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058 | The first day of spring
Last Updated:
2023-04-16 23:27:38Related chapters
An Affair with the Alpha 059 | Hate to see you leave, love to watch you walk away
Rhiannon’s POVI just stared at Caleb’s back as he walked away. I wasn’t going to run after him or beg for him to come back. Fuck that. He’d treated me like dirt for the last time.I’d thought this was it. I’d thought we’d chosen each other. Apparently, I’d been wrong. Really, really wrong. My bottom lip quivered; I bit down on it, hard enough to draw blood. I wasn’t going to cry over someone so callous and cold – even if I was curling in on myself, my head too light, my breaths too shallow. He’d gone and taken my soul with him.I don’t know how long I stood in the doorway. My fingers had long since gone numb from gripping the wood. It was the only thing I had to hold me up. A small, red body wound around my legs. I laughed, the sound choked by a sob. “Hey, Foxy,” I murmured, reaching down to scratch his little head.“I tried to feed him, but he wanted you – Rhi? What’s wrong?” Hyacinth’s worried voice spilled out into the hall. “Are you crying?”I took a deep breath, picked up Foxy
Last Updated : 2023-04-17An Affair with the Alpha 060 | Can't fight this feeling
Stephen’s POVIt was hard, to begin with, pretending to Rhiannon that I didn’t know she’d cheated on me. It was hard, but it was worth it – because, as the days blurred into weeks, we found our feet again. Things weren’t quite the same between us as they’d been before, of course, but I’d managed to set aside the scandal, for the most part, and move past it.Some days were harder than others. Some days, all I could hear was the remembered sound of Rhiannon groaning Alpha Caleb’s name.Then there were the days that were even worse than that. Those days had nothing to do with Rhiannon, though, and everything to do with her twin sister.I never told a soul, but I ached for Hyacinth. I tried to shove it aside, to focus on Rhi, but it was like knowing that she’d cheated had given me an out. It made my feelings for Cin grow stronger and stronger – not that I’d ever tell anyone that. On the inside, I was a scrambled-up mess of feelings. On the outside, however, I was Rhiannon’s doting mate.I
Last Updated : 2023-04-18An Affair with the Alpha 061 | Did it have to be me?
Stephen’s POVMy hands grasped at nothing but air as I stared after Hyacinth. I felt thrown by the whole thing. What had just happened?‘What just happened, young man,’ huffed Brian, ‘was that you let yourself forget you’re a committed man! Back in my day, you would have been thrown in the stocks until you learnt your lesson!’‘Back in your day?’ I rolled my eyes at my weirdo wolf, eager to cling to that slice of normality. Everything else felt so strange that his particular brand of oddity felt comparatively safe. ‘Do not try to pull the wool over my eyes! Do not attempt to push aside your fiddle-dee-deeing and put the blame on me!’‘My what?’ I muttered, squinting at nothing. ‘My fiddle-dee-deeing?’‘A-ha! Precisely!’‘Brian.’ I sighed. ‘Look–’‘No, Stephen, you look.’ He sounded more serious than usual and I froze, still stood in the doorway where I’d kissed Cin. ‘I understand how you feel. I feel it, too. It makes my old heart trip over itself and my eyes turn to hearts whenever
Last Updated : 2023-04-19An Affair with the Alpha 062 | The worst distraction ever
Stephen’s POVShe let go of my mouth for me to talk. “I, I, I…” I couldn’t conjure up a lie quickly enough to save my skin. A second ago I hadn’t thought it possible, but Marcella’s face paled further. “You know,” she breathed.“Know what?” I frowned at her. She narrowed her eyes right back. “Tell me why you were following me.”I gulped. “I, uh – look, I thought you seemed suspicious, all right? The basket, the hood… but to be honest, Marcella, it had nothing to do with you. I’ve got a lot going on right now and I wanted a distraction.” I went to hold my hands up but she held them firm. “I swear, that’s all. I don’t know anything.”“I don’t believe you,” she whispered, her voice quaking. “Then… what?” I liked the girl, but she sure couldn’t do anything about her disbelief. We were both Omegas, but I trained harder and was stronger. “I can’t let you go. I’m sorry.”Before I could respond, she held a cloth up to my nose and mouth. I inhaled in my shock – and breathed in a lungful of
Last Updated : 2023-04-20An Affair with the Alpha 063 | I got two problems and they're both men
Rhiannon’s POVWhen I heard that mindlink, telling me that Alpha Caleb had been poisoned, I went through something similar to the five stages of grief.The first wasn’t denial, though. It was a weird-ass sense that justice had been served. I felt vindicated, glad that the man who’d been such a bastard to me had met his comeuppance. Then came anger – anger that I hadn’t been the one to do it. It seemed Tiger felt the same. ‘If anyone was going to kill that arrogant ass, it should’ve been me.’‘We would have done it fairly, too,’ I agreed, letting her rage merge with mine, twin flames growing and burning bright. ‘Not taken the coward’s way out and poisoned him.’And, instead of bargaining, next came guilt. I felt guilty for my initial reaction and knew it was all a way for me to cover up the truth of how I felt. I felt guilty for not being there for him, for not foreseeing this. Though it had weighed on everyone’s mind, the return of the Eternal Winter had taken front and centre in th
Last Updated : 2023-04-21An Affair with the Alpha 064 | Not out of the woods yet
Rhiannon’s POVWith our cloaks on and our hoods up, covering our faces and my distinctive hair, we snuck out of the Omega Quarters to over to the pack house. The closer we got, the more my heart started to thump. It wasn’t pulling me to Stephen, though. It was pulling me to Caleb. My eyes darted around, suspicious of every rustle in the bushes, wary of every bt of wind rattling the trees. It was overcast, the sky thick and heavy with the burden of snow clouds; everything was cast in a dull, grey light that hung, oppressive, over everything, like a veil draped atop the gnarled branches and dead lawns.Hyacinth and I spoke in mindlinks as we moved.‘I’ve tried to talk to him, too, and he hasn’t replied,’ I told her. ‘How did he sound?’Anxiety was gnawing at me from both ends. My soul yearned for Caleb, but my mind knew that Stephen had to be in danger. Weirdly, though, I couldn’t feel anything of him through the mate bond. There were no emotions at all, least of all the pungent fear
Last Updated : 2023-04-22An Affair with the Alpha 065 | Lost time
Rhiannon’s POVMy hands were bound roughly behind me with rope.“Hey,” I snarled. “Is that really necessary?”“I can’t take any risks.” Alvin shrugged, then yanked the rope even tighter. “You can’t seriously think I’m behind this.” I wriggled my wrists around, trying to create a bit more space in my bonds. “It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the Gamma thinks.”Alvin dragged me into the pack house. I met the gaze of every Warrior Wolf that stared at me, keeping my expression cold, almost bored, as I was pulled along. He took me down the main corridor before turning off into a room I’d never been in before. Hell, I hadn’t even ever noticed it before.The doorway led to a stairwell, which took us down what felt like half a floor. The lighting grew dimmer as we descended, the stairs coiling around before opening up into a large, grey room.I understood why I’d never seen the inside of the room before the second I was forced inside it. It was tucked away from the hubbub of t
Last Updated : 2023-04-24An Affair with the Alpha 066 | Tried for treason
Rhiannon’s POVNova sent for Beth at once. Then she sat back down opposite me, a frown creasing her face, and she apologised.“I can’t let you go. I know the Alpha has vouched for you, but his mind is not his own at present. With the poison in his system, I can’t be sure that his word is fact as I usually would. I am sorry, Rhiannon.”“I understand,” I said reluctantly. I did get it, but it didn’t make it any easier to bear. She went quiet a moment later, and stayed that way for a minute or two. I guessed that she was mindlinking with someone. The seconds dragged by, but eventually she looked up at me, blinked as though she was just coming back to herself, and offered me a tight smile. “I’ve been informed that Beth is waiting for me upstairs. I won’t be long.”Then she grabbed her notes hastily and, clutching them to her chest, she scurried out of the room.I moved into action the second I heard the door at the top of the stairs close. It wasn’t like Nova to make a mistake like leavi
Last Updated : 2023-04-25
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
