Alpha Rhys's POVI did my best to concentrate on my paperwork but all I could think about was Emma.I feel like such a jerk.I shouldn't have spoken to her in such a manner.It's just that, I was fighting my desires. I don't want to give her hints that I like her. It could blow up in our faces.I'm fighting a battle inside me.Still, I shouldn't have spoken so rudely to her.She must feel bad.I shifted my papers to the side. I can't work in this state of mind.I need to see her. I have to apologize.She might still be home. I should go downstairs to see her and tell her how sorry I am. I doubt that she would forgive me so easily but it's worth a try. It's the right thing to do.I got up and made my way out of my office. I went downstairs to the living room.My heart rate increased in my chest as I movedI'm a bit nervous to know her reaction. I wonder what she must think of me now. I don't want her to see me as a man who disrespects women...When I got to the living room, I saw Bruno
Arabella's POVI sat in my dimly lit living room. The room was dark apart from the soft glow of a single lamp. I poured myself a glass of wine and took a sip as I let my thoughts consume me. Alpha Rhys. His name echoed through my mind. This is a man who had ignited a spark of attraction within me once. Why does it seem that this desire refuses to fade? Wait... Why am I thinking like this? I'm supposed to hate this man. I hate the fact that he has rejected my advances time and time again. Could he really love Mia? Why am I even bothered? Maybe it's the wine that's affecting me. I'm here for revenge and that's it. I shouldn't care if he likes me or not. I do want him to want me so that I can infiltrate his marriage. I took another sip of the wine, letting it dance across my taste buds. I can't deny something. Rhys was magnetic. His presence commanded attention. If I'm being honest, I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame. I crave his attention. His chiseled jawline, pierci
Arabella's POVThe next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache.The headache got worse as soon as the sunlight seeping through the windows hit my eyes."Oww!" I groaned in PainI had to close my eyes to reduce the severity of the headache.I yawned and stretched as I sat up in bed.My head was banging plus my body felt weak. Typical symptoms of a hangover.What happened last night?"If you find me so attractive" I said "Prove it"Fuck! What the hell was I thinking?Slowly, the events of yesterday came creeping into my mind. It was a bit of a blur though. There was a huge blank space I couldn't fill.What I do remember was that I had a lot of wine in the evening. After that, Rhys dropped my kids.I also remember us having a serious conversation. I don't even remember what the conversation was really about but I do remember me telling him to prove how attractive I was to him.How did I even get in bed?Did we do something?Did we have sex?I told him to prove it, after all. What if
ARABELLA POVThe slap was so loud that it made the silence in the room uncomfortable. I just slapped the Alpha of the pack. Scared, I turned on my heels and ran out of the house. I had what I came for, even though I’d left more confused than ever. Had that night happened, or had it not? Why was he deflating from the truth? And even if he was telling the truth, why didn’t I trust him? Did he really not find me attractive? Rhys worshiped my body the day we engaged in sexual intimacy?No way… He must be taunting me, moreover I doubt if he had sex with me in a drunken state last night.I sat in my car for long minutes, wondering what had gone wrong. If he wasn’t taunting me so badly I wouldn’t have hit him. Now that I slapped him, I’d practically invited trouble. He could kill me!“Oh goddess,” I muttered to myself as I started her car.On my way to meet Mia, I stopped by an ice cream shop to get for Mia. She’d asked for a bag, but what was better than giving her a snack so she would tr
ARABELLA POVMia opened her car door and paused, as though forgetting something. She glanced at me briefly and asked,“You’re coming, right?”“Oh I’m with my car,” I said, gesturing to where I parked my own car. “You can go ahead, don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you.”“You sure?”“Of course, Luna Mia. Are you insinuating that I can’t take care of myself?”She scoffed. “I’m sure you can handle yourself since you have the liberty to ask me to give you access to my husband and my precious son”I smiled sweetly. “I can handle them.”“Of course you can. See you around, Emma.” Mia said.I watched her hop into her car and drive off. At first, I pretended to reach my car, just for the show-off. After three whole minutes, I went back into the lounge. There was no way I would leave in the middle of my game, just when I’d reached the top. I needed to carry out my revenge, even if it meant turning Mia’s friends against her. They didn’t even like her, so that was a plus. I could make this work,
RHY’S POVThere was something about her, something I couldn’t exactly place. It was an attraction, sizzling and hot and strange. I wanted her more and more, as if I was being tied to her somehow. Of course, that wasn’t technically possible as she wasn’t my mate, which boiled down to the fact that she seduced me, or at least she tried to. To be fair, I had quite a moment trying to keep my head straight. Somehow she seemed to embolden everything I wanted or more; that was until she slapped me.I rolled from side to side in my moveable chair and wondered what I did wrong to warrant that slap. Was it the way I spoke to her? Was she being regretful about being with me? It wasn’t like we were together, together. She was too drunk to find out…oh. I suddenly knew why she had slapped me.There was a knock on the door before Craig stuck his head in.“Alpha Rhys, you in here? I’ve been calling your name and you didn’t answer.”I waved my hand in the air. “Come on in. I was just deep in thoughts,
ARABELLA POVI checked my phone again, waiting for his reply. I wasn’t exactly in a hurry, but his texts had me excited. It meant he thought of me and was interested. What was better than exploiting a situation and having it work in your favor? Granted, the whole sex-is-not-great-with-you thing was annoying, but my reaction was perfectly normal. Now it would seem like he wasn’t interested in fighting or killing me, not in the slightest. It was a win.“Mommy?”I chuckled and caressed Damon’s hair. “Yes, baby?”“I’m having trouble with my assignment. Can you help me out?”“Here, let me take a look at it.”I peered into his book, calculating with him. The two other kids jumped around their beds and played with their toys, apparently free on their homework. Once I was done with Damon, I leaned back and allowed him to make the necessary adjustments to his taste. He was too smart for a six-year-old—they all were.My phone chimed with a notification and I immediately picked it up. The tex
ARABELLA POV It was the Parent-Teacher meeting. I smiled to myself as I lay back in my seat, eyeing the Luna who sat three seats before me. It pleased me especially that her husband was there with her; I was sure she pressured him to come so she could gloat about him to others. Nothing pleased Mia more than gloating about her husband. I was still stung by the blows he dealt me the other day, but it didn’t discourage me. For all I know, he could have been lying and being defensive. Someone raised her hand and stood up. The woman looked around to make sure she’d gathered enough attention before speaking. “I think we should have a leader in this Parent-Teacher meeting so we could hold more gatherings like this.” Everyone looked at her. It was obvious they had all been thinking about it before she said it, but none of them were brave enough to say it out loud. It was my chance to shine, as usual. The moon goddess was surely looking out for me she kept bringing out these opportunitie
ARABELLA POV“I can’t believe you’re getting married,” Lily said.I turned away from the mirror to face her. “Do you think I could be potentially making a mistake?”Lily laughed and playfully slapped my arm. “Don’t be silly, Arabella. You thought about this for months. You even went through the painful process of telling everyone your identity.”I smiled at the memory of that. “Yeah, it went surprisingly well. People took it in pretty well.”“You know the one they took in the most? The arrest and public death of Mia.”My mood dampened just a bit. My half sister was killed two weeks ago and here I was, getting married to the man she was previously married to. Rhys asked me not to overthink it as he wasn’t even hers to begin with, and I was working towards that step. I turned to Lily again.“Do you think James and Jenny would make it? They promised that they would show up today and they’re not here yet.”Lily slapped her forehead in embarrassment. She’s been slapping a lot of things lat
RHYS POVI stood outside the boys’ quarters, thinking of how best to go over this. If Jack wanted us to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about, then this was a big secret opener. I was dying to see just how much secret he was willing to uncover, and that included Mia.She was dancing when I stepped into her room. As always, it was open and inviting, as if she was waiting for the day when I would finally accept her. Was she expecting that day to be today? Had she done all this just because she wanted me?Yes, dumb ass. Yes.I ignored my wolf voice and cleared my throat. She stopped dancing and smiled brightly at me, as if I was the sunshine at the end of her tunnel.“You’re here,” she said, wiping her brows with a face towel.“And you’re dancing,” I commented. “What’s the occasion?”“You’ve confined me to this mean, smelly place and I have to get used to it, Rhys.” She gulped down a glass of water. “The fact still remains that I’m your wife and I will be until I sign the divorce p
ARABELLA POVI’ve never had so many things happen to me in the space or hours or minutes but it was definitely happening now. First my children gets kidnapped, then after 24 long, excruciating hours, I go to get them and discover they had somehow managed to free themselves. Then I stupidly went into to the cabin instead of running away with them only to get kidnapped again and have a gun pointed at me.“Your children was a handful,” the first man said. “That is not surprising. I see now where they got it from. You do know we can’t leave you alive after this?”I immediately clasped my hands together in prayer. “Please, I’m begging you with the almighty name of the moon goddess, please let us go. I swear I’ve packed all my things! I’m ready to leave now.”He shook his head. “You’ve seen our face, lady. I wish there was some other way to not kill you—”The door burst open, forcing a startled scream out of me. The kidnapper in front of me trembled. I angled my body to the side and shifted
ARABELLA POV“What are you going to do now?” Lily asked me. “Do you have any plans on how to tackle this?”I paused my restless pacing and turned to her. “I’m burnt out, Lily. I don’t know what to do! I’ve tried to think of every possible thing but nothing. Rhys isn’t even helping matters. He thinks Mia is innocent simply because she hasn’t left the house in days!”“And the kidnappers want you to leave?”“Yes! They clearly said no money, that I should just leave. Who else would not want money and ask me to leave?”She cocked her head at me as both of our mind went to Mia. She was the only sworn enemy that I had that would dare though my children and go Scot free. Thinking about it made by blood boil. I wanted to grab her hair and force her head into a hot oven…“Okay, you’re making that face again, “ Lily said. “We just need to think about what to do next, Arabella. I know this must come as a shock…”“It’s quite the shock, Lily.”“But we have better things to do like waiting for the k
Arabella PovI realized I was vibrating with fear and doom. I needed to calm down, but the thought of my children going through the most traumatic experience of their life was chilling to the bone. Why was it only them that was kidnapped out of all the children coming to school? The kidnappers had technically been aiming for me and my children. I glanced at Mia. It was her. It had to be her. There were no other logic asides the fact that Mia has a vindictive aura towards me and she was not afraid to use them.I turned my back to them and spoke into the phone. “What do you want, please? Can you just let my children go, please? I’ll do anything.”‘Of course you’ll do as you’re told, Dr. Emma, or you’ll never see your children again.”I shivered once more, bracing myself as I asked the most important question. “What do you want then? Is it money? How much would you need to let my kids go?”“You insult us, Dr. Emma. We don’t need your money. We only need you to do one thing and we’ll retu
ARABELLA POVI was very upset, and rightfully so too. I thought about Rhys every day for five days, mostly wondering if he didn’t want to let Mia go. Did he trust her enough to be sure that she hadn’t killed his father? If only I had enough time then to pressure the guy more so he would tell me the truth about Mia. She certainly had more wicked things up her sleeve and I was very desperate to reveal them to the world.“Dr. Emma, you’ve wiped that post four times in a row now,” a nurse said.I jerked back into consciousness and realized that I was in the hospital, wiping a patient’s wrist over and over so I coke inject their antibiotic for them. Murmuring my apologies, I quickly gave them their dose and stood up.“You look tired,” the nurse who had called my attention said. “You can go home; I’ll cover your shift for you. I’m not sure I want to see you dozing off the rest of your days here.”“I’m fine,” I saidSpacing out. I was constantly spacing out because I was concerned for Rhys an
ARABELLA POVI was really bumped and hyped with energy when I took Bruno back to the car. He asked load of questions about why he wasn’t allowed to see the prisoner and I said something in the lines of how his ears were too little to hear all the important details. It would really sick if he had to hear from a strange prisoner that his mother was involved in a crime.Once I left him in the car and locked it, I ran back to the cell. My heart was drumming with excitement. I imagined that prisoner holding Mia’s picture and announcing that she was the one who had made the order. Oh, that would make so much sense! However, when I joined Rhys minutes later, I noticed that he was silent and now holding the picture, having collected it back from the Rogul. The Rogul was snacking heavily on the food I brought, which I now every much regret since the mood wasn’t what I expected it to be.“What did he say?” I asked Rhys, a note of desperation in my voice. “He was holding Mia’s picture, right?”
ARABELLA POVI had a plan. A grand, beautiful plan. Rhys was going to be here anytime soon and he would be solely against it, which means I have to be wise towards it. I knocked once on the children’s door before opening it. They were laughing and walking about, looking for the perfect fit.“Mom!” Delinda cried when she saw me. “Do you think I should wear a dress to the park? I can’t seem to find the perfect fit.”I smiled reassuringly as I remained at the door. “You don’t need to stress to much, my darling. You guys should all wear shorts and shirt—you can wear a skirt, Delinda—and carry a backpack too.”Damon frowned. “A back pack?”“Yeah. It’ll make you looo smart, like a professor.”I knew they would accept readily to what I said, yet I waited on high tension. When they finally agreed to dress like professors and carry their backpack, I grinned. Earlier today in the morning, I came across Bruno’s backpack and I slipped in Mia’s picture in it. At first when I saw her picture lying
MIA POVI paced around my room, completely restless. He hasn’t been sleeping at home lately and now Bruno was gone. When he was brought back from rhe hospital, Rhys took him away and said he wanted to take him to a recovery center. How long do recovery centers usually take? Did Arabella put this idea into his head?Oh, Arabella, that wench!I laughed wildly as I continued to pace around. She thought she won this time, didn’t see? She was the lowly, stupid omega in the past, and now she’s come back a bit chic doctor who’s trying to steal my man? How are people not violent towards this act?! Do I need to start an uproar? She’s not going to win against me. The deadly wench is not going to win me.“You do not get to have the last laugh!” I roared loudly, and then fell to my bedroom floor in a beep.My hair was a mess. With everything going awry, I haven’t give my much thought to how untidy I’d been. That was fine; it didn’t matter what I looked like. I would have every single thing I’d ev