~Carmine~The moment Melody stepped into the room, every single eye turned to her. The room, which had been filled with the low murmur of conversation, grew silent in an instant. She was hard to miss. She wore the designer dress like she’d been born to wear it, her long dark hair cascading in soft waves over her shoulders, almost like black silk against her skin. Her eyes—those dark, expressive eyes—were downcast, but I could tell they held immense fear, one she tried desperately to hide behind a mask of calm. She looked...striking. Beautiful, even. Not that I cared for the sentiment. Beauty was a distraction, and distractions were a liability. Still, I couldn’t deny that her presence stirred something in the room. Every Alpha, every single one of them, had their eyes glued to her, and I could sense their curiosity—and hunger.Then Santos leaned in, his usual playful smirk in place as he whispered something in her ear. His lips barely moved, but whatever it was caused her to stiffen
~Mel~The world felt frozen, like I was caught in a dream—no, a nightmare. The room was empty now, except for Carmine and me. My heart thundered in my chest, each beat echoing in my ears as I stood there, blood staining my skin, my dress, my very soul. Russo’s body was still on the floor, lifeless and cold, yet the memory of his death clung to the air like the sharp scent of iron. The reality of it was suffocating, and my breath hitched as I struggled to comprehend what had just happened.I couldn’t move. My legs felt like they weren’t my own, too heavy to obey, too frozen in terror. Every inch of me screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go. His grip on my wrist was firm—too firm. There was no escape.“Lie on the table and spread your legs.”His words echoed in my mind, cold and commanding, sending a jolt of fear straight through me. My body trembled, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I was trapped. Bound by a promise I had agreed to in desperation, by the power he wielded ove
~Mel~My paws pounded against the earth as I tore across the land, the heavy thudding of my feet echoing in the vast emptiness around me. I fought against the tight knot of confusion in my chest, the foreign feeling gnawing at my control, trying to settle into something that resembled... regret? No. That wasn’t it. I wasn’t capable of regret.What the hell had stopped me?The memory hit me again, like a slap to the face. The moment I’d pushed into her, I’d felt it—her body recoiling, trying to force me out. The pain was evident, her fear intoxicating. Normally, I thrived on that. I took what was mine, her pain meant nothing to me, but the way her body had reacted—my wolf had kicked against it. Refused to keep going.I growled low, picking up speed, the frustration building with each stride. The more I tried to shake off the feeling, the more it rooted itself into me, spreading like a wildfire I couldn’t control. It wasn’t pity. I didn’t pity her. It couldn’t be that. I wouldn’t allow
~Mel~The wind whipped around me like a storm, tearing at my clothes, pulling my hair in every direction. I was in the center of it all, completely helpless. It felt like being in the eye of a tornado, but there was no calm—just chaos. My heart raced as the whirlwind intensified, and someone’s voice, distant but urgent, pierced through the roar. "Melody! Make it stop!" I spun around, trying to find the source of the voice, but I couldn’t see anyone. It was a female voice, familiar yet strange, but I couldn’t place it. "I’m not doing this!" I screamed, the words nearly lost in the howling wind. "I don’t know how to stop it!" The wind only grew fiercer, and the voice became more desperate, louder, pleading. "Please! You’re killing me!" "No!" I shouted back, panic swelling in my chest. "I’m not doing this! I don’t know what to do!" The pressure around me increased, closing in on me, crushing me. It felt like everything was spinning out of control, and I couldn’t breathe. My lu
~Mel~“You don’t value what you have until you lose it.”I don’t like to assume but I am sure out of a thousand people that would have just read that line, at least seventy of them have heard that, maybe even lived it. Unfortunately…I fall into that category of the latter and it all happened because of two reasons. One. I got infected with a virus. Some people call it love. Two. I didn’t listen to the one person who saw that virus for what it was at the very start. A vile infestation that was eating away at my brain, slowly destroying every ounce of sensibility that I had in me, until it led to this point.“Melody, do not walk away from me. I am talking to you.”The wooden flow creaked beneath my feet as I stomped through the house trying to get away from her but she just wouldn’t stop.“Melody!”I finally stopped turning back to face her, my eyes burning with anger, “What? What do you want me to say? That I agree with you? That I think he is wrong for me? Because I do not. I love
Three Years Later~Mel~I stared at myself in the mirror, particularly at the scar that would always be a reminder of a time in my life when I had trusted so blindly. No matter how many times I wished, hoped on the moon goddess that my life would have ended with Hannah’s that night, it never came true.“Hey. Hurry up in there.” I snapped back to reality, blinking away the tears that had become a daily routine for the last three years. Everything went black after that moment the silver bullet went straight into me. It was meant to kill me but instead, it ended up killing my wolf so here I was, half of me lost forever and the other half broken. Nothing was the same after that. My mother sent me away to my father in another country to continue schooling. In her words it was to protect me from going down the road I was on that would end with me getting killed.Well I was almost killed. I should be dead. I wanted to be dead.The loud banging came again making me remember where I was or w
~Mel~“No.”Every single head swiveled in my direction as the word left my mouth. I struggled to stand to my feet, taking in a deep breath while trying to steady the heavy pounding of my heart, I repeated, “No.”“I do not care what he did to you or whatever the fuck this is. No one is dying.”A look of surprise so faint crossed Carmine’s face that I would have missed it if I wasn’t staring dead straight into his eyes. He had gotten to his feet, turned his back on me and began to walk away after giving the death sentence.Now, his eyes were back on me. We stared at each other for a moment. I didn’t know what I was doing or where the courage had come from but I was just done. With everything. With everyone.“Melody,” Nathaniel’s faint voice filtered through the air, “Please stop.”I found myself instinctively backing away when I noticed that Carmine was working back towards me. One of his eyebrows rose, “No? You do not care?”His eyes went back to my father on the ground, then returned
~Mel~In a spiral of what felt like a second, everything changed.Carmine stared at my father with so much ice in his gaze that I shivered. “Count yourself lucky as the only man to ever experience mercy by my hand.” Then, without another glance in my direction, he walked away.My hands were yanked the moment he exited the door, and I was dragged away. There was no time for anything—no goodbyes, not that I had anything genuinely to say to Nathaniel. No time to take any of my personal belongings.Time seemed to blur after that. The numbness took over as the car sped through the city. My heart pounded as we drove through iron gates, revealing a mansion that looked like something out of a gothic fairytale. Tall, imposing, with dark, ivy-covered walls—it was less a house and more a fortress.My eyes widened in awe, but there was hardly any time to process just how magnificent the place was. The man who had threatened me yanked me out of the car, dragging me up the stone steps and through t