LOGINMikhail
The door to the office opens after a soft knock on the door, and I immediately recognize the scent of my Beta, Alexei. Lifting my head, I look at the blurred figure of his frame.
"Alpha," he says, his tone serious. "We've received an invitation."
"Invitation?" I raise an eyebrow.
It is strange because nobody wants to invite me into their territory because of my reputation.
"Yes, for the Full Moon Ball at Redwood Pack." He places an envelope on my desk and pushes in my direction until it touches my fingertips. "It's from Alpha Gregor."
"What does he want from us this time?" I reach out and run my fingers over the envelope, feeling the embossed seal of the Redwood Pack. Gregor.
Alexei takes a seat in front of my desk before he speaks.
"From what I have gathered, he's inviting all the prominent packs. Probably to form alliances as there has been a rise in rogue attacks."
"Do you plan to attend, Alpha?" Alexei asks.
The idea of mingling with other Alphas doesn't appeal to me, but there is something about the Redwood pack that is intriguing, and even my wolf seems to agree with me.
"Yes," I finally say. "We will attend."
"Very well, I'll make the necessary arrangements." Alexei says, and after a moment, he adds, "Maybe this year you will find your mate."
"I already have Layla, and I don't need anyone else." Shaking my head, I interlock my fingers and place my hands on the table, "She is what I want."
"Mikhail, the true mate bond is irreplaceable." Running his fingers through his hair, he sighs, "No one takes her place in your life. You may feel Layla is good for you, but it is your true mate who has been created for you... she will be the someone who you need."
Alexei is not only my beta but also my friend. We have been together for as long as we can remember. He has been my only friend and someone whom I trust. We have seen so much together in our lives that there are hardly any secrets between us.
"I don't need anyone. I already have everything that I want: my pack, my people, and a she-wolf who will become the Luna of this pack and bear my pups. Soon after the Full Moon Ball, I will make an announcement about accepting Layla as the Luna."
"End of discussion." My voice comes out stern, with no room for further discussion when I feel he is about to say something.
"Very well, Alpha." I sense him bowing before he leaves the room.
I mindlink Layla to come inside my study.
Not even five minutes have passed when she walks inside the room.
"Alpha, what can I do for you?" I hear a smile in her voice. "Isn't it a bit too early to be frisky?" She teases as she settles down in the seat where Alexei has been sitting earlier.
After Alexei, Layla has been the one who has been with me for years. Alexei and Layla are two people who have been with me before I took over the Alpha position. In a way we have formed our own bond, but for some reason Alexei never liked Layla and has just been cordial with her because of me.
Layla is a strong and fertile shewolf in her prime with an Alpha and Beta blood. She is loyal to me and understands my need, and for me she is perfect to be my mate and to bear my offsprings.
My wolf lowly growls even though he agrees with me, but I know a part of him will never accept her because he is tuned to accept his true mate.
That's why I need to complete my mating bond with Layla before my so-called true mate appears before me if she exists. Because once it happens then my wolf will not accept any other shewolf as his mate other than her, and if I reject her before completing the mating bond then he will go insane.
"I am going to Redwood pack for the Full Moon Ball, I will be gone for four days, and in my absence I will leave you in-charge of the pack." Leaning back in my chair, I stare in her direction, even though I can't see properly but if I focus too hard I make out the outlines, "Alexei will be accompanying me so the pack will be your responsiblity."
"Isn't that your Luna's responsibility?" She laughs lightly.
"It is; that's why I am giving it to you." A smirk form on my lips, "After I return from the ball, I will announce you as my Luna and seal the mating bond with you."
"Mikhail." She walks around and sits on knees infront of me and keeps her hands on my knees, "I promise, I will never let you or this pack down. I will be the Luna that this pack deserves and I will be the mate that you want."
"I know that's why I have chose you." I run my hand through her hair, my actions similar to petting an animal, "You are aware of the consequences if you fail me, right?" Harshly grabbing her hair, I yank her head back.
I can feel her nodding her slightly while I smell her fear.
She knows I don't forgive mistakes and even she will not be spare of the consequences if she fails to fulfill her responsiblity.
"Good girl." Releasing my grip, I smooth her hair.
"Prepare the pack for my absence. Ensure everything runs smoothly, and if there are any issues, you know how to reach me."
"Of course, Alpha." Her voice trembles slightly, but she is quick to find her composure.
As she leaves, I feel a sense of satisfaction. My plans are falling into place, and soon, everything will be as it should be.
CalebAwareness comes back slowly, in layers, the way it does when the body has been somewhere very far away and is not entirely sure it made it back.The first thing I feel is her hand.I do not know how long I have been holding it. My fingers are wrapped around hers and I feel it before I feel anything else, before I feel the floor under me or the sounds in the room or the weight of my own body, I feel her hand in mine and I feel how cold it is. How clammy. The pulse underneath her skin is barely there, a faint flicker that I have to press my fingers close to catch at all, and her chest is rising and falling in the particular slow shallow way that tells me every breath is costing her something she does not have left to spend.June.The thought arrives before I am fully conscious and it is the only thought there is.I open my eyes.The room rushes in all at once, light and sound and the faces of people I love arranged around me with expressions I do not want to read too carefully bec
SohpiaI hold Caleb's hand in both of mine and I take a breath that I try to make slow and even, and then I close my eyes and I call my darkness forward.It comes the way it always comes, not rushing, not violent, just rising, the way water rises in a room with no drain, filling the space inside me from the bottom up until I can feel it pressing against the inside of my ribs and the back of my eyes and the palms of my hands where they are wrapped around my brother's. It is cold. It is always cold. I have never found a way to make that part different and I stopped trying a long time ago. The cold is part of it. The cold is how I know it is real.I do not hate this part of myself.This is also mine. It grew inside me the same way my healing did, without asking permission, and I cannot hate something that is simply part of the shape of me. I have made peace with it.What I have not made peace with is the price.There is always a price. That is the one constant of every blessing I have ev
Third Person POVNeither of them speaks on the way back.There is nothing to say. Jake has June and Lucas has Caleb, and the forest moves around them in the dark while both brothers run with everything they have, and the silence between them is not comfortable or familiar the way their silences usually are. It is the kind that comes when words would make something more real than either person is ready for it to be. They had felt him forty minutes ago. There is no better word for what happens when Caleb's wolf reaches through the bond between the three of them. It is not a howl. It is not a call. It is more like a hand thrown out in the dark, desperate and without direction, just reaching, just broadcasting existence the way an animal does when it is too far gone for strategy. Jake is mid-sentence when it hits him, standing in the packhouse with a map spread across the table, studying the surrounding territories for any clue about where his brother might be. He does not finish the
CalebI have never believed I could lose.That is not arrogance exactly, or maybe it is, but it has never felt like arrogance from the inside. It has always felt like fact. I have been the strongest person in every room I have walked into since I was seventeen years old. I have fought things that should have broken me and walked away from every single one of them, and somewhere along the way that stopped feeling like luck and started feeling like the natural order of things. Like the world had simply agreed that Caleb does not go down.I believed that completely.I still believe it.But something shifted when I found her.My vision blurs at the edges and I blink it back, pressing my palm harder against the wound in her chest, and I keep talking because talking means I am still here and she is still here and this is not over."I used to think it was just me," I say quietly into her hair. "That the reason I never quit, never stayed down, never let anything finish me off, was because of
CalebShe is still smiling.That is the thing that breaks me open completely. June is sitting in my arms with a silver dagger buried in her chest and her eyes half-closed and her heartbeat stuttering under my hands, and she is smiling. That small, real, private smile that I have spent months learning the difference between. The one that means something to her. The one she does not give out easily.It is the most wrong thing I have ever seen in my life.I pull her closer and my eyes tear through the cell looking for anything, anything at all, some solution sitting in the corners of this rotting place that my mind has missed. There is nothing. Stone walls. A dying lantern. Blood on the floor that belongs to too many people now. My gaze keeps moving anyway because stopping means accepting what I am feeling through the bond and I cannot do that. I cannot.Her heartbeat slows by another degree.I feel it the way I feel everything from her now, directly, like it is happening inside my own c
JuneI take a step toward her.And then another.Tanya watches me close the distance between us and something shifts in her expression, the satisfaction flickering, recalibrating, trying to decide what my movement means. She holds her ground. Her chin stays up. She is still operating inside the version of this where she has already won.My fist connects with her jaw before she finishes that thought.The crack of it fills the cell and Tanya's head snaps sideways and she stumbles hard into the stone wall, one hand flying up to her face. She makes a sound that is more surprise than pain, like she genuinely did not expect this, like she thought I would stand there and argue with her about what she deserves and what she does not.I do not argue.I reach for her and she swings back, wild and off-balance, her fist catching my cheekbone hard enough to make my vision blur for half a second. She is not trained. I feel that immediately in the way she moves, all desperation and no form, throwing
AuroraI shift my wrist as far as the chain lets me. It is not enough to free myself. Just enough to remind my body that it still listens to me. Metal scrapes against metal, a thin sound that feels too loud in my head. James hears it. He always hears everything.“What have you planned for me?” I as
LucasArthur is the missing block from the puzzle. I feel it in the way my mind fits pieces together when the picture finally makes sense. Not a big dramatic moment, not a flash of lightning, just that quiet click in the back of my skull where everything rearranges itself and suddenly I can see the
AuroraA hiss slips out of me before I can swallow it back. The sound feels small in the room, but my side burns where something cold presses against the wound. It is a sharp, stinging cold that turns into heat a second later. My fingers curl into the thin bedding beneath me. The fabric is rough an
LucasWhat happens next barely exists as time. It is there and gone, like light cutting across my eyes so fast my brain lags behind it.James moves.The next second his hand turn into a claw.Arthur jerks, breath ripping out of him as James’s arm drives forward. I register the sound before I regist







