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034 | Who did this to you?
Last Updated:
2023-03-22 23:59:14Related chapters
An 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 : 2023-03-24An Affair with the Alpha 037 | I know who did it
Kieran’s POVSince I’d come out of the medical centre, my wound stitched up and already on its way to being fully healed, I hadn’t been able to get close to Ames. Not that she’d wanted to get close to me, anyway.It was as though that night, when the gorge had opened up between us, had ended things for her. For me, though? The pining I felt had intensified a thousand fold. I didn’t know what to do with myself, like, ever. Night and day I dreamt of her, picturing myself doing simple, ordinary things with her – cooking dinner, laughing, running my hand down her back, waving to her as she walked away. This love was pure – and it hurt worse than stepping on a twig with a bare sole.If I thought about trying to see her, I could. If I said what I was planning to anyone, even Bo, it was like the whole world would suddenly turn against me. ‘Oh, woe is me,’ Bo muttered. ‘My poor little baby boy. Everything is so hard for you, isn’t it?’‘You’re grumpy today. Shouldn’t you be feeling a bit chi
Last Updated : 2023-03-26An Affair with the Alpha 038 | In my daydreams
Kieran’s POVThe rest of the journey to the Moon Chasm pack was torture. All I wanted to do was talk about Rhiannon – to Holly and the Omegas, to work out just how right my theory was, and to Ames, to make sure she knew who to stay the heck away from when we got back to Night Wind.Because even though the others were throwing around names in low voices as we walked, none of them rang as true as Rhiannon’s did. And, in the back of my mind, something else was nagging at me. I just couldn’t quite put the two pieces of the puzzle together. Not yet, anyway – but I vowed to keep trying until I did.The first night, when we set up a freezing camp beneath two gnarled, arching oak trees that had been missing their leaves for over a year, I tried to slip away with Amelia to talk to her. It was finally my chance. There was no way I could ever have pulled her aside while we’d been walking. She and Alpha Caleb had been together the whole time, and I doubted he’d take too kindly to some Warrior Wo
Last Updated : 2023-03-28An Affair with the Alpha 039 | Someone I left behind
Kieran’s POVThe high-ups all disappeared into Moon Chasm together when we finally arrived. That left us Warrior Wolves and Omegas twiddling our thumbs and, with nothing else to do, no duties to attend to, I slipped away from the others and went to visit her.I’d told nobody about her. Since I’d left Moon Chasm, she’d been my guilty secret. Sometimes, I still couldn’t believe I’d left her behind. She was the only family I had left – and I’d abandoned her in the name of keeping Amelia safe. Amelia, my mate who didn’t even want me. I was a joke. No, I was worse than a joke. Nobody would laugh at me. They’d either scorn me or pity me, and I couldn’t decide which was worse.It felt so, so strange to be back. The familiar wooden structure of the pack house rose up into the sky – the blue, cloudless sky that, for the first time in months, didn’t look like it was brimming with snow waiting to fall. Huge trees, some still clinging to their autumn leaves, arched over the lowest parts of the pa
Last Updated : 2023-03-29An Affair with the Alpha 040 | You have to listen to me
Kieran’s POV‘Just go in. You already know that’s what you’re going to do, so rip the plaster off and do it,’ said Bo. As he had a thousand times already. I’d been stood outside of my old home for what felt like hours, but had probably in actuality only been about ten minutes.I kept staring around, letting the present bleed into my memory. Everything was overlaid: years of following my parents inside, after training or breakfast or dinner, and my heart swelled with a sharp, pinching kind of agony that I preferred to forget.Everyone had lost someone in the war. That was what everyone said.But I’d lost more than most before that.I picked at my thumb nail. ‘I’m scared.’‘You’re a Warrior Wolf, boy.’‘That doesn’t mean I can’t feel fear, idiot. It just means I have to go on patrol and fight in battles.’‘This is no battle. This is your grandma. She’ll be happy to see you.’I stared at the door, at the faded green paint that was peeling at the door’s corners. The Warrior Wolves all liv
Last Updated : 2023-03-30An Affair with the Alpha 041 | Eternal Loneliness
Amelia’s POV‘I know who poisoned you. It was the Omega, Rhiannon.’‘I – I’m sorry?’ I pursed my lips and blinked at nothing. I was exhausted from travelling and from playing nice with my parents all day, and now – this?I simply could not fathom it. Why on earth would she want to poison me? It didn’t make any sense.‘I’m sorry, Ames– Amelia.’ Kieran cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t want to tell you like this, I wanted to tell you in person. I…’‘Stop waffling on, Kieran.’ I glanced over nervously at Cal, who was thumbing through a well-read copy of The Beta’s Daughter that I’d left on my childhood nightstand and pulling amused faces at it. ‘I’ll come and meet you,’ I whispered, even though it made no odds to Caleb. He couldn’t hear my mindlink to Kieran – though he could feel every emotion Kieran’s words were making me feel.“Everything okay?” Caleb asked, dog-earing a page of my book and resting it flat across his knees, which made me wince.“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.” I couldn’t mak
Last Updated : 2023-03-30An Affair with the Alpha 042 | Bold of you to be throwing accusations around
Caleb‘s POVI kept tossing and turning in the bed. Don’t laugh – but I was too damned hot. I wasn’t used to sleeping in silk fucking sheets, either. Everything about this place was making me itch. I’d thought I’d be able to relax once we’d retired to the guest room – once we were finally away from the Alpha and Luna’s prying eyes – but I couldn’t settle. My need for Rhiannon was ever-present, and stronger now than it had been in the day. With nothing to distract myself from it, I was stuck missing someone I at once both craved intimately and barely knew.I woke up and reached for Ames, only to feel the cool, empty indent where her body had been.Sitting up, I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and sipped at it, rubbing one of my temples with one of my thumbs. A headache was blooming there. As I focused on it, it grew sharper. I winced. Then came the pain. Not my own physical pain, oh no. This was the spicy kind, the kind that I felt only from Amelia through our forced
Last Updated : 2023-03-31
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
