myself upright and twisting around to tear into them. They were smaller than me, but one ripped into my hind leg and another clawed my shoulder. I hung back, pretending to be more hurt than I was; they wasted a half-second glancing at each other, and then I struck.I leapt at the first one, snapping my jaws around its neck. I winced as blood hissed from the w
Alpha Ares 020 | BROKEN PROMISES
If I opened my eyes, I would wake up. Some subconscious part of me already knew that – and it held my eyelids closed, keeping me hostage in the dark. I considered fighting it, but traces of pain and blood and betrayal broke through my memories and forced their way into my present mind. I winced against the onslaught, against the feel of having bones and flesh that throbbed and ached, against the abject horror of knowing I was doomed, and that was enough to throw me back into my body. I didn’t know how I was alive, but I forced my eyes open to face whatever awaited me. I expected to awake to more pain, to the bite of snow beneath me and a blizzard in the air, to be utterly unable to escape the numbing cold and the red-hot agony – But there was nothing. Just silence, broken only by the pops and cracks of the fire in the hearth. I frowned at it: a large, stone monstrosity set into the wall at the foot of the bed. I did not recognise this room,
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Alpha Ares 141 | EPILOGUE
One year later I smoothed my hands down over my thick cloak. Nerves swarmed in my belly: not the dizzying kind that made me feel faint, but the sort that cast a hazy glow over everything as I walked along the winding woodland pathway. Torches flickered every few feet; orange roses of light bloomed across the mossy, dew-damp earth beneath my boots. “Nervous?” asked Dad. “A little.” I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. “It’s silly, I know. There’s nothing to be nervous about. I’ve been his Luna for the last year – longer, really – but this feels…” I trailed off, unsure how to word exactly how it felt. Official? Real? “It’s been such a long time coming, sweetheart.” “Yeah. Part of me wishes we’d done this straight after the battle, but it made sense to wait until the pack was remade.” Unable to help myself, a grin pushed hard at my cheeks. Everything looked beautiful today, I thought, the pine trees bottle-green beneath the golden setting sun. Everything was glazed with the
Alpha Ares 140 | COME TOGETHER
As everyone took their seats, Ares and I remained standing. I clutched at his hand: it was a physical reminder to everyone there that we were joined, that Winterpaw Warrior and Blue Moon were enemies no longer.I glanced at Ares, letting him take the lead. He swallowed, straightened his shoulders, and then smiled hesitantly around at everyone. The expression looked strange, uncertain, and it took me a moment to realise why. Ares never smiled at people when he addressed them. He led through fear and control. Not anymore, it seemed. My heart swelled.“Thank you all for coming,” he said, projecting his voice clearly and confidently across the room. “Luna Sienna and Alpha Rodriguez, of the Firepaw Pack.” He inclined his head at the dark-skinned woman my dad had been talking to before, and the bald-headed, well-muscled man sat beside her. They were both older than us by about fifteen years.The Alpha and Luna of the Storm Guardian Pack were older still, well into their fifties, their face
Alpha Ares 139 | KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
Ares had given Dad the nicest of the Warrior Wolves’ cabins to stay in. When we arrived, Ares’s arm still latched securely around my waist as it had been every single step of the way, I saw two other familiar faces peering out at us through the window, their creased faces crinkling with smiles so wide I half feared their tissue paper skin might tear.The wind whipped between the cabins, making my eyes and cheeks sting. Dawn had long since settled across the horizon, pale pink fading into the usual white-grey cloud cover. Everything looked strange out here, unreal in a way I couldn’t quite process. I clutched at Ares, suddenly apprehensive as dad moved to let us in.My nerves dissolved as soon as set foot inside. We were both pulled into an embrace on all sides, many arms winding around us and holding us close.“You did it,” Nana Baspy whispered.I scoffed and, after another long moment, I pulled away. “I don’t think I can take any of the credit, Nana. I wasn’t even conscious for half
Alpha Ares 138 | SURRENDER AND SACRIFICE
The world shattered. For a time, it was nothing more than a series of fragmented images and distant, distorted sounds. I heard screaming, felt the tell-tale burning in my throat, but I couldn’t connect the noise to me. I was weightless, without a body, and then there was nothing but silent darkness.Words I couldn’t understand split apart the quiet. “It’s the other packs,” someone said excitedly. I recognised the voice, familiar enough but not someone I was close to. A hazy, half-formed image of a missing hand and foot beneath determined eyes and wispy blonde hair floated just out of reach, and I gave up trying to identify the mystery voice as they spoke. “Firepaw and Storm Guardian. They made it just in time. We did it! We survived.”No, we didn’t, I thought bitterly. Not all of us.“It’s not over yet.” That growl, gravel and honey – that was Ares. Something in me settled. But why had he shifted into his human body? That thought, along with all my others, drifted away, becoming nothi
Alpha Ares 137 | BATTLE OF THE MOUNTAIN
We were all so focused on Aliana that none of us heard the quiet tap-tap-tap of claws pacing the stone hallways of the Pack House behind us.And then Scillian smiled. Behind him, the Sable Stalker Alpha and Luna smirked, too, a cruel hook of their lips that made my blood boil; off to the side slightly, Bloodpelt Prowler’s Alpha grinned toothily. They were all so smug, so sure of themselves. So sure that they’d won.“What is this?” Dad asked flatly.“Oh, this?” Scillian brightened impossibly further as he gestured to Aliana. “A game.”“You wouldn’t hurt your own daughter.” Dad sounded less convinced about that than he had a minute ago. “Let her go, and let the battle recommence.”“My daughter is a traitor. And, worse than that: she was running from a fight.” Scillian scoffed. I watched his face closely as he walked, every stride slow and purposeful, towards Aliana. He caressed her cheek, but I looked beyond that. I searched out his eyes through the snowfall, and I found only adoration
Alpha Ares 136 | THE END OF US
I knew, deep down, that this was my last hurrah. I knew, deep down, that if it were not, I would’ve let the pain and the shock hold me back from fighting one last time. My body was weak, but I would not succumb to its needs. This was no ordinary battle, and I had never been one to give up.I felt the pain and let it make me stronger. Adrenaline surged through my veins. I would fight by my mate’s side, and I would try to make it mean something. That was all I could do, now.We neared the Pack House. The tension surrounding it was thick with foreboding; the stillness of the battlefield was somehow worse than when the air had been metallic with spilled blood and the snow melting from the heat of the felled bodies upon it. Now, fresh snow dusted the blood soaked fur of the dead, masking the worst of the atrocities that had been marked upon the land in stark pools of red.Everything was calm. Everything was quiet. Some dark premonition made the back of my neck crawl with the sense that, at
Alpha Ares 135 | BE AMONGST THE STARS
I was numb, inside and out, as I watched. My mind struggled to break free of the overwhelming melancholy, the agony so strong that the only way I could deal with it was to feel nothing at all.The cold helped. A bitter wind whipped between the boulders, sending snowflakes into a flurry. They turned my vision blurry: everything was black and white and grey again, as it had been in the time before Ares. Everything, that was, except for the blood.And there was so much blood.It was start against the pale backdrop of the mist and snow. A physical mark of violence, marring the purity of the white beneath. And, atop its own puddle of red, sat my ear. I shuddered every time my gaze drifted over it; it was the sort of thing I didn’t want to look at but also couldn’t look away from. It was grotesque, torn at a ragged angle, the flesh pink within – My lip curled. It looked so alien to me now, that missing piece of me. I couldn’t imagine how I looked, bloodied and battered, one ear gone. A sn
Alpha Ares 134 | HAUNTED
Claws ripped into me on both sides. I flung Elena off easily enough; she was so small that, even exhausted as I was from hours of adrenaline-fuelled fighting, it didn’t take much effort on my part to dislodge her. Distantly, I heard her pull herself to her paws again. But in this fight, both physically and in the heart of it, she didn’t matter. This was between Etta and I.I winced as Etta’s claws ripped free of my fur and flesh. Blood spat from the wound, hitting the snow and melting the ice surrounding it. I wrenched myself backwards, darting behind the nearest boulder and peering out around it. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked – no, I begged.‘I promised myself.’ Her mental voice was nothing like the one I remembered. Etta was often sarcastic and teasing, but there had been a warmth beneath even her cruellest of jokes that had dissipated after Damon’s death. ‘After you left, and after the attacks began. I had to do something for him.’‘Damon and I were friends.’ I edged backwards
Alpha Ares 133 | ON THE WINGS OF FATE
I’d made my choice when Ares mindlinked me. He sounded weak and weary, but very much alive. My heart leapt at the familiar sound of his voice, of gravel and honey, loosening the knot that had been pulling my chest taut ever since the battle had begun.‘I had to run, beautiful. There were too many of them, but I managed to get away.’That was all I needed to hear. I turned and shifted into my wolf form, preparing to race across the empty stretch of battlefield that had been left behind the attacking armies as they approached.‘Are you okay?’ I asked. There was one other thing I needed to hear, it turned out.‘I’m fine.’ I was pretty sure he was lying, but if he was well enough to lie then I didn’t have to worry about my mate too much. ‘Are you? What happened with Nazte?’‘Nothing. It was weird.’ I fell forwards, landing on paws and snapping my jaws. ‘He wanted to know how Cendres was. We just… Talked.’The cabin’s front door banged open behind me. I twisted around, catching sight of Na
