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044 | Let's play pretend
Last Updated:
2023-03-31 21:46:32Related chapters
An Affair with the Alpha 045 | Now my Beta, too?
Caleb’s POVThe first thing I did when I got home was go straight to the medical centre. Every fibre of my stupid heart wanted to go to Rhiannon, to make sure she was okay in the wake of all this, but I forced it to shut the fuck up. She was probably the cause of all this, not a victim of its trauma.As he’d said he would, Kieran had remained in the Moon Chasm pack. I couldn’t say I was too sorry to see him go. Now I knew the truth, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. He was so obvious, with his puppy-eyed pining looks and the eager way he always offered to work when Amelia was involved.It was better that he was gone. That was one mate issue down… and one to go.Harley’s cropped black hair was splayed up across the starchy white pillow. She rolled her head towards me, her eyes heavy-lidded. She’d taken the studs and rings in her ears out and didn’t look like herself; her olive skin was wan and the usual glint of daring amusement in her honey-coloured eyes was gone.An image o
Last Updated : 2023-03-31An Affair with the Alpha 046 | The Alpha will see you now
Rhiannon’s POV‘Rhiannon?’The sound of Alpha Caleb’s voice infiltrating my mind had me bolting upright. I’d been lying on the bed with Foxy Spangles, ruminating over my terrible life choices and watching as the dull midday sunlight almost managed to break through the white cloud cover outside.I shot out of bed so fast that Foxy gave me some serious side-eye. My hands shook. I picked at the scabs on my palms and took a few deep breaths before I replied coolly.‘Alpha?’‘I’d like you to come up to my office, please. Now.’Oh goddess, oh goddess, oh goddess. I started to panic.‘What for?’ I shot back.It had to be my interrogation – Stephen had reported seeing a lot of other Omegas heading into the pack house, one by one, from his position by the window downstairs – but as far as we knew, Nova and Anderson had been conducting them. I’d only known Caleb had even got back because the mate bond had lit up like a fucking firework and tried to drag my sorry ass straight over to him. ‘You
Last Updated : 2023-03-31An Affair with the Alpha 047 | So many fantasies
Caleb’s POV“Come in, Rhiannon.” My hands were trembling. I shoved them under my desk and set my face in a cool mask, wanting to give away nothing when she entered. Rhiannon didn’t seem bothered by our time apart at all – she’d marched down the hallway outside like she owned it and hadn’t hesitated even a second before she’d knocked. The girl had balls bigger than any Alpha I’d ever met, I had to give her that.My heart was still thumping away, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. Taking a deep breath, I sat tall and waited as the door swung open.Fuck, she was beautiful. I gaped at her for a moment, my thoughts getting more scrambled than a damned egg at breakfast as she lifted her chin and met my gaze with impenetrable grey eyes. The creased leather jacket she wore hung off her, despite her tall, broad-shouldered frame; paired with her nose ring, eyeliner, and slick braids, she looked like the sort of badass I wouldn’t want to mess with if I met her in an alley at night. Or
Last Updated : 2023-04-02An Affair with the Alpha 048 | Caleb caught me
Rhiannon’s POVI froze where I was, halfway out of my seat and with my eyes fixed on the door. I couldn’t take it; I couldn’t stay here one more second with him.Not because I hated him, like I was pretending, oh no. But because if I didn’t leave I’d be flinging myself across the stupid desk that was parting us, climbing into his lap, and kissing him until I couldn’t breathe.My need for him was in my blood. It pulsed with every beat of my idiotic heart, spreading through all of my silly limbs, making them agree with the mate bond that my place was beside him. The way he was looking at me, for a moment, I’d thought he felt it too. His lips were parted and his pupils dilated, so big that only a thin slice of summer-leaf green iris surrounded them.But then his jaw flexed and his expression hardened, and he snapped, “No, that’s not all, Omega. I know it was you. I know you poisoned them.”Hearing him call me by my rank rather than my name cut deep – far deeper than I’d ever admit to hi
Last Updated : 2023-04-03An Affair with the Alpha 049 | Twisted firestarter
Caleb’s POVMy dick wouldn’t go down. I crossed my legs, winced, and smoothed out my expression before Rhiannon could notice anything was wrong. But fuck – it was so, so wrong. Everything was seriously messed up but, as I looked at her, her lips and cheeks flushed, her eyelids heavy, her sharp-as-all-hell eyeliner smudged, I didn’t want to make it right.She’d dropped her cool, unbothered demeanour. This was one of those rare moments where I felt like I was getting to see beneath her sarcastic façade. I’d barely seen it before and, as much as I hated that she’d thought she’d seen something and split our kiss apart, part of me was glad.Because oh, goddess, this went deeper than attraction or even lust. The mate bond was in me, everywhere, telling me that after we’d sated our more carnal needs we’d lie together, tangled on the bed, the desk, hell, in the snow, and just talk. About everything. There would be endless nights and days to fill with learning, with filling in the gaps between
Last Updated : 2023-04-04An Affair with the Alpha 050 | If only
Rhiannon’s POVHyacinth and Stephen were waiting for me on the damned doorstep when I got back. They crowded around me like penguins desperate to huddle for body heat and started braying like donkeys with inane question after inane question.“What happened?”“What did they say?”“Did they think you did it, Rhi?”“Was he nice to you?”“Did you argue?”I put a hand up and halted just past the doorway. “Stop.”They both froze. Then they started clamouring around me again.“Did something happen?”“Why do you look so shaken?”“Did he shout?”“Did he ask you questions you couldn’t answer?”A growl built in my throat. I just wanted to be alone for five minutes to process everything that had just happened – but I wouldn’t get it. I had to sort myself out right here, right now, because I was the only one that could hold this family together now.Without Dad, I was the closest thing to a leader we had. Even though Cin wasn’t my younger sibling, it had always felt to us both like she was. I coul
Last Updated : 2023-04-05An Affair with the Alpha 051 | The call between us
Rhiannon’s POVI shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and huddled down into my coat. Snow tumbled through the air, a thousand infinitesimal ballerinas dancing in the dark; everything felt eerie, as though the world itself was leaning in closer to watch whatever was about to unfold. I couldn’t know what was to come, but the intensity of the very air around me made me think the earth beneath my feet and the trees surrounding me could.‘Maybe this isn’t a good idea,’ I muttered to Tiger, but I knew I didn’t mean it even as I said it. I’d never had a single sliver of doubt in my mind that I was going to find Caleb. I couldn’t refuse his call, not after we’d been forced apart for so long. Goddess, it was ridiculous, really – I’d spent longer apart from Stephen before, the man I was actually in love with, and though I’d missed him I’d just made the most of our time apart and then been happy to see him when we were reunited. This, though? This was like I was going out of my head with des
Last Updated : 2023-04-06An Affair with the Alpha 052 | Just like magic
Rhiannon’s POVCaleb’s touches were everywhere. His mouth was on my throat, carving along the sharp edge of my jaw, brushing softly, so softly, over my parted lips. And yet I wanted, needed, more of him. We slid off the wall. Caleb backed me up until I hit the oak tree, which trembled behind me as wantonly as my thighs were. I tipped my head back, a moan building in my chest. When I let myself go, he became my everything. My everything – but I ached to know the parts of him I didn’t yet. He seemed to know exactly what I wanted from him and exactly when to stop just short of giving it to me, making my core throb with desire and my thighs clench together. It seemed crazy to me that he knew me so well, while barely knowing me at all.His fingers carded through my hair, pulling my braids free. He sighed contentedly as my hair came loose and he could at last run his hands through it.“Perfect,” he breathed, and then he kissed me.I gasped as he kissed me. Actually gasped.He laughed into
Last Updated : 2023-04-09
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
