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126 | I want to mark you
Last Updated:
2023-09-29 08:59:30Related chapters
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
Last Updated : 2023-09-29An Affair with the Alpha 001 | We're not mates - or are we?
Rhiannon’s POVIt was time.Stephen and I had been waiting for this moment for years. Five years, to be exact. We were pack-school sweethearts, convinced that we were destined to be together. There wasn’t anyone else. There couldn’t be.The seconds inched by on the clock. Dad leant forward in his seat, sat opposite us at the kitchen table, staring at it just as intently as we were. Beside him my twin sister, Hyacinth, leant back in her chair. She went too far, stumbled, and rocked forward hard enough to knock the jar of flowers on the table over. She leapt up and grabbed a tea towel, wiping up the spillage hastily before refilling the jar with water, flushing bright red all the while.I rolled my eyes at her. “Are you turning eighteen or four this year, Cin?” I teased.She stuck her tongue out at me as she re-took her seat, eyeing it warily and sitting very, very still this time. “At least I’m not turning into an ass,” she shot back, once she was sure she wasn’t about to wobble off h
Last Updated : 2023-01-14An Affair with the Alpha 002 | It can't be you
Rhiannon’s POVTiger was still in a mood with me when we strode into the woods the next morning. I’d shifted into my huge white wolf form and was letting her guide us through the barren, snow-covered trees.We were stationed at the very back of the pack, amongst the few other Omegas that had been invited on this hunt. The Alpha had to be getting desperate to allow so many of us to come on a hunt led by him. I’d even been taken off breakfast duty so that I could come along. ‘I can’t believe you let him mark you,’ Tiger muttered, drawing my attention away from the thin, finger-like boughs of the deciduous trees. She was glaring at Stephen’s wolf, Brian, from behind, her upper lip curling back in a silent snarl. He trotted along happily, unaware and unbothered, his tail wagging, his paws padding merrily through the deep snow.There was literally nothing to glare at. Brian was even more adorable than Stephen. ‘Sorry, what was that? I thought I heard something,’ I retorted coldly. ‘Oh, w
Last Updated : 2023-01-17An Affair with the Alpha 003 | Wrong time, wrong place, wrong wolf
Rhiannon’s POVStill holding our gaze, Caleb narrowed his eyes.And then he sidled closer to his Luna.Balls.I’d never said or even thought the word balls before – at least not in that context – but suddenly it seemed to perfectly sum up exactly how I felt. It was a good thing that Alpha Caleb was showing me where he stood – because I had Stephen already, and I had no plans to jump ship to an arrogant arse who’d never once given me the time of day before because I was an Omega.If it’s such a good thing, an irritating voice in the back of my head whispered, why does your heart feel like it’s breaking?I huffed and moved closer to Stephen’s wolf. Brian nudged Tiger with his nose, but she didn’t turn to look at him. Her gaze remained locked on Alpha Caleb, taking in every inch of his muscular form. I sniffed the air discreetly, aching to smell that crisp, fresh, outdoorsy scent again.‘This is impossible,’ Tiger was saying. I had no idea how long she’d been talking or how much of it I
Last Updated : 2023-01-17An Affair with the Alpha 004 | A perfect, political choice
Caleb’s POVI really didn’t need this. Not right now, thank you very much. I glowered up at the sky, peering at it through the gaps in the branches, its blue never changing from its cold, wintry sweep. My lip peeled back from my teeth as I snarled up at the Moon Goddess.“Why now?”I’d meant for my voice to come out menacing, laced with an unspoken threat. Thank fuck nobody was around to hear the pathetic little squeak that actually came out.‘Hey, man, let me try,’ said my wolf, Knight. I’d wanted to stomp around with my own legs and feet for a while, even though I knew full well that doing so would scare away any and all prey in our vicinity, but maybe it was time to give my wolf control again.‘Go on, then.’ The shift tore through me, and Knight padded his huge paws in place, prancing anxiously on the spot. And then, all of a sudden, he spun around and raced back the way we’d come from.‘Hey!’‘You said you’d let me try.’ His voice sounded smug, which worried me. ‘Yeah – and I tho
Last Updated : 2023-01-19An Affair with the Alpha 005 | I know you better than anyone
Stephen’s POVLosing Michael was like a knife to the gut. My lip wobbled as I crouched down beside his wolven body, my hand reaching for his soft brown fur. “Here,” Rhiannon rasped, passing me a raggedy bunch of drooping snowdrops. They looked almost as dead as he did. Goddess, what was wrong with me? How could I even be thinking such dark jokes right now? Tears blazed in my eyes, but I was quick to blink them away.I was struggling to manage the dual fire of my emotions and Rhi’s. Hers were turbulent, more potent than any of my own had ever been. As I took the depressing bunch of flowers from her, I brushed my fingertips over her knuckles and held them there for a moment. My heart pulsed with wanton need – not for sex, but for comfort. I wanted to hold her, to be held, and to forget about all of this for a while.Finding out we were mates had been one bright star amongst a heap of shit. In some ways, I counted myself pretty dang lucky – none of my family had died in the brutal war b
Last Updated : 2023-01-21An Affair with the Alpha 006 | Who is she?
Rhiannon’s POVI straightened my leather jacket, touched the ring in my nose, and ran my hands down over the loose waves of my silver hair. As I stared at myself in the mirror I worried my bottom lip, watching as it started to swell. With a sigh I reached forward and plucked my liquid eyeliner off my desk. I unscrewed the cap and swiped more across my eyelids, making the existing wings darker and thicker. I felt like I was smearing my cheeks in war paint – but I looked just as unprepared as I had when I’d stumbled in here, my heart pounding a million miles a minute and tears prickling the back of my nose.The door groaned open and Cin shuffled inside, frowning at me the second she saw my expression. “You okay, Rhi?” she asked.My emotions were too fragile for me to speak, so I just nodded. Dropping the eyeliner back onto the pile of mess covering my desk, I sloped over to my bed and flopped backwards onto it. My room was small – we were only Omegas, after all, so our cabin wasn’t big
Last Updated : 2023-01-26An Affair with the Alpha 007 | Royally screwed
Rhiannon’s POV I reared back, hurriedly wiping tears from my cheeks. I hadn’t realised I’d been crying until the cold air outside had chilled them upon my burning skin. “You,” I spat. His face crumpled, but he slid his cool mask back into place so quickly I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen the flash of hurt there. His throat bobbed. He opened and closed his mouth. Then: “Can we just… not do this?” His green eyes, bright as summer sunshine cast through leaves, even in the dark, grazed over my swollen lips and puffy eyelids. “You don’t have to hide with me.” “Yes,” I snarled, taking another step back, “I do.” “Look.” His shoulders sagged, and he ran a hand through his tousled dark hair. Most of it was stuck to the side, but a single strand fell in a jagged wave down over his forehead. He blew a puff of air at it; I lost myself in his lips, pursed almost as if in a kiss. His shoulders were broad, too muscular to belong to anyone but an Alpha. I was tall, especially for a she-wolf, bu
Last Updated : 2023-01-28
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
