"You are so beautiful, sweetheart." My mother gushes around me, puffing my dress and making sure my hair is in place. She is dangerously close to putting a little tiara on top of this."Beautiful or not, it won't matter much."I have a bad feeling about this and the closer to the naming ceremony we get, the faster my heart is beating in my chest. It's like my body refuses to move. With all the Alphas, the pack hating on me while the prophecy of the Moon Goddess predicts the possible end of the world, I am a bit... stressed."They won't start throwing stones at you, Rose. Whether they like it or not, their Alpha made you Luna and they will respect that as they respect and follow all his orders. Isn't this the law of their kind?" My mother tries to soothe me, but I can sense that she is hesitant to go to the ceremony too.My grandma has to knock on the door, warning that we would be late to make us move.So just like that, full of dread, but also high hopes, I take my seat, at the very e
"Forgive me, my child. For all that you suffered, I am to blame." The Moon Goddess stands, surrounded by darkness, so lonely on the night sky."Is my mom... my grandma...?" I ask first, unconcerned with anything else."Your brave grandmother was hurt, but she survived.""What happened?""People are complex beings. I gave all my children free will to do as they see fit. So their actions, their decisions, have just as complex reasoning. Your grandmother may have been loyal to the pack and the old ways, but that loyalty held no weight in front of the love she feels for you. She thought protecting the pack was a way to protect you, until she saw how her pack hurt you. So when her former Alpha attacked you, she shifted despite her age and jumped to kill him. She managed to hold on enough for you to run away, but was hurt while doing so. The Beta was there and took her to the medic. She will survive. Your mother was unharmed." the Moon Goddess explains calmly, and it feels like a mountain w
"Hello." I am hesitant to say anything else as I don't know who else is with her, but my mother recognizes my voice immediately and bursts out crying. "I'm ok. I really am."I reassure her, but in fact, I start crying too. All the pain that this mess has caused everyone that I love. All this pain that they didn't deserve just because I was naive and I thought I could trust him. He showed me who he was. For all our lives, he showed me time and time again who he is as a person and I was stupid enough to think that the mate bond would miraculously transform him into something else."Is it her?" Someone asks in the background, but my mom can't answer through the sobs so she just passes the phone. "Rose? Oh, my dear, are you alright? Are you safe?"Her voice is weak and she's on the verge of tears too. It takes me a bit until I can answer."Yeah. I'm safe now. It's a long story." I manage to explain in between loud sobs and I hear her sigh in relief."Are you hurt? Do you need anything? To
"What did you just say?" I ask, thinking I heard him wrong."It's a complicated story. But the gist of it is that I am the son of the current Alpha of the BlackBlood pack and all that comes with that title." Damon repeats himself slowly, giving me the chance to process."So the BlackBloods...""They are alive and well. Quite thriving if you ask me. At this point, taking into account the number of members and the territory they control, they are the biggest pack in the world.""But... you said the Moon Goddess... she... you said that you're in the middle between a werewolf and a rogue. And now you say you are an Alpha?" I ask, more and more confused by the entire thing."Well yes. The BlackBlooods themselves are a bit in the middle as they allied themselves with the rogues. Since I ran away from the pack, I am even more like a rogue. But I was never properly exiled. I assume my father still hopes I will come to my senses and become the heir that he desires. All for the good of the pack
I sit next to Damon as he introduces the rest of his people to me. I try hard to memorize the names and the faces, but I already know I'll fail miserably. In total, there are about twenty people. Not all live in the house, but in the neighboring houses too. The street is rented by Damon. Apparently, he opened a business with medicinal herbs and stuff like that when he first arrived in the city and it grew into a pretty profitable thing over time. His knowledge of plants from the rogues of the Amazonian forest helped him. That is how he met Diana, as she was a rogue healer in the first city he ended up in after running away. The rest came with time, happy to join his cause instead of being forced to work for his father."We welcome whoever wants to join after we check their background. Of course, since we are all part of a resistance, if you want to call it that, we don't trust people easily. But we try to protect them if we can." Damon explains."Except for you. Cause you know, you we
#Caroline's perspective#"Luna, the Omegas have arrived safely in the city. There were no rogues on the way." Lola reports as I get ready to join the afternoon training. I missed the one in the morning to deal with all the Omegas business as my dear husband was too busy, locked in his office, obsessing over finding that useless half-breed."Good. Did you tell the men that we sent into the city not to attack them? The entire thing is already problematic. If the other packs find out we also hunted them, we would be even more humiliated.""They received their orders. A few of them inquired when they would be able to return to the pack?"I bite my tongue to not curse Axel out loud. We spent all our money on impressing the guests and he managed to screw the ceremony so badly that we got no alliance out of it. My brother barely managed to convince his Alpha to accept the initial proposal, barely saving our skins. And in this situation, he sends half of our forces into the city to look for t
I scream in my pillow, but I'm not sure why. Embarrassment? Butterflies? Guilt?How will I even face Damon tomorrow after the disaster from earlier? And what the hell happened earlier? Was he really leaning down to kiss me or was it my imagination?I take a deep breath. Not a chance I will clear the mess in my head on my own so I call my mom. Big thanks to Damon for the untraceable phone he gave me after dinner. Apparently, one of the guys, Robert is a technical genius."Mom... How are you?""Hello, sweetheart. Your grandma introduced me to Spanish telenovelas. What about you? Something happened? You said we should limit contact." She answers and I can hear in the background my grandma asking about me too."I know I said, but Damon said this phone should be fine and I really need to talk to you.""Damon?" I can hear her going into another room and closing the door. "Rose, please tell me where you are or with who. I'm dying over here...""I couldn't earlier. I'm sorry. I don't think it
Breakfast the next day is awkward, to say the least.Damon is calm, as always, but I can feel the distance that he put in between us again. Diana seems confused, but is not asking anything and I... I just avoid eye contact with anyone and quietly push my eggs around the plate."A message arrived from the south." Diana breaks the silence finally after going to check the mailbox. I rise my eyebrow at the normal looking envelope with a stamp and she smiles. “We have a system with our spies. Some use phones, some mail, others farts in the wind and smoke signals if they need to. Whatever is safer.”"If it’s good, go ahead. If it's bad wait until I finish my coffee." Damon answers looking at the letter with so much distaste. "Then chug it already, because it's about one of our inside men."He sighs and finishes the entire mug before he takes the letter that Diana was holding. His frown grows deeper and deeper until he ends up throwing the paper away and cursing in a low voice."What happen