CyrusI was sick and tired of this shit.Kolton Underwood was officially one of the worst people I’d ever encountered. It wasn’t even that I’d seen him commit some gruesome crime because nothing he could do to another human being would scare me. I myself happened to be a ruthless man, and I had to do some things to people when I became Alpha, people who were after me and my position. People who wanted to fuck me over and drag my family name through the mud. I wasn’t proud of those things, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t do it all over again. I wouldn’t let anyone take away what was mine, and I was someone who would always fight till the death. The reason why I said Kolton was horrible was because of his cynicism. If I wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t stand me before, I was sure of it now. Yet he kept me close and always tried to make sure I was comfortable. He’d send his daughter Leonora to my room to find out what I wanted but I knew it was all a tactic. He was hoping I would fall int
EvaNox’s kisses were taking me to a place of no return. They were all I could think of. Even while kissing him, all I could think about was kissing him. What sense did that make? His body was flush against mine, and his lips claimed mine in a dizzying way. Whenever his tongue darted into my mouth, I felt weak in the knees. If it weren’t for his arm around my waist, I would’ve fallen by now. The more he kissed me, the more I wanted. All sense fled my mind, and all I could focus on was this, regardless of whether it was wrong or not. I grabbed his shirt and kept the material tightly in my fist. Feeling the skin underneath his shirt was exhilarating. Any contact between us was otherworldly. And the longer I kissed him, the more I wanted…more. Only kissing wasn’t enough. Things escalated fairly quickly. When his hand slid under my shirt, I knew we were reaching a point of no return. My resolve was already weak, and my instincts were taking full control of the situation now. These wer
NoxHaving Eva in my arms was a feeling like no other. For nights, I’d been dreaming of this moment. I fantasized it every time I found myself distracted. Everything I was wished to claim her, and now that she was here with me, with her fingers in my hair and her tongue submitting to mine, I felt like I was in heaven. I picked her up and carried her to my desk. I would’ve taken her to my room but it was too far and anyway, I had no privacy there. The walls were too thin, and it was too close to other rooms. Earlier, I had sensed her hesitance. But this time, there was none. I put her down on the desk, my hands roaming her body. She was so perfect. I couldn’t stop touching her. I slowly peeled her shirt off her body. Eva raised her hands, assisting me in undressing her. What was this newfound change? Where did it come from? As I asked myself this, I realized that I wasn’t a proud man. On the contrary. She’d rejected me earlier right when we were in the middle of things but I didn’t
EvaWhat could I say? I was happy with the decision I made to accept Nox. I gave into the whims of the bond. And the truth? I was never happier. I felt this deep connection with Nox that was unmatched. And after we’d consummated the bond, I felt even closer to him. This made sense. We made sense. I glanced at him. We were in his room, as we saw no sense in us sleeping separately. He was asleep; he’d fallen asleep the moment we got here. I wished I could have fallen asleep but I was too excited. Something else was keeping me awake, apart from the excitement. It was guilt. I was thinking about Cyrus a lot more now, particularly because I needed to find out where he stood amidst this. I’d made some claims earlier about loving him and they were stuck with me. Was it true? Did I love him? Right now, I would have to say no. I didn’t even know what came over me to say such a thing. My relationship with Cyrus was a rocky and complicated one. I didn’t want him until my heat forced me to
CyrusWhen the next day started, I didn’t know just how badly it would have ended. There was still no news of Eva, and honestly, I was starting to think that Kolton was merely tricking me into staying here for some twisted plan. Did he even have information on Eva? How did I know that he and that rogue bitch could be trusted?What if Eva was never spotted here and I was just wasting my time? Confronting Kolton about this would lead to nothing. I only had two options: Getting the fuck out of here or seeing where all this bullshit would end. I couldn’t recall a more tedious time of my life. I felt like I was wasting away in this place. There was so much work to do back home and I was killing time here without the certainty that Eva would be alright. As a result of my thoughts, I was in a terrible mood. I went to grab breakfast downstairs like I usually did and came across Leonora. The sight of her sickened me, for some reason. I acted like I didn’t see her—she was walking toward me—b
EvaI handed the phone to Nox and he broke it in half. It was a flip phone. I didn’t even know how he had one of those. They were so ancient. “Everything okay?” he asked me. I nodded even though I wasn’t sure if I meant it. Was I okay? When I spoke to Cyrus and heard how happy and desperate he sounded, I felt like a terrible person. I’d let this go on for so long, and now I’d broken his heart in the worst way possible. I could’ve said more to him, but Nox warned me that the longer the call was, the easier it could be traced. So, I had to keep our conversation short. He was probably confused, but I hoped he would get the message. And anyway, I felt better now that I’d told him it was all over between us. “Let’s go, then.”We were standing on top of a building on the other side of town. He left the broken phone right where we stood, and together, we went down. Vic was in the car waiting for us, and he drove as soon as we got in. Nox kept holding my hand. Nothing was said in the c
EvaNox arrived very late in the night. "Awake?" he asked when I turned around to look at him. "Yeah, couldn't sleep," I revealed. He crawled in bed next to me. His scent was so therapeutic. I shoved my face in his chest and he held me tight. "How was everything?""Things are going as planned," he simply said. "We've got everything sorted out for tomorrow."Tomorrow. Since it was around two in the morning, it still felt like it would be in two days. I was terrified of this event. Nox was definitely risking his life by doing this. Things might not go as planned. He could die. That thought made me sick to my stomach. "What's wrong? You're tense.""I'm not necessarily excited about you doing this," I answered. "There are risks involved and I know that man's reputation by now.""Don't worry about it," he said dismissively. Saying more would make it seem like I was negative and didn't have much faith in his plan, so I kept my lips sealed. My doubts and fears wouldn't help him, I kne
Cyrus Now that everything was organized, I felt more optimistic. I had my crew here with me, and it was only a matter of time before I found Eva. Kolton was oblivious to this, of course. I didn’t want to declare war openly. But I was done waiting for him. It was clear that I wasn’t going to go anywhere. I had a meeting with Brock and Cameron, so I left in the morning, keeping an eye out for spies. I saw them right away—they were always in a small red car. It was like he didn’t care if I noticed what he was doing. I had a plan of my own, though. There was an underground parking right off Silver street, and I would be using it as a diversion. Cameron was waiting for me there in a car, which had tainted windows. That way, they would never figure out where I went or how to catch me. Ditching them would be easy. I’d rented an entire building just to keep the members of my pack there. According to Brock, they were here with a hundred guys. Each of them would be circulating the street
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