LOGINShare
028 | Big family dinners never end well
Last Updated:
2023-03-16 19:02:48
Related chapters
An Affair with the Alpha 029 | The wrong decision
Rhiannon’s POV“I think we should move in together.”I gaped at Stephen. ‘He what?’ said Tiger, her eyes boggling as she stared at him. 'No, seriously, what did he just say?'‘My thoughts exactly.’ I’d just been sat in the cold with my dead dad, crying over his lifeless body, preparing mentally for his funeral tomorrow – and Stephen, the guy who had always known exactly what I needed when I needed it, was asking me to move in with him? Now?I opened and closed my mouth a few times, struggling to find the right words. I wasn’t sure where the fuck the balance between are you stable and thanks but no thanks was.Something sharp tugged on my heartstrings. I’d longed for this moment, once. Stephen and I had discussed getting our own little cabin in the Omega Quarters, how we’d share the cooking and cleaning, how we’d always have fresh flowers on the kitchen table, how he’d dance while he mopped the floors and how I’d sing while I scrubbed the dishes. It had been a beautiful dream, before.
Last Updated : 2023-03-17An Affair with the Alpha 030 | Surprise visit from the Luna
Rhiannon’s POVI swallowed down my nerves, steeled myself, and dipped my head respectfully. “Luna Amelia,” I greeted her, suddenly realising that I had even more to be worried about than I’d first thought.If she came in, she’d see her own shampoo bar next to the shower. She’d see raspberry tea next to the kettle, which I’d stashed there for Cin. If she looked into my eyes, I was sure she’d see my guilt.The silence swelled between us, thick and potent and cloying. She peered into my eyes, into my damn soul, like she could see everything in it laid bare for her. The Luna pursed her full lips, which enhanced the sheen of gold brushed over her cheekbones as they hit the morning light. “I just came by to give you this.” She bent down and picked up a small wicker basket, which I’d been too busy staring at her to notice. “The basket is from one of my care packages… as are the tea and biscuits inside. I know it’s not much, and it will mean nothing in the wake of your sorrow, but I wanted t
Last Updated : 2023-03-18An Affair with the Alpha 031 | Somebody's watching me
Rhiannon’s POVIt didn’t matter how many times I told Alpha Caleb to go to hell, to fuck himself, to die in a hole, to go do whatever other nasty things I could think of – we kept getting pushed together. If I was working, he was there, letting me serve him hot water. If I was sat by Dad’s grave, he was passing me on his way to or from a patrol. If I was walking down the hall, he was coming from the other way. A hundred tiny coincidences – that started to feel not so coincidental the more they kept happening.He stopped asking me to talk to him after the second day. He said he’d leave me to mourn. It was almost worse when he did, because I didn’t have anything to distract me from the pain anymore. But no matter what he’d said, it didn’t stop him from bumping into me everywhere. And I meant everywhere. Even when I’d slipped into the bathroom in the pack house to tidy up my makeup, I’d accidentally left it unlocked and who had walked in but, yep, you guessed it, Alpha Bloody Caleb. If
Last Updated : 2023-03-19An Affair with the Alpha 032 | Fox
Rhiannon’s POVI sat frozen, waiting for the inevitable, my ears straining to hear the sounds of movement, until I couldn’t take it any longer. I wasn’t some sitting duck that just let bad things happen to me without fighting back. I stood up, wriggling my hands and toes until some feeling came back into them. The cold had seeped down into my bones and was reluctant to leave.“Is somebody there?” I snarled, my hands balling into fists.Nobody answered. I turned back and forth on the spot, trying to spy out a poison dart or arrow between the tree trunks. Alpha Caleb hadn’t exactly been forthcoming when it came to how poor Sam had been poisoned, so I had to be prepared for anything. Or maybe the poisoning was a one off, and I needed to be ready for a good old-fashioned werewolf fight.The soft pad of paws slunk over the snow.I got ready to shift. Then Tiger started to laugh. ‘Smell that?’ she said.With a frown I sniffed the air. ‘Rabbit, rodent, fox. But…’‘But no werewolf. It’s a w
Last Updated : 2023-03-20An Affair with the Alpha 033 | Tears are my kryptonite
Caleb’s POVI just wanted to talk to her. I thought that would scratch the damn ever-present itch in my soul. To spend five minutes gazing into her steely grey eyes, to see them soften as they met mine, to just look and nothing more, would feel like heaven compared to the hell I was living through right now.And it didn’t help that someone was playing some cosmic joke on us. Everywhere I went, Rhiannon was there. It was only painful because those moments between us were so brief – the brush of her fingertips over the back of my hand as we both reached for the same door handle; the flick of her hair as she turned away from me, which sent her scent towards me and damn near had me falling to my knees; her sharp inhale as she recognised me and the slant to her full lips as she glared at me and jerked back.It was a result of the mate bond. I knew it. I’d never heard of two wolves who’d refused the call of the bond before, not without outright rejecting it, but like the way we were drawn
Last Updated : 2023-03-21An Affair with the Alpha 034 | Who did this to you?
Caleb’s POVMarcella was trembling all over as she took me into the medical centre. I couldn’t stand to look at her. Something really, really bad must’ve happened for it to have shaken up an Omega so badly.My eyes landed on Amelia the second I stepped inside. She was on the central cot, her face sallow and sweaty, her eyes rolling in her head and glazed whenever they fixed on anything for a second. Panic seized me – for all the wrong reasons.I would’ve cared about Amelia foremost and the treaty between our packs second, before. But now, in her dying eyes, all I saw was the start of another war. As I rushed to her bedside, my heart pounding, I was already working through damage control. This was an accident, it had nothing to do with me or my Night Wind wolves; they couldn’t start another war because their daughter had died while here, under my care… oh, fuck, they totally could. And, knowing Amelia’s parents, they totally would.“Amelia?” I breathed, cupping her cheeks between my p
Last Updated : 2023-03-22An Affair with the Alpha 035 | The villain in your eyes
Caleb’s POVWe had to wait for Amelia to recover before we could travel to the Moon Chasm pack. I spent that time getting everything into place, ready for our absence.Harley, my Beta, would step up and take charge of my pack. Not that there was much to take charge of – at least not in the usual sense. Back before all of this, it would’ve been training schedules, dealing with petty squabbles, and making sure everyone was rota’ed in to their correct areas. Warrior Wolves patrolling, Omegas serving, Medics healing, and us ensuring everyone was in their proper place. I wasn’t worried about what I was leaving behind, though. Harley and Nova were capable as hell. I was worried about what I was walking in to.I dreaded arriving at Moon Chasm constantly. Maybe I should’ve been a bit excited – there wouldn’t be summer heat there or anything, with the world beyond our borders settling into a real winter, but there would be infinitely more food than we had here. I could wake up in the morning
Last Updated : 2023-03-23An Affair with the Alpha 036 | The Moon Chasm pack
Caleb’s POV“Get off me,” I snarled, wrenching free of his grip.But her mother snapped her teeth at me, barely an inch from my face. I leapt back; her dad held me in place, keeping me still as his mate’s breath warmed my neck.“I didn’t hurt her!” I roared. “She’s my mate! You know I would never do anything to hurt her!”“Then why is she hurt?” he asked, his voice going deadly calm. “Even if you weren’t the one to poison her, you should never have been so lax in your approach to pack management that somebody else could.”“Dad!” Amelia screeched, hastily shoving her arms and legs into clothes by the wagon. “This isn’t Caleb’s fault!”“Maybe it’s mine.” His eyes narrowed. “Maybe I should never have let my daughter stay in that damned pack of yours, boy.”My upper lip curled back. “Boy? How dare you?” I shoved against him. “How about I call you old man, huh?”He froze.And then the son of a bitch cracked a grin. “Oh, Caleb,” he said, releasing me and scrubbing a hand through my hair. “A
Last Updated : 2023-03-24
Latest chapter
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
