EZRACruel satisfaction settled over me as Annabelle’s face turned red with anger. Yes. That was it. Feed me with your fire. Go crazy and return home to gather your things and go far from me. She did the exact opposite like she’s always done since she woke up from that coma with her memory missing, she stepped further into the room until she was in the middle.“If you expect that I will sit and idle about all in the name of taking care of your kids then you must be a joker,”“Am I, really? Why don’t you run along and ask your sweet father what the contract we signed entails.” I cocked my head to the side, my voice taking a mocking undertone when I saw the dark look on her face, “You didn’t ask him, huh? You just up and brought your things over to make peace because sweet daddy asked you to. You never struck me as an obedient daughter. I guess knocking your head on the hard floor was the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”Annabelle looked like she was on the verge of taking a sw
EZRAI hated this. I hated having to be reminded of my past and the feeling that comes with the remembrance of it and that’s all Annabelle had done since she woke up: remind me of Melucia. It was strange because the two women were the direct opposite of each other. Where Melucia had dark hair and dark eyes, Annabelle was sandy blonde with forest green eyes. Melucia had been at least six feet and she had an air of authority around her that even her captivity had not been able to squash. Annabelle was five-six and she carried herself well and walked like she own the fucking world. She was all roses and fucking sunshine.I took two steps back from Annabelle. “We don’t need to get to know each other. You’ll appear with me anywhere I’m supposed to show up with my Luna but otherwise, you’ll stay home.”Annabelle's face became closed up, “I know why you are doing this.”“Huh,” I raised a brow, “Care to share?”“You want me to get angry and leave. You said you were going to give me a second
ANNABELLE “Let’s discuss my salary then and other things that come with working for you,”“Get out,”***He agreed! I left Ezra’s room with a light foot and a giddy feeling as I went in search of the kids. Following Ezra’s clear direction of where Carden’s office was, I did not miss it.I lifted my hand to knock when the door was thrown open and a man with a mass of red curls and baby blues eyes was standing in front and staring down at me. A feeling of anger and bitterness hit me from nowhere, seeping into my bones. I reared back in shock at the harshness of this surprising feeling. Where had that come from? Why did I get angry from just laying my eyes on this man? Why does it also seem like this particular emotion was not mine?I shook off the feeling of anger and buried it deep, putting it at the back of my mind to analyze it later. For now, I needed to take the kids home.“Miss Annabelle. Is there anything you want?” His voice was clipped and there was hostility in his eyes or w
ANNABELLE “Dad, what’s with the contract you signed with alpha Ezra. I want to know all about it.” I went straight to the point after exchanging a little pleasantries with my father.We’ve spoken only on the day I got here. Mom had called to know how I had settled in and if I was having any problems and wanted to come back home. Today was Sunday and I was not going to start work until on Monday so I decided to take Ezra’s instruction to heart and call my father. I was almost like a blind fool just going on with the little information I’ve been able to hear and arrange in my head.The doctor might have told the me not to force me to remember things or fill my head with memory but it did not stop me from feeling like a stranger in my own body, like I was living another person’s life and I was forgetting something important. I hated feeling this way and I wanted it gone.“Annabelle, is there a problem?” Father sounded surprised at my question and he took a whole minute to respond to me
ANNABELLE “She was supposed to marry Alpha Ezra?” I squeaked in shock.Mimi had a solemn expression on her face as she nodded, “Yeah.”“But.. but I thought I was his fiancé?” A certain thought entered my mind and I felt my throat go dry, “I was not his first choice, was I?“No, Annabelle, you were not his first choice.”I moved closer to Mimi on the bed, my heart thudding fast and hard even if I was not running or doing any hard labor.“Did I..?” I licked my suddenly perched lips, “Did I snatch my sister’s fiancé?” Mimi looked taken aback and a small laugh left her, “Of course not. You never wanted anything to do with this engagement in the first place,”A sigh of relief left me as the same time it occurred to me that I’ve just asked a foolish question. Since I opened my eyes at the hospital, it’s been clear that the old Annabelle had been running away from alpha Ezra and the engagement. I was really glad that it was not the case of me taking my sister’s husband to be, so what happe
ANNABELLE Nephtar was supposed to marry alpha Ezra No one knows where your sister is, Annabelle . We woke up one morning and she was gone.The engagement was supposed to be in two weeks. I don’t know which part of all this information was troubling me the most. If it was the fact that I was going to marry my sister's fiancé — had even kissed him recently and had wet dreams about him — or if my sister’s disappearance, even if I can’t remember a damn thing about her, was what was more disturbing.My head felt heavy and swollen with the information I’ve gathered today and I was happy I felt the need to ask all of this instead of just moving blindly. I should have asked them in the first place. Doctor’s orders or not, I should have asked a little about myself. Knowing all of this did not trigger my memories in any way. It almost felt as if everything I’d been told was about another person’s life and not mine. Almost. There was a dark feeling threatening to cloud my chest but I kept pu
ANNABELLE I found nothing.After breakfast with my parents that we filled with tension that slowly dissolved into laughter, I retired to my room to search for whatever it was that my mind kept telling me that I was forgetting but I found nothing. Only old novels, clothes and my laptop which I decided to take along with me.When I wanted to leave later in the afternoon, my parents still told me that I did not need to go along with the marriage. I could always pull out of I wanted to and they would find another solution but to me, it was already too late to back out of it.I wonder what alpha Ezra would say if I were to return and tell him that I wanted nothing more to do with the engagement. I bet that he might think it’s all been a plot on my part and I was playing with his kids. He might just kill me. He would sneer at me and say he knew that I could never change no matter how much I tried and that he had been right to call of the engagement in the first place.I shivered at the tho
ANNABELLE I kept my eyes on Ezra, hoping that the expression on my face was neutral and did not betray any of my innermost thoughts.“You should learn how to knock. It’s common courtesy. You don’t want the kids picking bad habits from you, do you?” I knew what I’d said would rile him up and that’s exactly what I wanted but his reaction was the opposite of what I desired. He raised a perfect nonchalant brow at me as he moved inside and kicked my door shut. He’s just stepped in but my room suddenly felt overcrowded and he was only standing at my door and not close to me. His presence was taking up too much space, it was almost suffocating that I had to remind myself to breathe.“You want something?” I asked when he refused to say anything and just stood there, watching me with those dark eyes as if he was a predator and I was his prey. Maybe it was like that.He finally opened his mouth and what he said was exactly what I thought must have brought him into my room even if I did not wa
QuinnThere was only one chair in my garden. One I use to sit when I needed to rest. I asked Madonna to sit in it but she refused and said if there was anyone who needed to bed seated, it was me. It made me suspect that whatever made her come to me after all these years apart, my mind would be blown.“I don’t know if you’ve heard anything. I cannot be too sure but BlackClaw pack has been taken under control by a vengeful witch,”“I’ve heard about it,” I released a deep sigh, “I was planning on contacting you because of it,”“You were?” She asked.“Yeah, I was going to do it yesterday but something came up. I was just thinking about it again when you appeared. It was almost as if thinking too much about you summoned you,”Madonna nodded as she began to pace in front of me. My sister was deeply troubled. Seems like what was going on in Ezra’s pack is more than what we’ve heard. My heart began to thud hard and fast against my rib cage as fear threatened to overwhelm me at the thought of
SAMANTHA For a moment, my world seemed to turn upside down. My calm demeanor and composed nature was shattered into a thousand agonizing pieces. My breath hitched in my throat, a strangled sob trying hard to escape. I couldn't believe my eyes. My fiance, the man I had come to love even though it started off as an arranged marriage, was in bed with my best friend. Zach had Clarence bent on all fours as he thrust hard into him and Clarence begged him to go harder. What was I witnessing? My legs went weak as tears streamed down my cheeks. How long have they been cheating behind my back? Their betrayal seared through me like a wildfire. “Zach…” I called out, my voice barely audible. My heart beat came faster and in pants and I could barely breathe but I couldn't break down completely in front of them. I won’t do it. Zachariah’s eyes, usually a warm shade of amber, were wide with shock as his face gradually turned pale. My teary eyes and his guilt-ridden eyes met.
“I would really love to get to know the people that took care of my daughter all the years that I couldn’t.” My heart dropped to my stomach. My mother could not be introduced to my pack because I’ve been banished. I was nothing but a traitor to them. Though I wanted her to meet Joel who was one of the reasons I survived but that too was impossible. I wanted her to meet our old alpha, Levi’s father who found me at the pack’s border but he was dead. Something just have shown on my face because my mother said, “Ahh, Sophia, it is okay if you don’t want us to meet them. I understand that they see you as their child and you would not want them to feel anxious or anything. We won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.”I shook my head to stop her, “It is not like I do not want type to meet them,” hell I don’t, “It is just that you cannot meet them,”“What do you mean?” My father asked.“What I mean is even if I want to introduce you to the one who found me, I cannot do that because
I just knew that Simon felt awkward because of the way he stiffened when I hugged him and how long it took him to start patting my back and telling me that it was alright even if he did not what was making me weep.I cried for a long time until the stone in my chest melted away and I could breathe freely. I eased away from Simon and he let me go. Embarrassment flooded me when I sat back against the headboard and concentrated on his face.“I’m sorry about that,” I sniffed.“Oh, it is no trouble. It was just a little strange,”He looked like he was not going to ask why I suddenly began to cry while he was telling me our family history but I felt like telling him.“You know,” I started, “Like every other werewolf I was super excited and looking forward to my eighteenth birthday. My eighteenth birthday was last year, my wolf awakened but I could never transform. I was scared that I would be wolfless forever and it was something I wanted to tell father and mother but I was scared about how
I don’t know when I slept off but I woke up to the feeling of someone caressing my cheek and pushing my hair out of my face. The first person that came to mind was my mother but then my mother’s palms were softer while this one was tougher and this person did not in any way smell like my mother. I wanted to jump into a sitting position but my body felt too heavy. I could only open my eyes, blinking gently to adjust to the darkness as I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position.The stranger must have noticed that I was awake with all my movement because they took their hand back.“Hey, you are awake?” It was a deep voice and it belonged to a man. “You were having a nightmare when I came in, I was just trying to soothe you back to sleep. I didn't mean to wake you up.”I blinked as I tried to focus on him to see who he was. He did not sound scared that he had been caught. I wondered who he was that he could walk into my bedroom in the middle of the night without fear.“Who are you?”
ANNABELLE It took a whole lot of time but in the end, I was able to locate a hospital and get a doctor who was down with a powerful migraine. The hospital was crowded with people who had rushed there to seek medical attention but since everyone was inflicted with one disease or the other, there was no doctor to help. I casted a spell the doctor and the migraine left him but only long enough for him to treat Dani. When the doctor recognized the kids and me, he tried to reach for his phone, to call who, I was unsure but I stopped him and threatened to kill him off if he tried any more stupid tricks. He finally settled down and treated Dani’s broken hand and wrapped it in a sling. I sat on a chair in the hospital room and tried my best to ignore the twins who were giving me death stares. I don’t know if we would ever be able to go back to how things used to be before I got my memories back but I’ll try my best. Even with the pain of his twisted hand, Dani refused to let me help him. A
ANNABELLEThe anger that’s gone down immediately sprang back up and I was tempted to lash out at them for picking their father over me once again but this time, I was levelheaded and was able to control myself better. I shut my eyes tight, willing myself to calm down so I don’t do anything I’d regret. I’ve done things I’m regretting already, it would be foolish to add more.“Your father is not coming to save you,”“Liar!” The both of them screamed at the same time.I inhaled a deep breath and released it after some time.“Okay, let me rephrase that. Your father don’t know where you are so he cannot save you,”“And how did that happen? Is it not because of you he does not know where we are?”“Yes and now, he’s preoccupied with other things, he does not have free time to look for the both of you so you have to let me take care of you,” Shit, that was a bad way to put it. Talking about their father like that won’t earn me any points. In fact, it would make me lose points if I still had
ANNABELLEThe realization that I was hurting my kids because of my anger and hatred hit me hard, cutting deeper than any physical wound ever could. His words, laced with a heartbreaking mix of accusation and despair, stirred a remorse so intense that it left me momentarily breathless. I was consumed by regret for allowing my anger and hate to blind and cause me to put a spell on the woman I left them with so that she would treat them like her slaves.“Dad was right not to forgive you the first time. He should’ve listened to his heart when you abandoned us in the middle of that highway like we meant nothing to you. But he did forgive you, because we wanted him to. We liked you. We hoped, even then, that maybe you’d come back and actually stay. We wanted you to be a part of our lives… we wanted you to become our mother.”His voice cracked under the weight of the storm of emotions building up inside him.“But instead, you betrayed us again. You kidnapped us. You handed us over to that ev
ANNABELLEI released Dani’s collar at the same time I backhanded him causing him to cry out. The slap sent him flying to the door of the woman’s house at the same time that Axel was coming out. Dani’s body hit Axel with full force and they both tumbled to the floor in a heap of messy limbs. The scene was not enough to satisfy the anger brewing just underneath my skin but it would do for now. I might be blinded by hate and anger but I was still his mother. I could not kill my spawn, now, could I?”I turned to the woman’s whose cries I’ve been ignoring since. She was sitting on the floor now, the hand that she’d raised to hit Dani was still hanging in the air but it was not looking normal anymore. The hand was slowly withering and now, it looked like that of an old woman. I cracked a smile, the anger in my chest reducing just a tiny bit at her suffering.“Release me at once!” She napped through tears and snot. Looks like someone who was a slow learner. She needed more lessons to know th