MaraI stop talking. I’ve reached the difficult part. The part where Johnathan dies. I don’t want to talk about it, much less think about it.But the image is there, forever etched into my brain like a brand.“Mara?” Johnathan asks and looks up from his notebook. “Is that it? Are you done?”I shake my head. “Remember? I told you… I told you that I saw you dead.”He nods and picks up his wine glass. He doesn’t look nearly as worried or afraid as he should be. “We can stop for now. Pick it up tomorrow.”I hesitate, gripping the stem of my wine glass like it’s a live preserver. The premonition plays itself out in my head again, vivid and unbearable, but I force myself to forge ahead. "No. I want to get this over and done with.""Okay," my mate agrees. "Go ahead."“After Rick took me-” I clear my throat in an attempt to get rid of the frog that caught there -“he took me into the mansion. To my father. They had him locked up in the wine cellar.” I let out a mirthless little laugh. “You sa
JohnathanI get up and massage the soft spot below my thumb. Mara’s vision lasted a long time, but I did not expect it to be so detailed. I’ve seen seers go into trances for hours, only to come out of it and give me a useless little vision that couldn't have lasted more than five minutes. Half the time, the biggest challenge for a seer is to come out of the trance.“You did well for your first time,” I say and return to my desk to get my notebook. I tried to write everything down exactly as she told it. I want to keep a record of her visions so I can remind myself from time to time. I used to record seers’ accounts on my cellphone, but I have a tendency to lose my phones. I lock the notebook in the top drawer of my desk, then return to the thick file Douglas sent. I hold the file up for Mara to see. “From your father. Money.”“What?” Mara asks. “The humans didn’t just take it?”“No. Your father was clever. He hid his tracks well. On paper, every penny belongs to a human.”“What human
JohnathanDinner passes rather tensely. Mara keeps shooting me dirty looks, as if she’s just waiting for me to say something in Rose's defence. I decide to keep my mouth shut. The vision is still too fresh in her mind, and we have the uncanny way of self-fulfilling prophecies if we’re not careful.The Rose thing is going to come back to bite me in the ass. I should have sent her back home, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it. She’s a child, brainwashed by a cult into believing that she has to start breeding for the good of her tribe.The Lunae must be desperate if they’re sending their children out to have babies. Their pack was decimated - they probably want to repopulate as fast and as soon as possible.Rose came home with me, but I’m not her Alpha. She did not swear loyalty to me. I'm under no obligation to protect her, and she will never accept my authority over her.Yet, I want to protect her - even against herself if need be - just like I want to take care of every lost child. M
MaraBy the time Johnathan comes upstairs to tuck Gregory in, I’m seething with rage. I didn’t expect to form a friendship with Rose right away, but I didn’t think she’d ask me to share my mate with her. I’m eternally grateful that I didn’t grow up with the Lunae, and for the life of me I don’t know why my mother went back to that place when she had other options. My father gave her money. She could have gone anywhere, and she went back to live with monsters.For Gregory’s sake, I pretend nothing’s wrong when my mate finally shows up. While we waited for him, I gave Gregory a bath and read him a story. We’re now sitting on the floor, playing with his dinosaurs.Johnathan doesn’t say a word about Rose when he joins us. “Are you okay, buddy?” he asks when he sits next to me. “You seemed upset when you left the table.”“I don’t like the new giwl. Mawa says it’s hew sistuh, and she's going to stay hewe now.”“Yeah maybe.” Johnathan crosses his legs under him and pats his knee. “Come sit h
MaraThe door closes with a soft click that sounds louder than it actually is. I’m a bundle of nerves and excitement, filled with conflicting, swirling emotions I’ve never felt and don’t know what to do with. For a moment, the only sound is my breathing - too shallow, too fast. Johnathan doesn’t speak. He just watches me from his side of the room, his dark eyes steady, waiting.He’s always like that with me, always so patient. I don’t know how he does it, and I expect him to explode at any moment, to go back on his promise and take what’s his anyway. Back at Luna school, they always told us that Alphas have ferocious appetites, and we have to prepare ourselves for it. I don’t know if Johnathan’s just different, broken, or has exceptional self-control. He’s not like any Alpha I’ve ever met, read about, or heard about.His quiet patience and understanding is unnerving. It makes me want to scream and cry and, but it almost makes me want to lean into him, give myself over to him in ever
MaraI stare into my mate's onyx eyes. He opened himself to me. Showed me a vulnerable side no one ever gets to see. He trusted me enough to reveal that part of himself, and it had to take a lot of courage for him to let his guard down like that.The least I can do, is give him that same kind of trust.His hands linger on my waist, not pushing, not pulling, just waiting. “Can you tell me what you want?” he asks after a while.I want to do that so badly, but I can’t. I don’t know how. No one ever cared enough to ask me, so I never learned.He cocks his head at me and smiles. It’s like he knows that I can’t say the words. This must be so frustrating for him. Having a sexually anorexic mate who swallows her tongue when he needs her to open her fucking mouth and speak.But he doesn’t seem to mind.“Can I show you then?” he asks, his voice low and soothing. "Tell you what to do?"Numb and mute, I can only nod.His thumbs trace slow circles around my hips, grounding me in the moment, lettin
JohnathanI’m actually impressed by my own level of control and patience with Mara. There’s a reason why I never chose to sleep with virgins, or inexperienced women in general, in the past. They require too much patience - a quality I mostly lack when it comes to sex.But Mara is my mate. She’s special. She’s not just another cum receptacle or a temporary body to warm my bed or company to keep my loneliness at bay.She is my mate. And the memory of her previous mate is still too fresh in her mind. I have to keep reminding myself to be gentle. To be patient.I thought it would annoy me, it usually does, but it’s the opposite. Slowing down, forcing me to concentrate on her and what she needs, grounds me, connects me to her.I settle between her legs and look up at her flushed face. Even though I’ve known it for a few weeks now, even though I marked her, her presence, her very existence, still feels fantastical and impossible.Yet here she is. Lying under me. Beautiful and vulnerable, tr
MaraI climb the steps to my father’s mansion with heavy legs. Haley, my best and probably only friend, dropped me off at the gate because Lucas, my mate, won’t allow me to drive.The guard refused to let Haley in, and I was forced to walk up the kilometre long driveway, while my bruised and battered body screamed out in agony.I haven’t been home in two years. Today is my twenty-first birthday, and my father wanted to see me for the first time since I married Lucas Mattfield - the future Alpha of Red Ridge.I am in a sad state. I’m only allowed to eat once a day - Lucas wants a hot wife - and last night I took a particularly brutal beating. It was one of the worst he’d ever given me, and he laughed the whole time. I think it’s one of the reasons my father refuses to see me. I’m always covered in fresh and healing bruises now, and he can’t stand to look at the thing he had done to me.On the night of our wedding, Lucas took me into the bond room - the place where newly wed couples h
JohnathanI’m actually impressed by my own level of control and patience with Mara. There’s a reason why I never chose to sleep with virgins, or inexperienced women in general, in the past. They require too much patience - a quality I mostly lack when it comes to sex.But Mara is my mate. She’s special. She’s not just another cum receptacle or a temporary body to warm my bed or company to keep my loneliness at bay.She is my mate. And the memory of her previous mate is still too fresh in her mind. I have to keep reminding myself to be gentle. To be patient.I thought it would annoy me, it usually does, but it’s the opposite. Slowing down, forcing me to concentrate on her and what she needs, grounds me, connects me to her.I settle between her legs and look up at her flushed face. Even though I’ve known it for a few weeks now, even though I marked her, her presence, her very existence, still feels fantastical and impossible.Yet here she is. Lying under me. Beautiful and vulnerable, tr
MaraI stare into my mate's onyx eyes. He opened himself to me. Showed me a vulnerable side no one ever gets to see. He trusted me enough to reveal that part of himself, and it had to take a lot of courage for him to let his guard down like that.The least I can do, is give him that same kind of trust.His hands linger on my waist, not pushing, not pulling, just waiting. “Can you tell me what you want?” he asks after a while.I want to do that so badly, but I can’t. I don’t know how. No one ever cared enough to ask me, so I never learned.He cocks his head at me and smiles. It’s like he knows that I can’t say the words. This must be so frustrating for him. Having a sexually anorexic mate who swallows her tongue when he needs her to open her fucking mouth and speak.But he doesn’t seem to mind.“Can I show you then?” he asks, his voice low and soothing. "Tell you what to do?"Numb and mute, I can only nod.His thumbs trace slow circles around my hips, grounding me in the moment, lettin
MaraThe door closes with a soft click that sounds louder than it actually is. I’m a bundle of nerves and excitement, filled with conflicting, swirling emotions I’ve never felt and don’t know what to do with. For a moment, the only sound is my breathing - too shallow, too fast. Johnathan doesn’t speak. He just watches me from his side of the room, his dark eyes steady, waiting.He’s always like that with me, always so patient. I don’t know how he does it, and I expect him to explode at any moment, to go back on his promise and take what’s his anyway. Back at Luna school, they always told us that Alphas have ferocious appetites, and we have to prepare ourselves for it. I don’t know if Johnathan’s just different, broken, or has exceptional self-control. He’s not like any Alpha I’ve ever met, read about, or heard about.His quiet patience and understanding is unnerving. It makes me want to scream and cry and, but it almost makes me want to lean into him, give myself over to him in ever
MaraBy the time Johnathan comes upstairs to tuck Gregory in, I’m seething with rage. I didn’t expect to form a friendship with Rose right away, but I didn’t think she’d ask me to share my mate with her. I’m eternally grateful that I didn’t grow up with the Lunae, and for the life of me I don’t know why my mother went back to that place when she had other options. My father gave her money. She could have gone anywhere, and she went back to live with monsters.For Gregory’s sake, I pretend nothing’s wrong when my mate finally shows up. While we waited for him, I gave Gregory a bath and read him a story. We’re now sitting on the floor, playing with his dinosaurs.Johnathan doesn’t say a word about Rose when he joins us. “Are you okay, buddy?” he asks when he sits next to me. “You seemed upset when you left the table.”“I don’t like the new giwl. Mawa says it’s hew sistuh, and she's going to stay hewe now.”“Yeah maybe.” Johnathan crosses his legs under him and pats his knee. “Come sit h
JohnathanDinner passes rather tensely. Mara keeps shooting me dirty looks, as if she’s just waiting for me to say something in Rose's defence. I decide to keep my mouth shut. The vision is still too fresh in her mind, and we have the uncanny way of self-fulfilling prophecies if we’re not careful.The Rose thing is going to come back to bite me in the ass. I should have sent her back home, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it. She’s a child, brainwashed by a cult into believing that she has to start breeding for the good of her tribe.The Lunae must be desperate if they’re sending their children out to have babies. Their pack was decimated - they probably want to repopulate as fast and as soon as possible.Rose came home with me, but I’m not her Alpha. She did not swear loyalty to me. I'm under no obligation to protect her, and she will never accept my authority over her.Yet, I want to protect her - even against herself if need be - just like I want to take care of every lost child. M
JohnathanI get up and massage the soft spot below my thumb. Mara’s vision lasted a long time, but I did not expect it to be so detailed. I’ve seen seers go into trances for hours, only to come out of it and give me a useless little vision that couldn't have lasted more than five minutes. Half the time, the biggest challenge for a seer is to come out of the trance.“You did well for your first time,” I say and return to my desk to get my notebook. I tried to write everything down exactly as she told it. I want to keep a record of her visions so I can remind myself from time to time. I used to record seers’ accounts on my cellphone, but I have a tendency to lose my phones. I lock the notebook in the top drawer of my desk, then return to the thick file Douglas sent. I hold the file up for Mara to see. “From your father. Money.”“What?” Mara asks. “The humans didn’t just take it?”“No. Your father was clever. He hid his tracks well. On paper, every penny belongs to a human.”“What human
MaraI stop talking. I’ve reached the difficult part. The part where Johnathan dies. I don’t want to talk about it, much less think about it.But the image is there, forever etched into my brain like a brand.“Mara?” Johnathan asks and looks up from his notebook. “Is that it? Are you done?”I shake my head. “Remember? I told you… I told you that I saw you dead.”He nods and picks up his wine glass. He doesn’t look nearly as worried or afraid as he should be. “We can stop for now. Pick it up tomorrow.”I hesitate, gripping the stem of my wine glass like it’s a live preserver. The premonition plays itself out in my head again, vivid and unbearable, but I force myself to forge ahead. "No. I want to get this over and done with.""Okay," my mate agrees. "Go ahead."“After Rick took me-” I clear my throat in an attempt to get rid of the frog that caught there -“he took me into the mansion. To my father. They had him locked up in the wine cellar.” I let out a mirthless little laugh. “You sa
MaraWhile I spoke, Johnathan wrote everything down. There’s a small frown between his eyes as he reads back. “What did Rose do?”I shrug. “I don’t know.”“But you told Kahn things with her didn’t work out.”“Yes, but I don’t know what she did. I suppose it still has to happen.”He puffs his cheeks up and slowly blows the air out of his lungs. “Fucking premonitions. I now kind of want to kick her out, but I don’t have a reason.”“That’s what you’re worried about?”“Yeah. We can stop Donovan. Now that we know she’s coming, I can go get Haley before she comes here, make sure she’s safe.” He keeps reading, the frown between his eyes deepening. “This doesn't make sense to me... I'm not the kind who'll just discard a pregnant she-wolf like that.”I shrug. “I guess a lot of shit’s gonna happen between now and then.”He nods and pours a glass of the spiced wine for himself. “Can- can the future be changed?” I ask.“Yes, that’s the whole reason the Goddess sends premonitions, so we can alter
** TRIGGER WARNING: Infant death. **MaraSix months after Donovan joined Haven’s Crest, Haley showed up here alone. I saw her when she entered town, coming over the mountains. She was haggard, her clothes torn, and clearly starving. She was at the end of her pregnancy and could barely walk.I was surprised that she hadn’t given birth yet.My first instinct was to attack her. She had taken my mate. Caused my banishment. But then I saw it for what it really was. My pride. She wasn’t a danger to me. If anything, the tables had turned, and I was now a threat to her. She did me a favour, really, and the least I could do in return was to make sure she was okay.I had forgotten all about the threat Donovan made all those months ago. He had become a part of Haven’s Crest, and Johnathan paired him with a new Alpha called Luther. They were always off in the forests somewhere, training with their new squad. Johnathan wasn’t with me when Haley showed up. Like everyone else, he was preparing for