NOVAA young warrior named Dash stared at me through the bars of my cell with an awkward smile on his face. "Would you like something to drink, Ms. Laurent?" he asked for the tenth time.I sighed. "No, thank you. I know that you're trying to be nice because Eric told you to stay by my side, but you don't have to." I was sitting on the stone ground, and my body had already stiffened. The only thing I wanted was to get out of this prison, not get comfortable.The warrior stepped closer to the bars and frowned. "I'm not doing this because I have to, Ms. Laurent..." Then he lowered his head and gave me a guilty glance. "My brother was one of the warriors you saved in the hospital. If it weren't for you, he could have never walked again... just like the former Alpha Heir…"I moved closer to the bars and smiled at him. "I hope that your brother has recovered well.""Oh, yes!" Dash laughed. "Our entire family will be forever grateful..." His final note turned flat as he swept my cell with hi
NOVAThere were more than a dozen of them, and everyone moved toward me. I could see blood from fresh kills still dripping from their claws and fur. They were looking at me with eyes filled with bloodlust. It was obvious that they were the ones who killed the warriors from the Moon Blade Pack. Now they were going to add my body to the pile of bloody corpses.The invisibility spell took a lot of my energy. I needed to plan my fight wisely. I needed to choose between attacking them or defending myself with a shield. Casting both types of spells at a time would only drain me soon…I breathed deeply and observed them approach me. A few of them licked their mouths and teeth, looking at me as if they were going to feast on my flesh. My whole body trembled. There were too many of them, and I didn't know too many spells powerful enough to fight them. Was there even a chance that I would defeat them?One of them was larger than the others. He acted like a leader, gesturing for the rest to come
FELIXFifteen hours earlier"What do you mean you've lost contact with your group?!" I'd been yelling at Moon Blade Pack's Gamma Zane for more than fifteen minutes, and my fury and anxiety only rose. "I fucking sent Nova into the woods, so they could take her somewhere safe! Now your men are nowhere to be found, and Nova can be alone in a highly dangerous territory!""Change your fucking tone, Felix!" Zane snarled. "I've dispatched some of my best recruits to retrieve the one YOU promised to keep safe! Luna Aria is freaking out right now, and YOU are the only one who can find out what the hell happened out there! I suggest you get your men and check the damn situation yourself!" He killed the call, and I smashed my phone against the wall. It might not be the wisest thing to do at that moment, but my emotions were too uncontainable to leave room for reason.My heart painfully pounded against my ribcage, as if it wanted to punish me for the choices I had made in the last few hours. Even
NOVA I needed to process the facts... Asriel was a lycan, and not just any lycan—he was the Lycan King. He had Maren, and, as I assumed, many witches like her, by her side. Well, I shouldn't be surprised. I saw a glimpse of his warlock power at the club, and I knew that he could have killed that girl nearly effortlessly. Moreover, someone as egocentric as Maren called him Master... That fact alone forced me to wonder if Asriel wasn't capable of wiping out at least half of the Earth with a snap of his fingers. From what I knew, the leader of the lycans was the one responsible for the constant killings on the Crimson Mountain Pack's borders. That meant that he was merciless and brutal… I had seen how he fought against all those lycans—he ripped their bodies to shreds. Then he walked over to me and caused me pain as if it was nothing. Thinking about it filled me with all kinds of anxieties. He said he had a reason to cut me. What kind of sick reason could that be?! Furthermore, why did
FELIXMy team continued the search until sundown. I walked around the entire forest and scanned every inch of the cave, but found no signs or traces of Nova. The only thing my warriors discovered were a few extinguished furnaces filled with ashes and bone parts. I guess we now knew what happened to the bodies that left their blood all over the forest. I sensed the remains of different smells, but there was no magnolia scent among them. When I became certain that there I felt nothing indicating that Nova's body had been burned there, I collapsed to my knees, thanking the Goddess for leaving me the thin ounce of hope. But as time went on, keeping my grasp on that hope became harder and harder. Finally, we had to terminate the search and go back to Scarletville. It was the only rational decision I could make. Nonetheless, it didn't make my choice any less painful."You need to consider the possibility that Nova is already dead." Eric had become my cruelest voice of reason. "You said it y
NOVAI couldn't sleep. It wasn't only because I wasn't used to staying in a place where no rays of sun wandered throughout the day, and no moonlight brightened the rooms at night. Who could have slept well after hearing what I had heard from Asriel?I was lying with my eyes open, staring at the dark ceiling. My heart hammered painfully against my ribcage, causing my hands to rest on my chest as if I needed to keep them there to stop my poor blood pump from bursting out.My thoughts and emotions were one huge, hot mess. Everything I thought I knew before I found myself in this fortress now needed to be revisited and revised, using a healthy dose of common sense at that. The problem was, my rationality had always been in conflict with whatever my heart felt, and this situation wasn't any different…I could establish one thing with absolute confidence: the conflict between lycans and the Crimson Mountain Pack would soon turn into a bloody war. Asriel and Felix would stand on opposite sid
NOVAI stared numbly at the newspaper article with a header saying, "A just end for the wicked witch." I might have found it amusing if reading it hadn't filled me with raw bitterness. I saw the so-unflattering picture of me—a picture surely taken by one of my patients at the hospital—and a short statement below, telling that I had escaped from the prison after an attempted assassination of Alpha Heir's mate and that I died at the hands of lycans in the woods outside the Crimson Mountain Pack's territory.Then I flipped to the second page and saw a large picture of Felix and Lya. Felix's hand casually rested on Lya's back, and her hand delicately touched Felix's other forearm. They were smiling, resembling an ideal loving couple. More bitterness flooded me."They must have found your blood in the woods," Asriel speculated. "I wanted your scent to be found by the rebels…" He hesitated for a moment and then added, "I apologize."I peeled my eyes off the newspaper, my lips stretching int
FELIXThat was the right thing to do, or at least that was what I told myself. I took Lya's hand, and we came to Rainier and Alpha Val to settle the wedding. I still felt a strange affection when I looked into Lya's eyes, but it was different now that I knew she was not my mate. It still puzzled me if she was aware of it though. She kept looking at me with her bright eyes, and I could almost feel the warmth each time her plush lips curled up, blessing me with a smile. Something pricked my heart every time I saw that happen. Unfortunately, telling myself that whatever I felt had been induced by magic wasn't helping. Distance helped. That was why I insisted on planning the attack as soon as possible.Perhaps literary running away from my problems wasn't the noblest thing to do, but according to Cassandra, the faking-bond spell had a limited life span. If I could avoid Lya until the spell lost its power, the problem would miraculously disappear. I couldn't wait for that to happen. Once I