In the end it was an easy decision to jump in that sports car. I felt like crap, my stomach was still killing and the idea of heading to lectures and seeing Felix, Matt, Cherry and all those others who must despise me was too much.Why not start again. There is no reason to think the world starts and ends with Fyrestone. I don’t have to like Austin, I’m not leaving Fyrestone for love. I’m leaving my dumpster fire of a life and starting again.I almost bottled it this morning. Watching the sun come up on the top of the accommodation block, it was beautiful, calm and fresh. I had my arms wrapped around my legs, only the sound of birdsong. The black rock that contains Berlarot was next to me, quivering with energy. Maybe if I had never got involved with the demon, if I was just a girl who had made up some shit and got caught out I could endure this storm. This anchor around my neck, Berlarot, his weight and guilt is pulling me downhill with him. The water will rush over my face and drow
I know it must have hurt Dex but I spent most of my first full day as his mate thinking about Roxie. I should have been basking in the glow of his adoration, how sweetly he treated me. Yet only I knew what kind of twisted world she was heading into. Roxie is the same as me, she’s only known Fyrestone life, the fairly gentle leadership and sane Alpha that leads it. She’s got such a sassy mouth and so much attitude, I’m terrified she’s going to end up being Humbled. That is my greatest fear. It means I babble my way through my first formal meeting with Alpha Fyrestone. In his huge white office, the cool breeze seeping through the shutters, wafting piles of paper together with Dex I try to explain everything. The men are thinking of war straight away. They don’t realise that as long as Roxie is the summoner we can persuade her to stop. The danger is in Austin thinking he has to kill Roxie to take power for himself if we go charging in full pelt with a war and attacks. “You think we s
With Raya pushing me furiously I somehow found the strength to speak. “Please can you hold me, I don’t want you to look at me when I tell you,” and although his jaw clenched in worry he let me nuzzle into his chest. Inhaling that deep bonfire scent I told him everything. How he had the silver knife to my throat, how my fear had turned him on so much he wrapped my hand around his cock to jerk him off. Like a teenager with a wet dream it was still in his trousers, but still I felt disgusted with myself. In halting, forced sentences I described as much as I could. “He…finally lost it when his knife shot up too high and actually cut me. Then he licked up my chest where the blood trickled and…Dex I’m so sorry.” His huge arms were already around my body. This was the kind of comforting softness he’d given me so tenderly when he plucked me out of the rain. I hadn’t wanted to be that girl again. I didn’t cry as I told him but everything came in gulps and stumbles. Having to admit just how s
I spent a few hours with Rose, leaving her red velvet room feeling like we were on the way to forming some kind of relationship. She had made some poor choices but I knew how consuming those dreams could be. Rhett had no idea, so I made it my mission to tell him. Part of me also wanted to find Dex, knowing his plan was to plan some sort of espionage campaign with him. Except I found Rhett alone. He stood alone watching the fighter training from above. Tutting and folding his arms he was clearly unimpressed with his options. “Hey,” he said before I even got within a metre of him. I stood beside him and watched the training. Grappling, rolling and wrestling. Rhett tutted, “does Coah Grantley really think you’re going to have an opportunity to use wrestling grips against an enemy? We’re wolves for fucks sake. Where’s the shifter training!” “I think we only did it three or four times,” I said sheepishly, “I wouldn’t say it had a heavy focus.” “I’ll be changing that straight away,” he
Etherly can get stuffed, I’m staying in bed. All the suggesting and hinting in the world isn’t making me leave this silken pit. I’m in agony. Coupled with what feels like the worst period pain I’ve ever had, I’m also getting beaten up by the Fyrestone packs rejection. It didn’t happen until late last night. I’d spent the whole day expecting it to hit. When it did come, in the middle of the night, waking me up as I bent double under the silken sheets it felt like an insult. As if Alpha Fyrestone had woken up for a piss in the night and finally remembered to excommunicate me. Bastard. It meant I was in long silken silver pyjamas when the double doors to my suite flew open. Etherly had grassed me up the little bitch. Alpha Austin stormed into the room closely followed by Zaw. His mossy eyes glared at me, his grey henchman suit as perfectly bland as his personality. “What the fuck is this Roxie?” Austin snapped looking down at my sweating face. “Alpha I’m not messing around, the pac
“I can tell you're hoping it’s going to be foggy again,” Dex smirked at me as we bounced along in the car together. "Excuse me, I am here on important business," I replied huffily though when he trailed his finger along my hand a shiver of desire ran through me. "Fog would be amazing though," I said almost in a daze as he chuckled to himself. Rhett was driving, considerably less chirpy than normal seeing as we had to drag him away from Rose for this journey. I just smiled and looked out of the window, my fingers curling around his as we sat apart in the large grey car. We were heading back to Luna Madeline. In an effort to avoid war Dex had agreed to see if the mistress of Dark Arts had any advice for taking Roxie’s demon away without killing her. I know he is doing this trip purely for me, to satisfy my desperate wish to keep my best friend alive. Every day she is in Greenway I worry what horrors Austin will inflict on her. Dex and Alpha Fyrestone seem on tenterhooks, waiting
“Dex!” Her shrill, panicked voice ripped through my conversation with Madeline and Frank. I was out of my chair and fighting my way through the fucking mindless warren of little corridors and pantries to get to the outside. “Here!” the deep voice of Olaf cried. My fear was that she had been kidnapped. That somehow Austin had discovered her and sent his psychopathic Beta to take her. Instead I stumble outside onto the wooden decking to see Kate smiling. “What’s going on?” Standing behind Kate, his face largely obscured by the shadows was a man. Olaf lifted a lantern high and his face was revealed. Platinum blonde hair, a new scruffy beard and piercing blue eyes. Glenn. By this time Alpha Frank and Luna Madeline scuffled their way out onto the porch, obviously not in as great a hurry as me to find the cause of my mate’s cry. Rhett stood next to me as we both went forward together. “Glenn!” I cried, as he raised a hand as if warning us to keep our distance. “What’s going on?” I h
The thunder. Every time it rumbled over the packhouse it sent a wave of heat through my body. I could barely focus on Glenn. He is so angry, so bitter at how his mate has been treated. I know I would feel the same, to know someone had harmed even a hair on Dex’s head would mortify me. I don’t think the men quite realised how many scars she is covered in. Presumably if she has them all over the visible bits of her body, they’re going to be in the other areas too. The poor girl. Tomorrow we will do everything possible to help her. Climbing the dark wooden stairs with Dex another deep rumble sounds. The storm is getting closer. I cannot help grabbing his hand. There is electricity in his grasp and I feel my eyes flashing already. The instant he opens the door to our suite I jump at him. My lips on his before the door even shuts. His hands are unzipping the dark ruby red of my dress, unveiling my porcelain skin to him. Wordlessly, our actions perfectly synchronised in the darkness.
###ONE YEAR LATER###KATESo I’m Luna Kate now. We had a big, outdoor ceremony that everyone appeared to see. Dex wore all black, looking absolutely unreal. I wore a long fitted red gown, in keeping with the ruby in his eyes and the colours of Fyrestone. Almost everybody was there, of course Roxie was not.Dex and I have taken the bike to Verna a few times since that first outing. I think it’s his favourite thing to do when life gets a bit much. We also haven’t made it back once without having stopped mid-way home. Something about the adrenalin of the tattoo gun I guess.I did get a tattoo added for Roxie in the end. It took me a while to think about what I wanted but in the end I had a twisting, mixed up lightning bolt. Not a cheesy, pointy outline, but the crackling, thin shards that splinter across a dark sky. It is on the side of my ribs, surrounded by the constellations of the Fyrestone compound.It stood for all the lightning and thunderstorms we sheltered in together as children
Just for a while we switched off. There was a whole world of shit to deal with back at the packhouse. Dex hadn’t yet mentioned the gigantic black opal ring of his fathers that was now on his hand either. The drunken bonfire blowout tonight sounded absolutely perfect to be honest, it wasn’t even something I usually enjoyed doing. So much had happened it sounded amazing to just relax for a few hours.I knew he was stressed about Rhett being so weakened, the fact there was no way Glenn and Ariel would be able to live happily under the scorching sun of Fyrestone. However right now, tearing along the red dust ground at a dangerously fast speed it didn’t matter for a while.He took the bends with rough, sharp leans that made me hold my breath and cling onto his chest for dear life as we raced across the desert plains. His leather jacket smelt so delicious, the bonfire scent that first captured my heart fast becoming a permanent part of me. I wondered if he found himself smelling of grass e
Finally, after what feels like weeks we are back in Fyrestone. The whole campus turns out to greet our return. Matt and Felix are treated like living gods, one blonde girl with red lipstick, Cherry I think, particularly clinging onto Matt as the student feted two of their own winning a war.The cars that arrived to fetch us from Foxton were gratefully received. The men were tired and ready to recuperate. Of course, it was only what was expected of them. To be classed as a Warrior meant to risk your lives and battle for the pack. Fyrestone had lost several men as well. A lot of them nearer my fathers generation, men he was reluctant to let out to pasture. My selection of younger, sleeker warrior students and recent graduates had all survived. My father and Rose were waiting at the Packhouse for us, alongside a scarily-slimmed down Rhett. His ashy blonde hair tied in a topknot and a smile brimming on his ridiculously bushy beard. If he had looked almost feral before, he certainly did
With a heavy heart we had to leave. Cliffrill, Foxton and other packs needed Dex’s presence. When I told Roxie she was almost enthusiastic at the prospect of being left. “Go, go be the Luna, it’s fine. I don’t want everyone here watching me scab over anyway.” she had insisted.I did wonder how much of it was getting rid of me, or knowing that the sooner we left the sooner Felix would be gone. He tried again to talk to her but Mina had to show him out when Roxie refused to see him.Now Mina and Olaf are mated, very happily so by the sounds ringing out day and night she is coming with us. So we have had to entrust Roxie’s final healing to Etherly. Still a petite, sour faced little thing I sat her down for a talk as we prepared to leave.“Are you happy Austin has gone?”“Not particularly,” she said with a scowl, her petite features against twenty years every time she creased up so sourly. “I had a good life here.”“There is nothing to stop you having a good life elsewhere. This place was
Fuck me I owe Olaf a drink. Maybe ten. He can have every jewel in this shithole.The sight of Kate standing there in the gardens, not that she was really eyeing up the silent giant was enough to make Alba go wild. The green silk slip she wore was fluttering softly in the breeze, her eyes so brown and soulful combined with that honey hair. I was rock hard before I even stood behind her.Now I’m watching as my mate keeps her eyes on me, unzipping my pants on her knees. I know it’s maybe immature, enjoying the risk of being outside but it’s something Alba and I have in common. Fuck, it’s clearly something Kate likes too, she’s been bent over a balcony howling before now so this is junior league in comparison.When she started teasing me, suggesting things I could do to her she had no idea how wild it drives me. Or maybe she does know exactly what she’s doing, in which case she deserves my cock in her mouth even more.Her plump perfectly pink lips kissing and wrapping around the head of m
The tender-hearted bear of a man who waited outside the door was soon replaced by a different beast entirely. On waking up he flexed his Alpha authority with ease. Ordering his collection of men into different brigades, plus reserves arrived with supplies and information. Almost twenty hours after the battle was won and the dust was starting to settle.A constant flurry of decisions had to be made. Dex, now sat in the library answered dozens of questions. Dispensing supplies, where everything needed to go and handling every kind of diplomatic crisis. We received an update on Rhett, he had been successfully taken by the Fyrestone and was under care.Glenn would still be heading back to Foxton to inform Luna Madeline but a scout had returned from his group to confirm Eduardo was being held captive. His pack were apparently only too happy to place him under arrest. It was peculiar how no local rebellion occurred. Fyrestone’s warriors were allowed across the territory without difficulty.
Hours of chanting, each of us holding Roxie’s charred hand or foot as Olaf mixed herbs and guided our voiced was exhausting. My head dropped, fighting waves of tiredness after days of running from Foxton. Olaf and Felix had battled too, their red wounds matching Roxie’s battered form. It was peculiar to feel the ebb and flow of her body. I would feel warmth and a pulse only for it to simmer away. Her breathing was barely there, her chest flickering instead of rising. Her wolf was pushing itself to the limits and there was no way of knowing what would happen.On the sofas, rapidly staining with blood as her wounds seeped, we surrounded her with our love. As dawn broke over a new day Mina looked around and clanged the cymbals.Olaf began to shake his head in failure, the herbs, hair and peculiar rocks he had procured moved to one side. He was accepting defeat. I couldn't. I gave my last bit of energy, chanting louder, closer to her ear praying with everything I had that she would choos
After swimming in the blackness, for what could have been years or seconds I was calm. Unable to form a thought, feel any pain I simply existed in a pool of darkness. That almost-tumbling feeling of falling asleep, when you’re just on the brink of accepting tiredness, was the only sensation. Then the pungent, unmistakable scent of burning hair entered the darkness.The first emotion and clear thought that dripped into my awareness was the fear that the smell was sulphur. That Berlarot even in death remained tied to me.As my senses slowly strengthened, like a slow turning up of volume I found my inner voice. Another thought occurred when I realised it was not Berlarot, was the assumption that the burning smell was my own hair. Perhaps the tower was burning, maybe Kate had done something marvellous and saved everyone.Kate. My sister.I’d left her. I’d jumped and left her to the mercy of Austin. A coward till the end. Death is the correct path for me.Thoughts swam around in the black
What the hell has happened here. We’ve saved the fucking day and I’m getting shit for it.As she vanished around the corner the blonde girl with blue eyes approached. “I’m Mina, I did not want to get Kate’s hopes up but I think…Roxie needs a healer. She might not be completely gone yet.”I groaned, rubbing my face. We’re just a collection of fighters, “Azus, do you?” knowing the answer would be a no before he walked off to check on his injured men. Then, as quiet as a tiger through the trees Olaf came into view. He was completely naked, his grey hair shorn, eyes shimmering gold and yellow.He walked down the grassy path, all of us staring at his intimidating presence. Was he some kind of fucking sun god? Blessed with serious muscles and abs behind all that weird grey hair it felt as though we were all meeting him for the first time.Ignoring everyone’s stares he fixed his eyes on the tall, blonde Mina. We all saw her breath catch, her eyes widen as she fell under some kind of spell. F