Cyrus My despair to find her was palpable, and I was starting to infect everyone around me with my awful mood. The thought that something terrible happened to her drove me to the brink of madness. And now that I was starting to contemplate that perhaps those rogues had something to do with this, and I regretted not having crossed the border and ending them once and for all. It had been hours since she went missing. Hours. I followed her scent to a certain point before it disappeared into thin air. There were tire marks on the ground, so I assumed that she was put into a vehicle and whoever took her drove off. They could be anywhere by now. I contacted the Alphas around us immediately. I would need their help to find her, and I was pleasantly surprised by how efficient they all were. I kept imagining the things I would do when I got my hands on the bastards who took her. I had murder on my mind, and nothing could calm me down. The thought of her being hurt drove me insane. I knew
Eva I didn't know if I should cry or scream or rage or do everything all at once. I realized now that I should have asked the priestesses more questions about what they were saying to me. I didn't understand it; I was so shocked at the moment that it didn't occur to me to ask concrete questions and demand better answers. Everything they mentioned, they did vaguely. I didn't even ask them more about my mother and the letter she left behind along with me. What was written on it exactly?I didn't even have time to think when the door behind me opened. I looked over my shoulder and saw Cyrus. He didn't look as I expected him to—angry at my outburst, or at least demanding answers. He looked hesitant, and wary, and it upset me because why was he putting up such an act? He wasn't like this. "Would you be kind enough to tell me where the hell you've been?" he asked. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. So have a lot of people!”I knew I couldn’t talk about the priestesses sending some
Cyrus All the priestesses were dead. Nobody made it out alive, according to my Gammas. Since the fire occurred in my territory, I was the one leading the investigations. Although technically the priestesses didn’t belong to any pack, I was still their governing Alpha. I didn’t know what to make of this accident. What could have happened? I felt it was too much of a coincidence. To make matters worse, Eva was practically nonverbal. She refused to speak with anyone, and I suspected that something must have happened between her and the priestesses last night because of everything she said about not being accepted there. The problem was that I was finding it hard to connect the dots. As I stared at the burning ruin, I folded my arms and asked Cameron, “What do you make of this? Could it have been an accident?”“Most likely,” he answered. “Who would burn a Convent down? What for?”“I don’t know,” I replied truthfully. If this wasn’t an accident, then there was a lot more at stake. I
EvaI woke up this morning no longer feeling like I had to cry, so that was when I figured out that was going to move on from all of this. At last. I hadn’t been able to breathe properly since I found out about the Holy Lunar Convent. And why would I? That place was my home; the only one I knew. The people who died inside were the only family I had, and in my heart, I loved them even when they didn’t want me there. Cyrus had been showing me a lot of support lately, and I hated to admit this, but I genuinely appreciated it. Without it, I would probably be stuck in the well of tears for longer. I never knew what it was like to have emotional support, or even just a shoulder to cry on. At the Convent, there wasn’t much that made me cry or feel like I needed a hug. I found solace in the Moon Goddess, Luna, and She was the one who comforted me. However, things didn’t feel quite the same anymore. I felt like the goddess had abandoned me the moment I stepped foot out of that Convent. I
Cyrus I felt like doing something, and things never ended well whenever I did. I found myself driving toward the one place that always brought me comfort whenever I was in this state of madness. It didn't matter how long I stayed away; I always ended up going there. One way or another, it was an integral part of me, and if I hadn't become Alpha, I would've been a champion by now. I parked the car right outside the bar, which was named Road House. My hands were shaking a little out of pure agitation as I made my way inside. I pushed the doors open, and after going inside, they swung closed behind me. All eyes turned to look at me, but I refused to look at anyone in the face. I went straight to the bar. Charlotte, the bartender, gave me a look before smiling and saying, "Welcome, Alpha Cyrus. What can I get for you?""None of that shit, please," I said, knocking on the wooden bar with my knuckles in warning. "Get me something strong. Like old times."Charlotte nodded but eyed me wa
Eva We were all in the dining room, waiting for Cyrus' return, when he walked through the doors. I looked up and gasped at his appearance. His face was bloodied and bruised, and he almost looked unrecognizable. Nobody else seemed to have the same reaction as me, but they looked shocked alright. What happened to him?Cyrus sat on the head of the table with a groan. Despite his injuries, he seemed oddly pleased. It was either that, or he was faking it, and why would he do that when he was always so transparent about the way he felt?"Good evening," he said to us all. "You should have started eating without me.""We were worried about you," Brock said. "You weren't answering your calls, and we didn't know if something had happened to you.""Hm," Cyrus said, and it was all that was said for a while. I glanced at his uncle and saw that he was looking at Cyrus with an expression that was...concerning. I was tired of their fighting, and felt anxious whenever it happened. It seemed that t
Eva I couldn’t sleep at all, and I couldn’t figure out why. Mostly, I was thinking a lot about dinner. That scene marked me, for some reason, and I wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps it could be because of how I’d always envisioned families and how the Daxen family contradicted that idea completely. In the Convent, we were taught that families were sacred, and that the members respected and loved each other. We were also told that families were the most important aspect of society, and that without them there would be too many selfish people roaming the earth. Before, I agreed to that blindly. I didn’t know any better; I’d been raised in the Convent, and had never even thought to question my reality. To me, it all made sense, and it never hit me that I was one without a family.But now, that idea was changing. Seeing their struggles made me wonder about the struggles my family probably had. I had to have one at some point, right? Everyone had a mother and a father. For my mother to a
CyrusMy apology wasn’t accepted, just as I knew it wasn’t, but at least it wasn’t sitting on my conscience anymore, just like Eva said. I was glad I’d followed her advice. I had quite a bit of work today, and was dreading it before it even happened because of how much pain I was in. The fight left my muscles aching from the exertion, but for the first time in a long time, I felt alive. Cameron wouldn’t be accompanying me to the Convent, so I went alone. He was more pissed than Vivian even, and I wished I could take the stupid shit I said back, but that wasn’t possible. I hated it when the family was so divided. Then again, we were always like this. It was them against me; always had been. If it weren’t for Eva, I wasn’t sure of what I was going to do with myself. I’d probably keep the argument going and made things much worse. Speaking of which, last night was a breakthrough. I wasn’t exactly sure why I felt that way, but something convinced me of that. We would never go hack to
EvaThe sound of Jace calling me interrupted my train of thoughts. I looked over my shoulder and saw him running toward me, holding something. It appeared to me like his toy superhero was broken again, and he sounded like he was going to cry. “Mommy, look!”I took the toy from him and offered him a gentle smile. “When Daddy comes home, he’s going to fix it, okay? I don’t know how to.”My son looked at his toes and made a disheartened noise in the back of his throat. I knelt in front of him, grabbed him by the arms, and said, “Hell be back soon. He just went to get something.”He huffed an, “Okay.”“Why don’t you sit down and I’ll bring you something to drink,” I said. “What do you want? Some juice? Soda?”“Juice!”Just like that, he was cheerful again, the broken toy completely forgotten. I lured him some juice and snacks, and then he sat down and amused himself with eating. I watched him from the kitchen, happy beyond reasoning. The last few years weren’t easy for any of us—but the
CyrusI stopped in front of the door to the shitty apartment. I knew somebody had to be inside because the baby was crying. I could hear it. They didn’t leave him alone, though. They never would have. By now, Kolton was dead. When Brock stopped me from making the biggest mistake of my life, I’d backed away but not without giving it much thought. He guaranteed me that he would kill Kolton as he should have years ago—the way he said it was a confirmation of everything. Our whole story. The reason why Nox left. Why things turned out the way they did. Nox had been right. It was all Brock’s fault. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that for a while. Now, I was sure that I didn’t hold it against him. It happened a long time ago, and maybe I was too grateful for everything he did for me to judge him for something he clearly regretted doing. Maybe I always knew that Nox was right. Deep down, I’d suspected it. But Brock had always been a solid figure in my life, even more than my parents we
NoxAll around us, there was chaos. I could positively say that neither of us expected an ambush from Kolton. He’d taken everything from me, so what else did he want? He wasn’t here; only his men were. The one thing that saved us was that we still had a few weapons left or we would’ve been screwed. Also, Vivian’s people joined us right on time. I could tell by the way they were fighting that they had been thirsty for Redwood blood for a long time. Men. Women. Kolton didn’t discriminate. He had every able-bodied person in his pack fighting us. The only person that wasn’t here was him. Coward. What else did I expect? He loved to watch shit burn from afar. He always had other people doing his dirty work. “Where are you Kolton!?” one of the guys who had been with Vivian asked out loud as he slammed someone’s knees in with a baseball bat. “Where are you hiding!? Come and face us, you fucking rat!”Could I say we were winning the fight? I wasn’t sure. Many of the people here were strang
Eva I cracked an eye open and saw that the sun had risen. I didn’t move for a very long time. I was so tired. Tired of feeling pain. Tired of having to wake up with horrible memories of the night before. It was then that I prayed to the goddess for strength. I couldn’t do this anymore. There was only so much one could take and I’d reached my limit. For a moment, I lied on the hard rocks of the mountain and wished for death. I’d never done it before because all my life, I was raised to believe life was a gift, but my body was tired of fighting. I wasn’t sure how much time passed. I was fully conscious of everything going on around and within me. The sun was high in the sky but it was a bitterly cold day. I knew that my only solution would be to shift and I had to do it quickly or I’d die of hypothermia. However, I couldn’t find the strength to even roll to my side. Then, something incredible happened. I thought about the baby that had been inside of me—the baby I’d been carrying f
Nox Time was going very slowly in this house of horrors. Someone must have injected me with poison and left me sitting on this bench to die because how else could this burning be explained? No, I remembered now why I felt this way. It was when Vic told me that Eva had been taken that I became paralyzed with shock and fear. Despite all our attempts to make sure she wasn’t recognized and found by Kolton, we lost. The baby hadn’t been taken, and Vic was organizing to have him taken home. He was a healthy boy, so why not? The doctor didn’t have any protests. What it sounded to me was that Kolton wasn’t interested in the baby. If he were, he would’ve been gone too. As for the doctor, I could’ve crushed his skull in with my cane and wasted time interrogating him, but there was just no guarantee that he was the one who even placed the call. Maybe it wasn’t him. In fact, there was a very high likelihood that it wasn’t him but someone else on his team. Maybe one of the nurses. He knew wha
CyrusI couldn’t believe my fucking eyes. Did…did this man just push Eva off a cliff?I looked at him slowly, shock rooting me to the spot. I felt like I was losing my fucking mind here. There was no way that I just witnessed this. I looked back at Leonora and saw that she was walking toward us. I watched her stride past me and peer over the edge of the cliff. She looked around and then nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Good. Now, we can get going.”Something about the way she said those words—maybe it was how casually she said them—made me break away from my trance and race toward her. The man noticed this and immediately rushed to intercede me. Leonora peered back at me with unbothered eyes. Once the man touched me, I made a fist and punched him directly on the face. He staggered backward, getting closer to the edge. It was then that the malignant thought to push him crossed my mind, and I felt every muscle in my body force me to do it. I lunged at him and shoved him as hard as I cou
EvaOpening my eyes was a painfully slow process. I had such a hard time figuring out where I was. Every time my eyelids parted just a little I was being blinded by bright lights. I tried to put a hand over my face but found that I couldn’t move. Why was this so familiar to me?I also had this feeling like I was moving even though my feet weren’t touching the ground. It was so strange that I felt a sense of urgency that helped me insist on opening my eyes despite the brightness. I looked to my left and saw someone grabbing the side of the bed I was on while looking straight ahead. This person was wearing a dark denim jacket and a beanie. I didn’t recognize this person. Then, I looked to my right and saw shoulder-length hair and a familiar build. Cyrus?The fear I felt was enough to make me open my eyes wide and realize that I had to get away from him. I tried to turn on my side and felt a lot pins and needles all over my body. I felt no pain, so that was the good thing. However,
Nox Fear was a living, breathing thing inside of me. I couldn’t focus on anything else other than getting Eva to the hospital safely. At first, it hadn’t been an option. We all knew how Kolton was well connected to the hospitals in this city. It was the one place where he had the chance to catch his enemies in a vulnerable state. However, Eva hadn’t regained her consciousness and she was still bleeding. It was enough blood to stain her clothes but at least it wasn’t like she was hemorrhaging. Even so, we didn’t know what was wrong with her and Kyra didn’t know how to help us. I wasn’t going to risk her life. When it came to keeping her safe and healthy, I was ready to face anything. Besides, there was a chance that Kolton wouldn’t know about this. “Hurry up, Vic!” I said, agitated. He was in the wheel and I was behind with Eva. Ursula was in the front seat. Only one car filled with our people was following us. It was crazy how our numbers had been reduced so drastically. Sweat w
EvaA few hours earlier...Nox had been getting better and better with time. In the first week, he could only stand, now, three weeks later, he'd been taking several steps without falling. He claimed that he was now feeling sensations in his legs, which meant that he was finally healing. This was a miracle. I was so busy helping him that I barely noticed the time flying. Every day was an accomplishment and I was so proud of him. My heart swelled with pride. Nox wasn't a quitter; every time he fell, he'd get back up. It was so inspiring, watching him achieve this. It brought tears to my eyes every time I thought about it. Everyone was happy for him and supported him in any way they could. It was great to see everyone working as a team. It was clear that they respected him very much. All his fears concerning people looking down on him because of his condition disappeared and I hoped he understood that he was wrong. We never talked about it, though. It was better to leave those fears