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014 | I'm a liar and a thief
Last Updated:
2023-02-27 23:01:08
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An Affair with the Alpha 015 | Winter is coming
Caleb’s POVOh, goddess. What had I done now? Being around Rhiannon was like letting all the blood rush to my dick and using it to make my decisions. I’d meant what I’d told myself the last time I’d let myself get swept up in her – that it had been a mistake. But I couldn’t help myself around her. Even now I could barely stand us being apart. I cracked my knuckles, needing something physical to ground me. Otherwise I’d be skipping right back down the fucking corridor to find her and her particular brand of temptation.I shouldn’t have let myself kiss her cheek. Hell, I shouldn’t have done anything I just had. I’d have to come up with some lie to tell Amelia about her now-missing care package, too. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to regret giving it to Rhiannon.‘Cal?’ Amelia mindlinked me. ‘Are you coming?’Shit, shit, shit. I forced my throbbing boner down with some sobering thoughts about the meeting I was on my way to and hurried down the hallway, taking the stairs four at a time
Last Updated : 2023-02-28An Affair with the Alpha 016 | Keep it secret
Amelia’s POVI strode swiftly from the meeting room, my hands flexing at my sides. How dare he? I gave everything I could to this pack; sue me for wanting to keep a tiny little thing, like the odd shampoo bar, for myself. I could have ditched Night Wind and gone home the second we knew we weren’t coming out of winter. I hadn’t. I’d sacrificed so much for Caleb and this was how he chose to repay me?He didn’t know the full extent of what I’d given up to be here with him. Even so, he did know enough that he should’ve been in my corner today. What sort of Alpha sided against his Luna and with a thief?‘You’re hiding something from him,’ said Maeve, my wolf. ‘He might be hiding something from you, too.’I rounded the corner and jogged up the stairs, the hot flare of my temper already starting to cool. I shook my head. ‘Caleb? Hiding something? I doubt it. He’s about as secretive as a glass wall,’ I replied.Maeve grinned. ‘True. But stranger things have happened, petal.’I swept into our
Last Updated : 2023-02-28An Affair with the Alpha 017 | For(n)ever mine
Amelia’s POVTears blurred my vision as I hunched over Kieran, squeezing his hands so tight my knuckles went white. His face was pale and drawn, and I stared at it desperately, willing him to grin like an idiot and tell me he was joking, that he wasn’t really dead – He groaned, then coughed, then spluttered. His eyes rolled back in his head; he sucked in a rasping breath.“Kieran?” I whispered, leaning forward and pressing my hands to his cold cheeks. I couldn’t believe how much this hurt. Screw tearing in two – my heart was being forced through a shredder, minced into a thousand tiny pieces. It shouldn’t have been like this, though. I’d made my choice – and I hadn’t chosen him.“Ames?” He blinked up at me, squinting through puffy eyes. Recognition grew in his gaze, and he looked at me seriously. “Feel my shirt.”Worried, I ran my hands over his top. I frowned. There wasn’t a wound there. In fact, there wasn’t even any blood. Kieran cracked that idiotic grin. “Want to know what it’
Last Updated : 2023-03-01An Affair with the Alpha 018 | Red roses in the snow
Kieran’s POVI gazed across the chasm in the earth helplessly, hopelessly. My beautiful Amelia had been parted from me, torn irrevocably from my grasp.For the second time.But something about this felt worse than the awful, fateful night she’d rejected me for Alpha Caleb. A rejection was supposed to be the most permanent way to part two souls, forcing them to pine for their other half eternally. So how did this feel more permanent than that?I stumbled back from the edge, my chest heaving. I still felt woozy as a giddy goose on a turntable from my unfortunate date with the knife and the resulting bash to the head, and now the ground under my feet was trying to do me in as well. “Are you all right?” I shouted over the gorge. It wasn’t too wide – perhaps the length of my body twice over – but it was enough of a distance to terrify me. More because of what it represented that what it was.“I’m fine! Are you?”“Yeah!” I lied. No reason to make her more worried than she already was. It h
Last Updated : 2023-03-02An Affair with the Alpha 019 | Chasm, gorge, bizarre hole
Caleb's POV Panic flared in the depths of the mate bond. I sat bolt upright, reaching for Amelia. Her side of the bed was still cold – but it wasn’t her I was worried about. The uneven beat of my heart pulled me out from under the warm covers. ‘Rhiannon?’ I mindlinked her, even though I knew I shouldn’t. She didn’t reply. Shit. Was she okay? Half mad with lack of sleep and the raw panic spilling down the mate bond, I leapt out of bed, stuck my bare feet into my shoes, and grabbed a thick coat to shove on once I was on my way. The fire had burned low in the hearth, bringing a chill to the air. Biting back a shudder, I jogged out of the bedroom and headed towards the Omega Quarters. ‘Cal? Are you awake?’ I froze at the sound of Amelia’s voice in my mind. I blinked away the haze of fear and swallowed hard, my dry lips parting on a shuddering exhale. What the fuck had I been doing? I couldn’t go running to Rhiannon in the middle of the night like some medieval knight in shining ar
Last Updated : 2023-03-03An Affair with the Alpha 020 | Tainted by poison and lies
Rhiannon’s POVThe breakfast shift was my favourite – once I’d dragged myself out of my cosy bed and gently tugged myself out of Stephen’s strong arms. I hated getting up early, but I loved the blush of the dawn sky as I nestled deeper into my jacket and jogged from the Omega Quarters to the pack house. I also liked that it meant my work was done by midday. So I yawned, with out-dated dreams of hot coffee filling my sleepy head, and skidded my way down the stone path. Well – where I knew the path was from memory, anyway. We’d long ago given up on shovelling the snow off it, once we realised this winter wasn’t fucking off as it should’ve. It was pretty well-trodden, so there was a layer of thick, frozen grey slush for me to slip on. Great.Mousey Marcella was hovering by the huge stove when I arrived, shaking snow from my silver hair, peeling off my gloves, and draping my coat over the stand in the hall. She was warming her hands by the fire; a single lock of pale brown hair fell forw
Last Updated : 2023-03-06An Affair with the Alpha 021 | Hurricane Rhiannon
Rhiannon’s POVI stormed up the stairs to Alpha Caleb’s office, rage brewing like a growl of thunder in my belly. I was a hurricane made manifest; I was anger and wrath; I was– ‘Cool it, Hurricane Rhiannon.’ Tiger snorted. ‘You need to keep your head if you want to get the answers you need.’I took a moment to gather myself. ‘You’re right,’ I agreed reluctantly, slumping down on the arm of a sofa on the first floor. ‘Wow, agreeing with me on the first try? You really must be worried,’ she said, her voice light and teasing but undercut with a gentleness I recognised as the first strains of pity. I knotted my hands together and sighed. ‘I am. What if…’ I blinked back tears I hadn’t expected to cry. ‘What if Dad was the wolf who was poisoned?’‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. My breathing sounded disturbingly moist. I clenched my hands into fists and stood up. Sitting around thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere good. I needed to act. ‘Come on,’ I muttered, searching for the spark
Last Updated : 2023-03-07An Affair with the Alpha 022 | A soul so cold and hollow
Rhiannon’s POVI couldn’t feel a thing. My whole body turned to ice in an instant. My lungs stopped breathing; my heart stopped pumping blood. I was a statue, a creature made of cold, unfeeling stone. “He… he mentioned something to Kieran, which Amelia passed on to me, after I… after I found him.” Caleb’s throat bobbed. “I don’t know if I–”“Tell me,” I snarled, wrenching my hand away. My anger licked like fire up my stone sides, melting the ice encasing me and allowing me to move and think again. It was easy to let anger back into my hollow soul. It burned away the pain I knew was waiting for me in the cold and the dark.“It will hurt you, Rhiannon,” he rasped, looking away.“Tell me,” I said again, desperation making my tone turn reedy.He sighed, resigned, and drew me over to a sofa opposite the fire. I stared into it as he spoke. “Your father died of starvation. I found him on the path to the pack house, just after I’d sent the other wolves off to hunt.” He shivered; I felt the
Last Updated : 2023-03-09
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An Affair with the Alpha 127 | Epilogue
Rhiannon’s POVSix months laterThe Night Wind Pack needed this, I realised, beaming around at the crowd as I stepped off the stage. Though there was a notable sadness still clinging to the wolves – my wolves, I realised with a heady burst of shock, not unlike being doused in cold water – most of it had been shoved aside for tonight.It was a celebration, after all.The night sky was alight with glittering stars and the full, fat orb of the moon. Our unnatural spring had blurred into the real thing, and now the first signs of summer were in the late-evening warmth and glossy green leaves on every deciduous tree.Lamplight lit up the stage and the seats before it. Smaller bulbs were strung over the heads of the crowd, fluttering slightly in the wind. Something made the back of my neck prickle, like I was being watched – but of course I was being watched. I brushed my fingers over my new ring, and my smile widened impossibly further. Caleb helped me down the last step, his grin even bi
An Affair with the Alpha 126 | I want to mark you
Caleb’s POVNight Wind settled into our new spring with trepidation. Of course, there was joy too – so much of it I’d had to look the other way when most of my Omegas turned up to their cooking and cleaning shifts still drunk on honey mead and sweet berry wine – but it was undercut with uncertainty and loss.We’d had a day of silence for Luna Amelia. Her death was a dark shroud over the entire pack. Even when we were drinking under the stars, lying on the fresh spring grass and looking up at the blooming buds on the branches above, we were toasting to her memory. I’d heard more wet-voiced, “Three cheers, in honour of our fallen Luna!” in the last week than I’d ever wanted to. It was a knife through my heart every time.We still didn’t know what had caused the Eternal Winter and, even after Rhi had told me everything she’d experienced on the border between us and Moon Chasm, over and over again until she was blue in the face, I still couldn’t make sense of it. I’d paired her account o
An Affair with the Alpha 125 | The long walk home
Rhiannon’s POVReturning home was… confusing.I was torn between awe and heartache, love and loss, a giddy, child-like glee and the raw sort of grief I’d only known once before, after my father’s death. The sun glittered overhead, the sudden spring my death had brought on as unnatural as the everlasting winter had been before it. It was beautiful, too, the kind of beautiful that made my throat catch and my eyes glisten with unshed tears. Caleb’s hand in mine was steady and grounding, and whenever I stumbled his arm looped solidly around my waist. As always, he caught me.That bliss only compounded the unfairness of it all. I had lived, but Amelia had died. Kieran’s cries still echoed in my ears.He hadn’t come back with us. Nobody had been able to move him away from Maeve’s fallen body. I hoped he was okay but I knew, I knew, that he wasn’t. I inhaled sharply.“You all right?” murmured Caleb, squeezing me.I let my weight rest a little more on him. “Just thinking about Kieran.”He sh
An Affair with the Alpha 124 | Enough is enough
Stephen’s POVI hit the floor hard. I didn’t quite black out – but I wanted to.The pain was everything. There was no part of me not consumed by it. My blood burned and my skin turned to ash. But it was my heart that hurt worst of all.It was ripped from my chest, torn and bloody and, when I thought it couldn’t possibly hurt any more than it already did, some otherworldly hand took my heart and dunked it in acid. I had a vague, distant awareness of movement. I couldn’t focus on it, on anything but the agony echoing through me.When the pain started to ease, I opened my eyes. The world turned sideways as my vision struggled to cling onto a single spot, but eventually my focus steadied on Hyacinth’s face.My lower lip trembled. “Beautiful,” I mouthed, no sound coming out.It hit me then, full force, how striking she was. There was no way I could’ve been so blind, all of this time. Rose petal lips let out a small, relieved gasp, and icy blue eyes, never before so blue as they seemed rig
An Affair with the Alpha 123 | We'll wait for the dust to settle
Stephen’s POVHyacinth was kept under observation in the medical centre for a full day after Rhiannon left, despite her repeatedly telling various doctors and Omegas that she felt fine, thank you very much. I stayed with her the whole time, leaving only to collect a basket of fruit from my family and bringing it back to her.When we finally made it back to her cabin – our cabin, although it felt weird to say that, knowing I’d moved into it to be with her sister – there was a fresh fruit basket awaiting us on the kitchen table. I muddled raspberries and boiled water, and told her to wait on the sofa, under a blanket, for her tea.“So.” She swung her legs and gripped her mug. She still looked even paler than usual and sleep-deprived, with heavy bags under her eyes and sallow cheeks. “What happens now?”My throat bobbed. “What do you mean?”She gestured vaguely towards me. “With us.”An awkward silence sat between us. I glanced at the fire, remembering the feel of the rough wood against
An Affair with the Alpha 122 | Why did it have to be her?
Kieran’s POVI stared down at Maeve. I tried to see around the blood drying across her fur. I tried to see past the slack way her jaw was hinged, past the tiny sliver of glazed eye peeking out beneath her closed eyelids.I couldn’t. Not anymore. Those things were focal points now, the only parts of her I could really see. There was no life left in her. There was only death.My hands curled into fists in her fur. Another sob tore apart my throat. I didn’t feel like a person anymore; I was an empty shell, the wreckage of a ship left to drown. I was a scattered hull and deck, planks of wood and metal, all floating separately to drown in the darkness of an unforgiving sea.Gentle hands touched my shoulders, breathing a mimicry of life into my lungs. “Kieran? Kieran, is she…”I twisted around, my eyes as glazed as Ames’s as I looked up at Rhiannon. I would’ve frowned, had I been alive enough to do so. I hadn’t registered much in the last… how long had it been? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Day
An Affair with the Alpha 121 | A million miles away
Rhiannon’s POV “Rhiannon?” Caleb cupped my cheeks. His hands felt a million miles away. “Rhiannon, this isn’t funny. Wake up,” panic leaked into his voice, “please, Rhi, wake up!” I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hold onto him. I wanted… I wanted… What did I want? The darkness was closing in. There was no way out of it, this time. That knowledge settled deep in me, heavy as a stone sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Even the pain of my wounds was starting to ebb away. My neck had been one burning, pulsing, point of red-hot pain, so sore that even the flow of blood over my torn skin had hurt, but now it felt more like the after-ache of getting a piercing. Soft, gentle, but still a little sore. Not the ripped-to-shreds agony of having my throat torn out of my neck. Instead of comforting me, it panicked me. The further from the pain I got, the closer I got to leaving my life behind. Caleb. Hyacinth. Stephen. Even Amelia and Kieran. And, oh my goddess, little Foxy Spangles.
An Affair with the Alpha 120 | All things end
Caleb’s POVI watched Rhi fall to the ground in slow motion. It was eternal, that moment, as her body slumped, her weight suddenly too much for her to hold up, and she fell to the earth. Her limbs cartwheeled; blood poured from her neck.I reached her as she hit the ground. “Rhi,” I rasped, pressing my bound hands to her wolven shoulder and shaking it gently, terrified of hurting her more. “Fuck, Rhi, oh, goddess, fuck.” I couldn’t think properly, couldn’t say anything more useful than the string of mumbled curses falling from my trembling lips.“Liam, enough!” roared Luna Fiona. “This is wrong! The war is over; we should never have… never have…” Her throat closed around a sob as she looked down at her daughter.But Alpha Liam wasn’t listening.And then he turned his attention to me.I snarled at him. My heart was beating so hard I couldn’t hear myself think, but I stared him down, in his huge wolf form, his jaws stained with my mate’s blood, and I knew – I knew – that if it came to i
An Affair with the Alpha 119 | Alpha Can't-Handle-His-Emotions
Rhiannon’s POVPaws battered my side, my neck, my cheek. Red-hot pain lanced across each of those places. Alpha Liam was too fast for me; he clawed me, pulled back, clawed me. I could barely see his movements before he landed each strike.‘Move!’ Caleb screamed into my mind. 'Move now, Rhi!'I darted back, letting Tiger take over as Alpha Liam lunged at us again. She ducked down, narrowly escaping the slash of his teeth, the lock of his jaw. I heard his teeth clack together above my head and shivered.Blood rolled down my side, burning hot against my chilled fur.I was, to put it frankly, fucked.“No, Liam!” cried Luna Fiona, from somewhere off to the side. “This isn’t right!”I turned to look at her, confused by her seeming to side with me, and saw her bowed over Amelia, her face set in a cold mask. The only emotion was in her eyes – and they were swimming with agony.I’d let myself be distracted a moment too long. Teeth clamped down around my neck.That was it, then. I squeezed my e
