SORAYAMy mind was blank and my face felt like it was on fire. I had the strongest urge to dig my nails into my face and peel it off. I'd cried too much and the salty tears had dried, leaving streak patterns on my face.I thought back to when I was pregnant. I looked at my bump everyday and told myself repeatedly that I had made a mistake. For the first five months I struggled on my own, working menial jobs to pay the hospital bills. I was super depressed, considering the fact that I was separated from my second mate. I focused on building my hatred for Xaden. But no matter how hard I tried, there was still a part of me that wanted to wait for him. Celeste had told me lies about him. I was pregnant with a strong hatred for Xaden. It was hard to forget about everything at once. I loved Xaden from the minute I met him. The attraction between us was strong and soon enough, we were all over each other, as mates should have been. But now I was being punished. Punished for getting down a
SORAYAI groaned as the man dragged me out of the room and shoved me into the open chilly air..I shivered a little because of the change of temperature.“What's going to happen to my daughter?” I demanded but the man responded by pushing me into a black SUV parked in the corner.As soon as I got in, a paper bag was wrapped around my head, restricting some of my air flow and plunging me into darkness.I heard the doors of the car close and my mind began to race. It didn't help that I couldn't see anything.I was starting to think this was a bad idea.Trusting strangers was obviously a bad idea but I had been pushed into a corner and had honestly been hoping they'd keep their end of the bargain but judging by their rough handling, I was starting to rethink my stupid decision.“Please, let me go. I did as you instructed.”I pleaded again but neither of the people in the car said anything. It was radio silent but that didn't deter me at all.“Are you listening to me? Please, say something
SORAYA“That is not a good enough reason to be yelling at a child, Jeremy. And she's Xaden’s flesh and blood, his daughter. Not yours!” I spat, still trying to wrap my head around what was going on.“Where the hell was he when you needed him? When you fucking went into labor, when she took her fucking first steps? I changed her dipers, and took turns with you to make sure she was okay the fucking times she got sick. Now you allow him to fucking come into our lives like he fucking deserves it?” His voice boomed through the entirety of the house, doing nothing but scaring Kaylee even more. He was traumatizing my daughter and I hated him for it.“I told you not to bother with all those things then didn’t I? I told you it was something her father was supposed to do and I didn’t want you to feel obligated to raising her. And you know why? Its fucking because of this…” I screamed back, enough was enough now. I was tired of all of this. I gritted my teeth in inexplicable rage and fury. He sm
XADEN“What are you doing?” I asked the two huge looking men who were walking towards me with an iron rod. They both grabbed my arms, shoving me out of the house and dragging me into another room.“Shut the hell up!” One of them growled, raising the metal rod to strike me. “Where are you taking me?” I demanded, trying to get out of their hold but failing horribly.“I said, shut the hell up. Are you deaf?” The second gritted out, striking me with the rod again.“Fuck!” I growled, trying not to scream at the impact. He was purposely hitting the pressure points in my body that hurt to death.“One more word from you and you are dead, do you hear me?”“Fuck you!” I spat, ignoring the pain that roared through my body, both physical and emotional.I was still trying to wrap my head around what had happened and I still couldn't believe what Soraya had done. She left me.“You best watch your mouth before we watch it for you,” the first man spoke again, this time holding a baseball bat. He swu
XADENHospital. I fucking hated that word, much less the place. It was the last place I wanted to be right now. I was sure it wasn't going to mend my broken heart.Dax panicked - well, as much as a 6’3 bodyguard could panic – as he fished his phone from his breast pocket. I grabbed hold of his arm, pulling, barely. I didn't want to go there.“I’m fine…” I managed to choke out even though I could barely keep my eyes open.“Fuck no, clearly you're not.. Your vitals are something else. Your heart rate is low, don't even get me started on your breathing. It's not normal and you're losing consciousness and fast…” his words sounded muffled. I could barely make them out. I shook my head slightly, refusing at all costs to go anywhere that wasn't home.Home I thought I would end up sharing with her.“What did they even do to you man?” He hissed, propping my head to his chest. His fingers pressed the side of my neck, barely above where the injection sunk in.“Tran…tranquilizer,” I strained, fo
XADENI was on my feet before he could say anything else. I headed for the door, a second later I heard footsteps following and as soon as we got out of the warehouse, Dax was on my side.He didn't need any commands from me. He already knew what we were to do.I got into his car, to the passenger's side as he brought the car to life and drove to the location. My heart thumped violently in my chest. With the drugs wearing out, I started to see how stupid I had been to believe that she had left me on her own without the possibility that the fucking kidnapper could have gotten to her. Whatever it was, I prayed silently that they were okay.We arrived at the location, a white mansion that was completely opposite to the place I had booked for us came to view. My heart pounded even faster as we approached. This didn't look like a place where someone in distress would be."Stay sharp," Dax whispered to his men, his eyes scanning the perimeter.I nodded along, my focus solely on finding my m
SORAYAThe tears did not stop and I didn't want them to.An old sage from my early years, used to tell me that the more you cried, the faster the pain felt could be flushed away, because the tears were like a flood, sweeping away pebbles and scarps of pain.But if that was the case, then the pain in my heart was a massive boulder, because no amount of tears shed seemed to work towards flushing them off.I writhed and squirmed and retched, but none of them worked towards even doing a dent in the boulder of pain that filled my heart.No.This wasn’t a boulder. It was an iceberg.I could feel its cold, tips sharpening as the tears passed through it, creating an iced dagger that sliced right through my heart and caused me to spasm.“Now, love. You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” a voice from what had to have been heaven reached out to me, yanking me from the abyss of depression I was falling into.That was when I began to recollect my surroundings.Car…arms…Xaden.I was with Xaden.“I
SORAYA“Life isn’t black and white, Sora…” he told me, his voice etching with so much wisdom, I was compelled to listen.“You see, Jeremy had a mate…Isabelle. As a mate, they were inseparable. They quarreled a lot and were always going for each other’s throats, but at the end of it all, your mate is your mate, you know…” Xaden shrugged.“She passed on a couple of years back and it’s a miracle that Jeremy is still alive now,” Xaden sighed.Oh I see. So…the fact that his mate died, justifies his psychopathic imprint on me? I still didn’t get it and I made my confusion very clear to Xaden.“Relax, love…I’m getting to the part you wouldn’t believe…which is where you come in,” he shook his head.“Where I come in?” I quirked my head in an even greater confusion than I already am in.“Yes,” he stroked my face, getting rid of rogue hair strands that clouded my vision and didn’t allow me to see him properly. “That day, when I saw you for the first time, I was struck with a crippling feeling of
SORAYA ONE YEAR LATERSo this was what bliss felt like. It was everything I had heard it would. A mate whom I had gone through hell and back with, a daughter we both would give our lives for without hesitation and a happiness that knew no bounds.Xaden was the mate he had promised me he was going to be. “Earth to Soraya…” I heard him whisper in my ear. His hands held firmly against my waist. I didn’t realize when he got so close to me. “What’s wrong, love?”Nothing is.I turned around to face him and met his gaze. “Sometimes, I still feel like she's going to show up.” I answered. I knew she was gone, there was no way she could have survived the poison but still, at the back of my mind, there was once in a while this nagging feeling. Xaden sighed and shook his head, cupping my face as he did so. “Have I given you any reason to feel so?” I shook my head. “Nothing, and absolutely no one is going to come between us again. I love you, Kaylee and our little boy…” he said as he dropped on
XADEN“Of course not. I loved you Evan and I really wanted to be with you. Killing you was completely Malcolm’s idea. He wanted the connections that came with being married to Xaden so he forced me to go along with all of it. I felt like I had no choice, you really have to be believe me Evan.”I couldn’t help but chuckle at the load of bullshit she was spewing all in a bid to save her worthless life. Hopefully this Evan guy saw right through it.“You loved me?” He asked and I felt my blood boil at what a stupid question it was.“What the hell are you doing Evan? You can’t possibly believe that Celeste ever loved you!”“Let her speak!” He bellowed. “Come here Celeste. You really wanted to spend your life with me?”I could only watch in anger as Celeste made her way to him, holding him in a warm embrace as she spewed more lies.“I’ve spent every minute of everyday thinking about you since Malcolm had forced me into that heinous act. I’m really sorry I wasn’t bold enough back then to spe
XADEN I thought to myself as I tiptoed slowly to get a good idea of whom it was, she was fighting with. The fella seemed to really be in quite the sour mood but I was still unable to make out the voice clearly. I decided that there was no point sneaking around, I hastened my steps and headed straight for the living room.Upon opening the door, I was greeted with the sight of the kind of vermin I never thought I’d ever have the displeasure of seeing again.“What the fuck are you doing in my house?! You sacrilegious sack of shit!” I yelled as I found Jeremy in my living room, about to pounce on Celeste.“Xaden!” She screamed. “Be careful, he’s gone completely crazy! He keeps saying...”“Shut up Celeste!” I snarled. “You did this! How could you let this unrefined buffoon into my house?”“What did you just call me?!” He turned to face me and I finally got a good look at him. He looked dastardly, almost inhuman as he was beginning to appear like some unholy alchemy of man and beast.I kn
XADEN It had been almost three days since I’d heard last from Soraya and I could feel the fear, slowly creeping in. It was unlike her to stay radio silent and even on the days she didn’t feel like talking, she would always try to send a message at least.I looked at my watch and saw that it was past 7am already. Three days and not a peep, it definitely wasn’t looking good. I went for a quick run, in the hopes of clearing my head. I didn’t want to entertain the wild thoughts that were beginning to plague my mind.When I got back to the house, Celeste was already waiting in the kitchen. I had been hellbent on avoiding her all week and she was almost never awake this early in the morning. I winced, knowing I’d inadvertently walked into a well calculated trap. “Good to see you can still show your face.” She spat out derisively. “I thought you finally decided to run after Soraya like the lovesick puppy you’ve proven to be.”I steadied myself, choosing to remain calm and silent as I too
EVAN“I honestly can’t believe this. Celeste actually tried to have you murdered because she wanted to be with Xaden?”“To her, I was simply an obstacle. A mere nuisance that she had to get rid off so she could enjoy the splendor and lifestyle that came with being married to a man like Xaden. She poisoned me while I was asleep and thinking I was dead, her father bundled me into his car and they drove deep into the woods to bury me. When I came to, I tried to beg Celeste for help. That was my biggest mistake. They pummeled me with their shovels till they thought I’d stopped breathing and buried me in a shallow grave.”I took a deep breath and looked up at her. She seemed completely lost for words. “You shouldn’t look so surprised. I mean, she poisoned your two year old daughter. Such a person is capable of doing anything.”“I know Celeste can be ruthless but I always thought she became this way over the years. This incident happened more than ten years ago. I’m just surprised that she’
EVAN“That’s what the nurse said but I doubt there’s much you would be able to do for her.” She said in her tone that was completely crippled by fear and resignation.“Well, this is an hospital ma’am. Why are you so certain that we would be unable to get her the help the needs?” I asked, doing my very best to sound as genuinely oblivious as I could. I was fishing for information and I didn’t want to spook her just yet.“I know you won’t be able to save her because this has happened before and the doctors who attended to her then were just as clueless. All they did was stabilize her but it was only a half measure. Without the antidote, she wouldn’t be alive for long.” As she spoke, I could feel the weight behind every word, the immense gravity behind each statement and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for all the pain she had to be going through in that moment.“Well, I’ll advise you don’t give up hope just yet. Things like this always have a way of working out in the end.”“I don’t need
EVANEven as I held on to the hospital file, I still found it hard to believe what I was reading. The file had the biodata as well as the personal information of a two year girl who was rushed in on account of a terrible high fever and loss of consciousness of a one day duration but it was the name of the patient I found most intriguing.Could it really be possible? I looked through the name again as bewilderment washed over me, Kaylee Sinclair. I flipped to the page that had the information on the parents and primary care givers.The father was a Xaden Sinclair and the mother, Soraya Summers. I couldn’t help but feel a bit jittery as a wave of excitement surged through my entire body, filling me with an immeasurable sense of glee.If this turns out to be accurate, then my opportunity had finally come.As I leaned against the counter of the nurses’ station, I went through the previous bloodwork of the patient, trying my best to make sense of what I was reading but I still couldn’t get
CELESTE “He fooled you, Celeste. I, on the other hand was a fool for ever thinking you were competent enough to get anything done.”“There’s no way I could have known. How can you possibly blame me for this?”“I don’t give a fuck how you get information from Xaden but the least you can do is verify and make sure it’s at least authentic before sending me on a wild goose chase.”“What’s done is done Jeremy. The blame game isn’t going to do anyone any good. She could be anywhere, so I suggest you had better forget about her and best move on.”“What’s done is done? Is that what you just fucking said to me?” He asked in a much tamer and colder tone. It was more unnerving whenever he spoke like this compared to the yelling and shouting.“There’s nothing that can be done. Xaden isn’t going to give up the information. They could be anywhere in the country. Even if they were still in the city, which I highly doubt, it would still be almost impossible to find them. So what can you do?”He rema
CELESTE “Your intel was complete horse shit! Are you trying to fuck me over Celeste? We had a deal!” Jeremy’s voice rang out angrily as I switched the call to hands-free and tossed it on the bed.“What the hell are you yapping about? It’s fucking 8am in the morning Jeremy. Who even calls someone this early in the morning?” I asked sleepily as I tried to find my morning voice.“Well, unlike you, some of us have to work for everything we own. We don’t just get rich through blackmail and manipulation.”“Watch your fucking mouth Jeremy! You don’t speak to me that way. Instead of being this much of an insufferable prick, why don’t you tell me what’s gotten your pants in such a twist?”“Wow! Look at the millionaire growing wings all of a sudden. You’re now telling me how and how not to speak to you? Insane!”“Please why did you wake me up so early? I need to get back to sleep!”“I guess it’s easy for you to sleep when you’ve got everything you ever wanted. So you feel you can now screw me