Alpha Zane's POVAdalia treasured weighty, sagely aphorisms. One of her favorites was, "One who hesitates is lost". It was as simple as it sounded, at least to her. It was her belief that hesitation destroyed progress. It was just common sense.But as they say, Common sense is not common.These were her last words to me. One who hesitates is lost.A hundred years later I found myself thinking about this particular saying again. And it was only then that I began to quite understand why she loved that statement. Or maybe I had just found a new meaning to it.One who hesitates is lost could also mean that one who finds himself lost should not be in a rush to make a move but lean back, hesitate, to figure out the next step.This was something I never did. In fact, I hated doing it.I, personally, never believed in using weapons to kill. I preferred a more direct, hands-on experience. I was a monster by design so I did not care much for using swords and knives to do what my claws and fang
Freya's POV My eyelids fluttered open, heavy with the lingering effects of the drug that had been pressed into my nose the night before with a handkerchief. My surroundings looked like my eyes were still closed. The room was a blur of darkness, and my ears were filled with a strange, almost imperceptible droning noise like the distant hum of a hive. I tried to make sense of my surroundings, but my mind was still foggy. "Ugh." I groaned as my hand touched something mushy and sticky beside me while I tried to get up from my lying position. Startled, I jerked upright, my brain reeling as I slammed my head on something hard behind me. "The fuck is this?" "Food. And you ruined it. Took me a great deal of time and effort to prepare." A lilting, crisply accented voice muttered, a faint edge of annoyance evident in her tone. The hairs on the back of my neck rose upon hearing her voice. I crouched immediately, ready to shift if need be. "Who are you?" My hypertuned senses would normally
Freya's POV It was deathly quiet. The weighted silence stretched into an eternity, broken only by the faint beating of my heart in my chest and the hearty cracking of the fire in front of me. Gertrude and Darius stood over me, their faces expressionless, their eyes fixed on my seated form. I could feel their scrutiny, like a weight pressing down on my chest. Time stood still as I waited, my breath suspended in my chest. Nothing. Just silence. "Yeah…no. This is not working either." I suddenly spoke up as I finally tore the smothering blanket of quietness in the cave. Someone had to say something. The silence was too damned suffocating. And yes, this method too. Failed. I was tired. I needed sleep. My back arched worse than it did after all me and Zane's passionate sessions put together. That was, frankly, insulting to me, okay? I needed this to stop. I was pregnant for fuck's sake. "The issue does not lie with any of our methods," Gertrude noted. "It lies with her. She ha
Freya's POV For a moment, I was frozen. Which was ironic, in a way. I had always thought of Gertrude as cold and immobile, but now I was the one who couldn’t move. I saw why Gertrude made us run. And the reason only fueled my intense loathing for her even more. How dare she? And there I was, naively thinking it was her way to help me relax and stave off the gnawing uneasiness back in the cave. Now that I thought about it, I could see how stupid I sounded. "Get her some clothes, Tuin," she whispered to the lad that led us in. My eyes took in my surroundings. The room seemed to blur as I struggled to absorb all that I was seeing. It was like I had entered a strange still life in black and white, with males, females and pups arranged around the room like living corpses, waiting to die again, their faces thrown into stark contrast by the flash of a lightning bolt through the small windows. What was this place? She cleared her throat with a discreet cough, her gaze darting around
Freya's POV "I'm-I'm so confused. How are you here? " My whisper was harsh and hurried. "I tailed the rogues when they kidnapped you, my queen." I exhaled loudly, my hands running through my white t. "Explain everything to me right now. And be careful not to omit even the most ordinary or subtlest detail." "I will most definitely do this, your highness. But not at the expense of your safety. I need to get you someplace safe first." "How are you going to go about that?" My words were frenzied. "For now, I must–" "Luna?" Gertrude's voice, though faint and sounding faraway cut into my words. My sharp ears could already hear the crunch of small rocks under her feet from a distance. "Where are you? Freya?" Her voice was sounding louder. Oh no. Fuck, she was getting closer. I looked at Krayne, who was checking for possible ways for us to escape without her sighting us. I knew that there was no way. I sighed, hating that I was having to do this. I gathered enough saliva on my tong
Freya's POVI think I used the wrong word.She didn't come to me. "Come" was too gentle a word. Too elegant.She, more like, staggered into my thoughts, the vision of her as vivid as day, her eyes wide with agony, her body wracked with sobs and slick with sweat and tears. The pain from her was so intense, it consumed me even from the inside out. I could literally taste the stench of her suffering on my tongue.I really looked at her.She looked exactly like me. Her face was the perfect reflection of mine, her eyes the same shade of blue, her hair the same shade of white. It was as if I was staring at myself in my dressing mirror.She was my spitting image. I was told that we looked the same but I wasn't expecting us both to look like fucking clones of each other. This extraordinary coincidence filled me with a sense of unease. How could fate be so broken, to bestow upon Zane such a twisted blessing?At first, it was only her I saw. Then the vision broadened to reveal that she was laid
Freya's POVThe rogue, Darius had left us to our "bitchy devices". He didn't mind as long as it brought him more steps closer to ruining "the fucking pussy that called himself the Lycan King of Adivaine."Which happened to be my mate, in case you hadn't noticed.So we were here. We sat on the couch as I tried to reach Adalia again while Gertrude was proving herself really not useful since she seemed perfectly content in distracting me with questions that only served to upset me further."We could talk about it, you know?"I released a puff of white air from my nostrils. The air was bitterly chilly that morning and yet for some reason I felt warm. So warm that I did not wear any protective clothing to shield me from the cold despite how Gertrude nagged at me and almost forced me to put on layers upon layers of her own clothing. You know, the "consider the little one in you" talk.The unborn child had survived much worse. It had a resilience of its own. Even if the worst happened to me
Freya's POV I had an old power. An old power that even Gertrude, the killer of mothers and the layer of curses, or anyone else in the whole of Adivaine could only dream of having. The prophecy was the only way for me to access that power. Gertrude said this to me on the first day I fought against having the prophecy fulfilled by my own hands. "I can't identify what power it is that you have but I know that you know this, feel this." She said this with so much conviction I briefly wondered if we switched bodies sometime in the past without my knowledge. I sure did feel a lot of power. To sleep. Take that moment for example, I had yawned no less than a hundred times since I began trying to reach Adalia again. And by "since" I mean thirty minutes ago. Darius scoffed and watched me with narrowed eyes, his expression a battleground of annoyance and amusement. "You really do feel sleepy, don't you?" He asked. It seemed like a trick question so I didn't deign to answer it. I was much
Faster! My wolf kept urging me.The young, fair headed female beside me kept her head bowed as she escorted me out of the courtyard to my escape. We walked awkwardly in silence. Or maybe I was just the one feeling awkward. Whatever.The guards nodded their heads dutifully as I passed them. I noted this with some unease that I knew would never fade away.I was still much unused to this…"publicness". After living in the shadows all my life, even the smallest glimmer of spotlight could blind me."My lady!" The child next to me gasped and I whipped around, my senses immediately on high alert."What is it?" I saw no danger, just the blue azaleas that lined the porch and the wide stretch of trimmed green leading up to my destination. The only living things around were the guards standing so perfectly still under the burning sun."Tell me, what is it?" I inquired harshly.The child looked scared for a second. "I'm just—I wanted to ask you to slow down your pace, my muscles felt ready to tear
Zane's POVI shifted back to my human form. Fully naked, I stretched out my wrist. Using the sharp edge of my claw, I sliced it open and let the dark red blood pour to the ground. Then I crouched low and pushed my wrist over Nylf's mouth. The poor thing was barely alive in Freya's trembling arms.A taste of my potent, Lycan blood was so powerful it could bring him to life. But then, it could also be too powerful.Lycans and vampires were similar this way. We gave blood to give life. Only in this case, I could really kill my own pup, or bring him back to life safely. Let's see what happened.Like I said. I had been alive long enough to know when a werewolf was dead.Nylf wasn't.The wound I created was healing up fast. "Force his mouth open, Freya." She did. No doubt with some supernatural strength. The pup's jaws were locked tight.My blood dripped into his mouth as the wound closed up. Nothing happened. His mouth was still hanging open. Then he gulped weakly.That was enough for me.
Freya's POVMy eyes reluctantly fluttered awake.I don't know if it was the silence or the insistent prick in my neck that woke me up.Judging from how my hand swatted away the paper that was crumpled and formed a pointed edge against my neck, the latter option was more probable. I fiddled with it a bit and traced the lettering on it.B U N W E L T A R U S O O DWhat was this?I knew one thing for sure. It was Zane's handwriting.A few questions sprung up in my mind. Like why had he decided to wedge this small parchment near my neck? And more importantly, why had Zane written gibberish?I crumpled it back and threw it off the bed, settling on the easy explanation that I was experiencing a momentary brain glitch as I had just woken up.The soft rustling sound of the paper hitting the carpeting was loud in my ears. This made me aware of how…noiseless the room was.The silence was strange. Too strange.At any slightest movement from me, Zane would have called out and said something by no
Gertrude's POVWe were on the run.Fugitives, rogues, we were labeled by anyone within a thousand miles.A grand bounty had been placed on our heads. One hundred bars of pure gold and an honorable seat among the members of the royal court.This was fantastic news for deltas, omegas and gammas who never got a chance to enjoy the benefits normally accrued to only Alphas, Betas and Lycans. They were avidly on the lookout the most. And these particular sets of werewolves were everywhere.The search was hot against us.So, fueled by zero to two scattered hours of sleep and the top diet of acrid-tasting mango nectar with live squirrels or wild mice since two weeks ago, we ran and hid and ran again.We never stayed anywhere for longer than two nights. Three at most if the packs were filled with mostly geriatric werewolves whose teeth had already fallen off due to age and were too old and useless to do anything that the rest of them were tiny child helpers.The latter option worked. For a whi
Freya's POVA stream of curses poured out from his mouth as he pumped into me with slick, deranged slaps, the front of his thighs hitting the backs of mine in a pounding rhythm.His one hand fisting my hair viciously, the other gripping my right hip, claws digging into my flesh and drawing blood, his cock thrashing my insides while he released depraved sounds that only threatened to topple me over the edge of my climax. No, I wasn't going to scream. I needed to be fucking obedient to his rules.I bit my lip until I tasted copper spreading over my tongue. I was struggling not to scream and bellow and cry and howl my lungs out in acute pleasure.It was fucking hard. I was fighting everything in me to hold on enough to keep grappling at that control even if it meant losing something as inconsequential as blood.I had to do this. I needed to do this. To keep myself from exploding around him. To obey him. But I was in a losing battle, and I was a fucking liar. I was not going to obey him a
Freya's POV Unlike before, now we were both in the bathtub. And not really getting any bathing done. I was the main culprit. I couldn't keep my hands off Zane, and he let me. Though, that was proving quite difficult now that he had positioned himself at my feet. I needed him closer. "Zane." I called him. "You're way too far from me. Just come back to me, I want to feel you some more. Please?" I asked solicitously. "Shhh, Freya. Feel the night. Enjoy the silence." Feel the night. I let out a brief laugh. Sometimes I forgot that Zane was over a century old. "Why feel the night", I asked, "when I can feel you, Zane. Allow you to feel me." I slowly spread my legs apart for him to see where I really needed him to feel me. He was quiet as he stared at my pussy. It was slight but I saw his impassive gaze slip for a fleeting moment before he pulled it back on. I didn't miss how his eyes darkened before he bowed his head and swiped my inner thigh with the cloth in his hand. After that
Freya's POVMy legs were water. I couldn't use them anymore than I could use my vocal cords. My voice had left me due to all the screaming from about thirty minutes ago.I was in the bathtub of his study soaking up the warmth of his familiar musk-scented bath that he had drawn for me before he left the room. He left to do his cursory check of the palace and keep appearances as the mate who was tortured because he wasn't able to see his Luna.What was taking him so long anyway? Quite a good chunk of time had already passed.I closed my eyes and sunk into the bath and sighed as I let my muscles relax. Needless to say, I was so deliciously sore. I played back the events of the night in my head again and I felt my face spreading with a smile. I was so perfectly wrapped up in bliss I almost forgot my fears. Almost.I saw them again. Krayne's eyes. My eyelids flew open that very instant. Doing that was useless, I didn't need to open my eyes to escape seeing his eyes. They were still there.
Zane's POVMoans, cries, grunts, skin hitting skin, Freya's wet white hair sticking to her skin that was slick with sweat.Her claws had scratched me every part of my skin she could find. The resulting pain only served to sharpen the raw pleasure that bloomed thick in me….and if I wasn't careful, would burst prematurely.She was too intensely aroused. And this is me putting it mildly. Very very mildly.Her pussy juices were leaking out of her in gushes and dripping down onto my study desk. This was making her slide up and down the desk, her perfect tits bouncing in my face.I watched her go. Her glossy blue eyes were rolled backwards so properly only the whites remained while I railed her without mercy. Gods, she was incredibly beautiful.I pinched her swollen, hard nipple just a little but it was hard enough to send her eyes flying open and her gasping. This soft action contrasted sharply with how hard I was fucking her. "You're forgetting something, sweetheart. Do you remember what
Freya's POVHe didn't move to kiss me at first. His whiskey orbs ping-ponged both of my eyes like he was searching for something. I always wondered what he wanted to find whenever he looked at me this way. My mind flashed back to our first intimate moments that happened in his brooding nest after meeting in the woods that fateful night I tried to escape this castle. I wasn't his mate then. Just Darius's sex slave.He looked at me the same way he was looking at me now. Hopeful? Maybe. I wasn't sure. It was almost as if he was convincing himself to face the reality–which was no longer brutal or haunting but….me, his mate– and let down his defenses. That it was okay. That I was here. That he didn't have anything to worry about. That he didn't need to hide from me. That he was never going to go rabid as long as I was by his side.I watched him for a moment then I let out a little sigh. I figured I needed to make a bolder move to initiate sex. So, I unlaced my fingers from his neck and ste