NOAHI stared at the note, dumbfounded.Theo wouldn’t do this. It just wasn’t possible.“That’s his handwriting,” dad whispered.It was… but the message wasn’t right.“He physically held the pen, yes… but he didn’t write that message.”Dad glanced at me, eyes concerned.“Can I see it again, Noah?” Ava asked, voice low.I nodded, passing her the paper. She read it again, before stopping and pointing about half way down. “This isn’t right. Theo wouldn’t say this.”“Theo wouldn’t say what?” Dad asked.“Theo and I have… shared girls before, dad. That’s happily shared too. Me being in the group wouldn’t be a problem. It would have been more believable if he’d said Callum or Oscar were the problem, but not me.”“I agree, Jacob,” Ava replied. “I’m sure you don’t like hearing about your sons’ sex lives, but I completely agree with Noah.”“Theo was also happy. He was working with the rest of us to plan something to apologise to you, Ava, to make up for pushing you away.”At that comment, I saw
Three days until the full moonAVAThe next morning, Callum and I still hadn’t stopped arguing. The four of us went for breakfast together in the packhouse dining room, and as soon as we walked in, mine and his auras were so overpowering it suffocated the room.I managed to drag mine back in, as did Callum eventually, but you could still feel the anger that surrounded both of us.Callum was completely convinced that the only way to approach the issue was for me to hide for the lead up to the full moon and the day itself. That absolutely was not going to happen, and for some reason, he just couldn’t understand this. Neither he or Ares would hide away, so why he expected that I would was a mystery.At no point did I say I’d go on my own. He could even stick to me like glue the entire time, I just absolutely was not going to hide away.“Ava!” a feminine, excited voice shouted from across the room. My mum.I smiled, jumping out of my chair and running towards her to wrap her in a hug. We
AVA“AVA!” Callum shouted, his hands on my shoulders, shaking me. “Fuck, she's not breathing.” He sounded really far away.I felt Oscar and Noah drop to their knees beside me, each of them holding one of my hands, Callum’s hand stroking my hair.“Come back to us, Ava,” Callum whispered, tears in his eyes. “Please, come back to us.”I suddenly snapped awake, sitting up so quickly I headbutted Callum in the face.“Ava! You're okay!” He flung his arms around my neck, not even caring that blood was streaming down his face from where my head collided with his nose.“Fuck,” I whispered, voice hoarse. “Water, please,” I mumbled.Noah and Oscar helped me sit up whilst Callum grabbed me a bottle of water. Apparently we were back at the training ground.I sipped it slowly, soothing my sore throat.“What happened?” I whispered.“You blacked out, Ava. You suddenly stopped, your eyes clouded over, and you collapsed. You screamed as if you were in pain, and stopped breathing.”I rubbed my chest; th
AVAOnly two trains ran through Matthew's territory at that time, none in ours and only one in Eclipse Mountain. Much more workable!“What next, my Queen?” Oscar asked.“Well, my King. We go for a run.”He raised one eyebrow. “To where?”“Eclipse Mountain,” I smiled.The room was silent as if I'd said something unexpected. “We can tackle the one train route in Eclipse Mountain quickly. They are also fiercely loyal to me and so are loyal to you all, which means they'll lend me warriors to speed up the process of checking Matthew's territory.”“Ava… why not use our warriors?” Noah asked.I met his eyes, my face stony. “Because we've got a leak.”Their mouths all fell open.“How do you know?” Oscar asked.“Matthew knows things he shouldn't know. They must have an insider here, and until I know who, I don't trust anyone.”“Alright then,” Noah replied. “We go to Eclipse Mountain. When do we leave?”I pulled out my phone, checking the time. “It's a five hour run with no breaks to Eclipse M
Two days until the full moonAVAI woke up in a tangle of sated bodies, but it wasn't right. It wasn't right without Theo. I still felt like something was missing.We all went for a run before breakfast, which definitely wasn’t as relaxing as normal, thanks to the security escort Michael had insisted upon… and by the time we returned to our suite, the room had already been made up and handmaidens must have picked our outfits for the day… including my heels and tiara.I groaned when I saw the ‘casual wear’ that had been laid out for us. The men had dark blue chinos with black formal shoes and shirts, each in a different colour, whilst I had a blue chiffon cocktail style summer dress with black heels. Fortunately the tiara laid out with the outfit was a delicate one, as close to casual as it's possible to be… but it's still a tiara.“You look amazing, my Queen,” Callum smiled, taking my hand and spinning me around. “This royalty thing suits you.”I rolled my eyes.“He's right, Ava,” Osc
AVAThe run back to Blood Moon was faster this time, we managed it in only four hours. But that will be because part way back, I felt Theo being tortured. There’s nothing like the feeling of your mate being tortured to help you somehow run even faster.We set up my twelve warriors in one of the guest houses, one nicely close to the pack house in case we needed the backup quickly. I’d agreed with Callum, who was essentially my head of the Queen’s Guard, that I’d have two warriors tailing me at all times, not including him.I could deal with that.With everything that was going on, being tailed by two warriors is hardly a concern. I was planning on insisting each of my mates had a tail too once my Queen’s Guard was fully in place. They wouldn’t like it either, but they’d have to learn to deal with it.Until they didn’t, I’d keep knocking them on their asses in training.Of course, we hadn’t told Jacob and Alex yet that I’d brought twelve Lycan warriors back with us from our adventures,
AVATo summarise, it’s two days before the full moon. And it’s not early in the day either, it’s nearly 11pm.According to the Moon Goddess, Selene, that’s when shit is going to get serious.There are two psychopaths that want to forcibly mark me. One is the Rogue King, the other is the brother of the Beta female of a pack that’s not even that close to ours. They both believe that if they forcibly mark me, any future pups of ours would be all-powerful, help them take over the world… and whatever else power hungry psychopaths want.They’ve heard the legends of the Alpha Queen, and most likely interpreted it wrong.I’m still missing one of my fated mates. He's been captured by the power-hungry psychopath who wants to forcibly mark me and is being kept somewhere in a basement near a train line. We’ve still got about fifteen miles of train line to search, and it’s in a territory we’ve got to sneak into so we don’t immediately start a war.At the same time, our pack’s Alpha has been kidna
One day before the full moonAVAWe searched the territory for hours. Callum, Alex and I plus our warriors finished first and drew a blank, so we all pushed out to help Noah, Oscar and their teams search the forests.By the time we finished, we’d been going for six hours and it was the middle of the night. On the day before the full moon. My stress levels were through the roof already, and I knew that was only going to get worse.But not just for me.Noah’s parents were missing, his brother was missing. He needed me that night, and I didn’t have any issue with that whatsoever.We might not have had long to rest in between problems to solve, but I’d give him whatever I could. As soon as we reached the bedroom I had set up in the packhouse, we stripped off and fell straight into bed, wrapped in each other’s arms.“I love you, Avelina Wroblewski,” he whispered in my ear.“And I love you, Noah William Hughes.”His smile was like a kid on Christmas. His hands moved until he cupped my face