EvaIt was completely late, and I hadn’t been called down for dinner yet, so I assumed that I wouldn’t have to. Mealtimes were the absolute worst for me now, mostly because Alpha Cyrus was there, naturally, but also because his entire family would stare at me eating as if it was the most ridiculous/comical thing they’d ever seen. My knees hurt from kneeling for so long, but I felt relieved for having spent my day praying. This was an all-time record because we had other responsibilities in the Convent, so we couldn’t spend all our days praying. It was an integral part of our lives, but we’d limit it to three times a day only, and then privately at bedtime if we wished to. I didn’t have anything better to do, and besides, I was tired of getting lost in my thoughts. Nothing good ever came of it. I walked closer to the window in my room to see if I could get some fresh air. I could see a part of the main entrance from up here, and so I was surprised when I saw many cars parked outsid
Cyrus Despite my infamous reputation, I generally don’t lose my cool. In fact, I prefer to deal with matters coldly so that I can make the best decisions and never be impulsive. I failed today. When I heard Eva screaming, I felt it deep in my balls. Her scream was dripping with panic and fear, and the sound drove me to my feet instantly. I was rushing up the stairs before I even realized what I was doing. When I saw the Alpha’s brother in her room, touching her shoulders, I lost it. I literally saw red. I rushed toward him and my wolf was screaming kill, kill, kill. The world around me blurred, and all I focused on was kicking the asshole’s teeth out of his skull. I couldn’t hear or see anything else, not until I was pulled back by both Cameron and Brock. “Calm down!” Cameron hissed in my ear. “What the hell are you doing!?”I fought against them, wanting to finish the job. I’d never felt this murderous before. Usually, I never killed for pleasure. This time was different.“He wa
Eva I was still shaking by the time that everyone had left my room. I never thought that I would ever experience such violence in all my life! I’d been touched by that man and called a freak, which left me feeling impure and helpless, and to make matters worse, his blood was still splattered on the side of my bed.Marcia tried talking me out of this state, but I wasn’t listening to her at times. I didn’t do this on purpose; I just couldn’t shake that horrible scene out of the forefront of my mind.“What could I do to help you?” she asked me, pulling me from the depths of my thoughts. “Get me out of here,” I suggested. “I can’t do that,” she replied in a low voice. “I feel for you, Eva, I really do, but if it is Cyrus’ wish to keep you here, then you will not be able to escape him. Unless he changes his mind.”“How do I make him change his mind?” I enquired. “This place is a nightmare, and I want nothing more than the comfort of the Convent. It was a part of my life since I was a b
Cyrus Nothing made me more confused than the fact that I just saw Eva smile at me. My brain couldn’t be tricking me to such an extent. First, she was there, and then she wasn’t. Her curtain was still moving though, so at least the part of seeing her wasn’t an imagination. Why would she smile at me when she just threatened to starve herself because of me?That was the part that I didn’t and wouldn’t understand. I went into the house but not with any intentions of going after her. I preferred to leave her be for the time being, because this situation was stressing me out more than anything. I had a meeting to attend concerning those rogues that dared to step foot into my house with hostility, and that demanded my full attention. Cameron was ready to go, and together, we left for the meeting that would be in August’s pack fifty or so miles away from ours. My Beta didn’t say a word to me. I understood that everyone was flustered with the quick changes that happened these past few day
EvaThis morning, I didn’t wait to be called down for breakfast. I went on my own. I could tell by the way everyone looked at me that they were surprised by my entrance. Even the Alpha couldn’t avert his gaze when I sat down at the table, leaving an empty seat between me and his uncle, of course. Marcia brought me another bowl of oats, and I ate it happily. When I looked up from my breakfast, I saw the boy, Andy, watching me. He had a fresh set of bruises on his face, which made me wonder what he did all day to warrant such injuries.The first one to leave the table was Vivian—she didn’t even finish eating. I’d noticed a long time ago that my presence offended her in some way, and my suspicions were further confirmed when everyone glanced at me after she’d left. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. I suspected that something else was wrong and not just my presence here. Even the Alpha seemed to be in a terrible mood.Had I chosen the right day to do this?
Eva I slowly managed to open my eyes, but even that took way too much pain and effort. The sun was glaring down at me, so much that I couldn’t open my eyes the whole way. My ears were still ringing badly, but I could hear more now than I did before. As a matter of fact, where was I?I turned my head to the side and saw some people standing a few feet away from me. I made out heavy black boots and dark jeans. I blinked the blurriness out of my eyes and tried to direct my gaze upward. I saw the back of a man’s head. Panic seized me, as I suddenly recalled how I’d been hauled over someone’s shoulder and lost consciousness. It wasn’t a dream, so this man might be that person. I made a strangled sound as I tried to sit up, and attracted his attention. He wasn’t alone—a woman was standing next to him, one I didn’t recognize. A side of her head was shaved, and the rest of her hair was long and cascaded over her front. Her gaze was cold, and I saw no mercy as she gazed upon me. “Going
Cyrus Pure chaos followed Eva’s kidnapping and the destruction of my property, and I was more than happy to participate in it. I’d caught the man who planted the explosive and tried to drown Eva. Goddess, I couldn’t describe what it was like to see her in that way, her head under the water and those man’s hands pushing her down by her shoulders. It was one of the worst things I’d ever experienced, and for a moment, it almost felt like I was the one who was drowning in that stream. The Luna of that rogue pack unfortunately got away along with everyone else. Some of the Alphas including myself sent Gammas after them, and we hoped we could catch them and make them pay for what they’d done. In the meantime, we burned their pack house to the ground. Because they were a small pack, they only had one house like the rest of us, who had neighborhoods of pack mates. Part of modernizing came with having your own privacy, so we stopped living in pack houses a while ago. It was better to live
Eva I woke up in a bright room, so bright that I had to keep my eyes closed for a few moments so they could adjust.I only needed a few minutes to gather my thoughts and recall what happened to me. What I didn’t know was where I was, or how long it had been since that terrible occurrence. My primary guess was that I was at a hospital of some kind because of how clinical everything looked. I’d been to a hospital once before when one of the priestesses got sick. It wasn’t as chic as this one, but the resemblance existed. I looked around for the patient call and rang for the doctor. A middle-aged man appeared almost instantly, and he was bearing a smile on his face. “Good morning, Eva. How are you feeling? I’m Doctor Steyne, and you’ve been under my observation for a full day.” “A day?” I asked, mildly surprised. He nodded. “You seem to be on the way of a steady recovery. I’m not majorly concerned. I’ll put you on some antibiotics and you’ll be good to go, just to be on the safe sid
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