ARABELLA POVI laughed self-consciously. Penny started to laugh with me, expecting some sort of gossip to come out right after what she’d just spilled.“So…?” she probed. “What’s the deal with you and the Alpha and that puppy eyes he’s giving you?”“There si no deal,” I waved my hand in the air. “No sex, no fucking, no puppy eyes or whatever you call it.”“But he’s in love with you.”I placed my hand on my chest and feigned a gasp. “How do you know that? You can’t say things like this, Penny!”“But it feels like he’s in love!” She heaved sigh. “Listen, it’s just the both of us, okay? No one needs to know—except Louise and Kita but that’s fine because we’re all in the same anti-Mia club.”“No,” I said with a shake of the head. “There is nothing between the Alpha and I, I promise you.”“So you’re not sleeping with him?”“No, I’m most definitely not sleeping with him! If I was, eh won’t be here in my working place, would he? He just came for a checkup, that’s all.”“Oh that’s a shame,” s
ARABELLA POV “Ma’am, can you please come with us and step into the vehicle?”Joshua blocked the officers way before they could take his mate away. “No! No, Lily would never do such a thing!”“I don’t even know how that got there!” Lily cried. “I promise I’m a patriotic citizen!”It was chaos. Josh shouted and tried to hold her back for as long as he could, but there was nothing to do. There was contraband amongst her goods, and there was nothing to be done but take her away and investigate the matter. Josh turned to me the minute they were gone and shook me vigorously, removing the stunned spell that caught me since I saw the content of the box. Guns.Individuals were not allowed to have weapons like that.“She’s not a killer!” Josh said to me. “You need to do something, please save her!”We’re all killers, I thought, but not that kind of killers. Not the kind that got guns so it would be untraceable to the source. At least if claws and teeth were used, it’ll be easier to sniff out
RHYS POV I watched her leave. I know I should not have, but I believed Emma. Lily was an enemy, no doubt, but the way she pointed it out made me self-conscious. Was she truly an enemy or was that what I made her out to be? I won’t want someone else being punished for a crime that she did not commit. When I turned back to my office, Mia was glaring at me. Whatever happened between her and Emma was none of my business, and apparently, none of them wanted to say anything yet they kept throwing the heat in my face. It was hard enough seeing her in my house, and it was even harder seeing her with Mia. “Just know that Lily is guilty of whatever they say she’s guilty of,” Mia said under her breath. I heard her, but I won’t let that define me. I got into the office and went for my phone, calling my Beta. Craig picked on the second ring. “Good day, Alpha,” he greeted. “I want you to look into something,” I said, straight to the point. “I heard you arrested one Lily?” “Yes,” Craig answer
RHYS POVThe anger that filled me was tremendous. The audacity of Lily to talk to me that way because of the familiarity I had with her was wild. My anger pulsed through me and instinctively squeezed the life out of her throat. She coughed, her hand reaching up to hold her neck. I saw her life flash between her eyes. The light was going out, yet I couldn’t stop the anger. She had no right, no right whatsoever, to bring up Arabella in our conversation.“RHYS!!!”My body suddenly stilled. My wolf had never, never been held captive by the sound or the call of another. I felt myself reverting towards the new sound and person entering, mellowing down to receive orders from them. It was Emma. It took me a long moment to analyze this. Emma. Emma.Emma?How? How did she capture my soul with a single call when she wasn’t my mate? Was it possible to have two mates in a lifetime? Even Mia had never held my soul and wolf captive to make a point. She had never even held me captive before. Why was
ARABELLA POVI walked out and to my car, refusing to look at Rhys’ pitiful face. I didn’t want to deal with him that moment; if he wasn’t going to release Lily then I knew just the right person to pull their strings. The first mistake I made was going to Rhys, knowing that he was not emotionally stable and was biased when it came to me. Even though, did he have to attempt killing her? He could defend himself all he wanted and say that was not his intention, but at the end of the day, what was his true attention if his wolf and Alpha aura had gotten the best out of him? I honestly didn’t want to sit around and find out.Lily was still outside the cell when I left, but I’m sure she would have gone back now I needed to get her out of there as soon as possible; Rhys was still in his feelings and would rather discuss us than her. Bringing out my phone, I quickly sent a text to Mia, one incriminating enough to stand her on her toes.I want us to meet. It took a long moment of deliberation
MIA POVI watched her leave. My chest constricted with pain, spreading fat and wide until I felt it thumping against my rib cage. Oh, Emma was making a big fucking mistake. The audacity she had to summon me here and make a big fucking threat to me. I laughed, but the laughter stopped in my throat. There was nothing joyous to laugh too, and certainly not Emma. I felt as betrayed as I’d felt when I found out my friends weren’t really my friends, but somehow this betrayal sunk deep. They didn’t hold this secret that Emma now held above me, and they certainly did not threaten me fearlessly. I should have known the kind of person she was from the start, but she played her game meticulously. I would have snapped right here and now, and removed her stupid omega head from her body, but not yet. It was just not the right time. I didn’t know where she had kept the other evidence of my secrets, and I couldn’t just kill her without ensuring that the last of it was gone. Heaven knows how many she
MIA POVIt was dining time, and my mind was definitely not there. All I thought about was Emma. How many people have she told about this secret of mine? If she held it over m head this way, surely she must have told some other persons. I honestly won’t put it past her. Emma was something else now that she had stopped being my friend, and I was afraid to find out exactly how much power she held above me.Sighing, I picked around my food, seeming to not find the appetite. How would one eat when their whole life was hanging in balance and could be discovered?“Mia!”I looked at Rhys dully. He’d been calling my name for a while now. “What is it?” I asked.“Are you okay/’ he counter asked. “I’ve been calling you and you didn’t answer. You’re absent.”I picked around my food again. “I’m fine. just a bit stressed.”“Do you want to tell me what the problem is? You’re not eating and I’m concerned,” Rhys said.I watched him for a while, almost going absent. If not for the twitch in his eye, I d
RHYS POV I kept my spoon down beside my plate, thinking furiously about what Craig just said. That Walters guy can’t have done all these. This would be a high-profile case since it was about framing someone up for crimes, and that someone happened to be Lily. Everyone suddenly seemed involved and invested in the case. Emma was convinced that Lily was innocent while Mia was just being plain irrational. I don’t even know where she stood in all these. It was like she was here and then she wasn’t. Mia’s voice came on again, low and high and taunting and just plain disturbing. “Is it that you don’t believe your own Beta’s words?” she asked. I sighed before answering. “Mia, it’s not like I don’t believe Craig, but I just know that Walters won’t have done this.” “Why is that? Because he’s a good person?” “Far from that, Mia. He’s a good person and I trust him I trust that he won’t frame someone just like that. What does he stand to gain from all these? Some contraband? That’s unlike Walt
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