Sophia’s pov.“Explain to me how this goes again?”I raise my head from the cup of tea I'm nursing to look at Alora. She looks dead serious, and I sigh because I did say I wanted to see her. I AM happy to see her.“Remind me Alora, how old are you again?” She scoffs and directs a glare at me,“Old enough to know what needs to be known. I’m not lily pure. I’ve done… things too. I’d just like to know how this works. This particular situation you’re in.”I sigh again, because I did ask for her. I don’t want to make her feel the way I did last time. I need to build trust with her, so here goes nothing.“When two wolves discover they are mates, usually a male and female, but it can be different, no one can tell how the bonds the moon goddess will forge might manifest… but when two werewolves discover they are mates, their bond drags them to make a decision.It’s not like it’s imperial they make one at that moment. No, that decision can be delayed, and it can be one or the other, accepta
Caelum sits and it’s like everything about him is different today….There’s a shine to his skin. A glow to his eyes. A deeper darker tint to his hair.I squirm in my seat until I remember who I am and stop it. Alora is looking from one of us to the other, and when I see what her eyes land on particularly, I feel something in my throat lock up.Caelum raises his phone in his hand and I hear the sound of it unlocking.“That color looks nice on you.”Caleum is leaning into his seat. His posture, one of a typical worried man, shoulders hunched, a frown trying to line his face. He’s looking at his phone so I guess he’s attending to something on there, but he just complimented me, and his compliment sounds genuine, so making sure I pick my words carefully, I respond,“Thank you.Yours looks… not so bad either.”Alora makes an almost choking sound and I give her a side glare, but from the corner of my eyes, I can see the shadow of a smile tickle Caleum’s lips. Just the lightest quirk of th
I do not take them.Caleum leaves the house and goes out to handle his business. I know it’s none of my business what his business is. I still don’t know what he does, I do want to know - because the playfield has shifted quite a bit now. The variables aren’t the same anymore, things aren’t as simple as they once were.At least for me. I don’t know what’s making me act this way. It’s weird, it’s all weird,But I know I can't leave anything to chance now.There’s a bond between us, and I need to run background checks. I didn’t run background checks with Ulric and look how that turned out. Though I am older now and in a different situation, with a totally different man, I know I can't repeat the same mistakes I made.I need to do this right, for all our sakes.I can’t ask about him in his home, he’s asked me not to. I’ll respect his wishes on that.But I can ask about him outside it.“What are you doing?”I jump as a hand pulls me out of the way of an incoming body. It takes me a seco
I don’t take the pills the next day too.This time I'm careful when I leave the house to trail after a maid.I need to catch them alone.And since my particular activity isn’t being carried out on the grounds of the Maximoff villa, that would mean I have a free license to ask as many questions as I'd like regardless of how they might seem to Caelum or not.We had breakfast again this morning, and it was pleasant again - this morning.Caleum was sober yesterday. Today, he was a bit more cheery. We haven’t talked about what happened two days ago. I suppose he’s taking his inhibitors, yet I think we both know the inhibitors aren’t the final solution.They’re more of a temporary answer. He’s using his, but for how long?I stop as the traffic light goes to green and the cars start zooming past. The maid from Caleum’s mansion is on the other side of the road, and I curse under my breath though I have every intention to still make the crossing and follow her.The question I try to ignore r
I sit on a chair and open the laptop in front of me, unable to deny that I am surprised, and a bit ashamed of myself, because I'd totally been avoiding a talk with Ravenna. I’m not scared of talking to her. I’m not scared she’ll not want to speak to me. I’m just scared of losing her. Lying to her does not come to me as easily as it comes to Ulric, and I always feel like one look at me, and my baby would see right through all I've been putting up. The call comes through, and I watch it ring for a while - Caelum’s gaze a hot thing on me. I cannot ignore it, and the fact that he’s sitting right there, unwilling to go out makes me feel something cold in my body I pick up the call and Ravenna’s face comes onto the screen. Immediately I feel my heart melt. My daughter is right there. The picture seems better on this laptop, clearer, her features are so well-defined. And the small smile on her face makes her watery purple eyes crinkle and twinkle in that fantastical way. “Hi, Mummy
Caelum’s pov. Sophia cares about her daughter. It was clear in the way her face lit up when they spoke, in the way her eyes seemed to twinkle as she stared into the screen of the laptop and the way she gazed at the little human beyond that screen with an almost crazed fondness. Sophia looks at her child... Like she’s all that matters in the world. And she’s a good mother. That much is clear. But she’s also hiding something from her daughter. I stare at the spot she was just seated on and my body mourns the loss of her presence. The loss of her scent. The loss of the warmth that was radiating off her so softly. She looked…tasty in the outfit she wore today. I love seeing her in trousers. They package her backside quite alluringly. “Drooling on the mental image of a business deal, are you?” I look up to see Alora just in the doorway, and her expression is still closed off. Her tone is still cold. I sigh because she’s also an issue I have to deal with, and despite the fact tha
Sophia’s pov. I hear my door creak and Alora walks in on me changing. I yelp because I wasn't expecting her. She chortles as she settles onto my bed, totally uninvited, and as calm as a snake about to pick off its next prey. I don’t know what to make of her entrance, or her attitude But there’s something in the air about her today. Something so unlike Alora that I can’t help but ask, “What is it? There’s something different about you today.” She shrugs and I take a look at her dress. It’s a summer flower motif dress, and it’s beautiful, it makes her beautiful. Caleum must have gotten it for her, or Seb. “Are you going to leave me in silence, Alora?” She groans and makes a tired little sound before turning to me, “You’re very insistent sometimes y’know.” I nod because I know, but that isn’t the point here. I wait for a response, and when I get none I deflect to another aspect. “Are you at least going to tell me what you’re here for?” “Mr. Caleum sent me.” The first thing my m
“Aren’t you going to be concerned about that?”I glance at my phone and ignore it again for the fifth time in the past thirty minutes.“It’s not important. What’s important right now,”“Is getting revenge on the shithead Alpha who cheated on you with that violet-eyed lady.”I cut Alora a glare and she chuckles like a child before looking out the window, eyes sparkling with a closed-off type of glee.While I would have loved for that to be my aim, it isn’t. Not now.Revenge against Ulric isn’t something I haven't thought of. I have. I have thought of making him pay for all he did to me. But I know if anyone’s meant to pay for anything, I will be in the position of the one doing most of the paying.I am not innocent or excluded from the things Ulric has done. I was the one who carried them out.Him betraying me is simply karma.I was never meant to be loved.It was my fault for thinking I could.But what’s done is done, and giving myself to war isn’t what I'm inclined to do right now. T
Kellen isn’t in the room anymore when I enter so I go out into the garden to look for him. I can already see the presence of him in my mind, can already feel the residue he left there, and once again I meet him lying on the bench and staring at the clouds overhead. It’s almost noon now so the sky is a patchwork of colors, a gentle artist’s creation as he drags his paintbrush across the canvas. I ask in a deadpan tone, “Am I to assume you left that nagging at the back of my mind so I could find you or were you waiting for someone already?” I ask because, from the look on his face, I get the feeling that he already knew I would be making my way down here. His response is sullen, “Who would the blind grown male possibly be waiting for?” Again, he sounds moody, and this time I do not let it bother me as much as it would have this afternoon because I have something bothering me too. Something he’s caused to bother me, and which he’s now responsible for explaining. “What did you mean b
Sophia’s pov.For some reason, Caelum is concerned about the smear campaign going on about me online, and it takes me a moment to come to terms with it.Because it isn’t so bad to me. It’s Violet making her first move and that’s okay. She can’t hurt me directly anymore. The only thing she can do is hold onto Ulric and do his bidding, and I am way past the point where I consider that to be something valuable, or where I consider it to be something she’s taken from me.Right now, I feel nothing about it.I want to feel sorry for her, and I do, but not enough to care. She can fund a million more articles calling me every name imaginable, I wouldn't bat an eyelid to any of them.Yet Caelum though….“I’ll get it pulled down first.”His voice sounds calm and resigned as he begins, “Then block every other avenue they will have to put more out there.”That sounds like a simple statement. It sounds like an exceedingly simple statement, except I know how much it would take to get half the new
Caelum’s pov.I watch the look on Sophia’s face.I watch how it morphs and changes from a look of blank neutrality, to one of light worry, and then back to her blank neutrality.The emotions her’s elicits in me are cool and calm for now, but I can feel the annoyance the worry she feels brings out in me. I can feel myself waiting for her to just show me an inkling of how much this hurts her, and give me the excuse to do what I've wanted to do for a while now.Murder my half-brother with my bare hands.“I can see Violet’s handiwork all over this.”Sophia’s response isn’t the one I’d been hoping for, and I chuckle internally at that while I feel a smile line my lips, because trust her to always surprise me. I ask more silently, like we’re the only people in the room,“Do you want to see what the public response is?”She saddles closer to me and nods, and suddenly I want to do nothing more than have her in my arms, her laps straddling me, my hands on her hips, and my mouth on hers, bringi
Everyone goes back in when they’re dirty and soiled enough, and soon it’s only me and my garden. I’d always wanted to grow a garden. I just didn’t have the chance to really do that in Ulric’s mansion, but now that I can, I want to do it here.I’m halfway through rearranging and reconstructing the mounds of soil my little gardeners did when I feel a presence at the entrance to the backyard.I dart my eyes over to see who it is, because it’s not Caelum, I'd have felt it if it was him, and I'm right.It isn’t him.It’s Sebastian instead.I really can’t help the memory flash that comes, and I let it because he’s essentially the first person I knew from this world.He was the bartender who saw me at my worst. Who saw me smiling through alcohol and pain, who saw me whistling along to the sound of my favorite band coming from the speakers in the bar, and who I blatantly told I wouldn't stop drinking, not even if he forced me.I haven’t gone near another bottle of alcohol since then, and that
Alora is snickering by the side of the wall and Ophelia is drawing with a light smile on her face, while I watch Dimitri… wreck the gardening mounds as he heaves and throws and just…“You could always ask him to stop y’know.”Kellen’s voice floats over from the bench he’s lain on, back against the stone, eyes to the skies, and voice oddly unfeeling as he makes that comment,He sounds calm, and he’s right, I could always ask Dimitri to stop, But so far, he’s the only one who’s offered to help me and he doesn’t seem to care that the others are saying he’s terrible at it, he’s doing what he’s doing regardless.I really want to ask him who taught him how to garden, but then I remember where they both were just a few days ago, and I keep my mouth shut.If Dimitri wants to ruin my garden to process his emotions, then he can. I’ll do my best to salvage what I can later.He seems really interested in actually doing the gardening, he’s doggedly adamant about planting the seeds, and playing wit
Caelum chuckles, and it’s a laughing kind of chuckle because I enjoy it. I hear his laughter, I hear the sound of it and I enjoy its raspy timbre. I enjoy how he sounds like he just can’t believe his ears. And I enjoy how his eyes seem to gleam a bit, whether with remorse or happiness - I don't know - as he asks, “How is my reason for killing more noble than yours?”Caelum asks a simple question, but it strikes me as hard because I would have to be honest with him on this, and I don't think I have been honest with anyone about this in a long time now.I don’t think anyone really cared to know, so I've never told them. Not Violet, or Ulric, or any of the people I considered family.I feel comfortable when I tell Caelum, “My reason for killing him was anger.”Something primal gleams behind Caelum’s eyes and I suddenly feel so small when he places his gaze on me.Like he could swallow me up with the intensity of that gaze, and I'd let him. Light goosebumps trail up my skin as I clear my
I do not ask Caelum for permission to go out anymore.My mind has already brought up another way of getting what I need to do, done, and though it wouldn’t be the most conventional way, I still accept it as a way because it is… and asking for permission to go out, would mean I’d have to go out if he agrees, and i don’t want to because that would entail me leaving his side,And I don't want to.I realized it as soon as Caelum started speaking to me and I started seeing him smile from some of the responses I gave him. His voice is filled with light wonder as he peers down at me from where he’s seated and asks,“You’re really the daughter of an Alpha?”I nod, not feeling offended at the fact that he’s making that statement, or that he seems to find the need to ask that question. Not many people know I am the daughter of an Alpha, but it seems like an important thing for my mate to know, and he did say he wanted to understand me.To understand me, he has to understand my background, and h
“You know half the city is looking for you right now, right?”I only catch a sliver of Sebastien’s statement before I leave the room, yet I can already tell what he’s speaking about, who he’s speaking of, and what the implications of his words are. A short thrill of fear shoots up my spine because though Caelum acts all cool and composed, I can tell what the implications of that video will be now that we’ve decided to keep it up.Caelum showed off weapons with the ability to level the greatest mansion in the history of the past ten years, along with that, he killed the aged leaders of a prestigious pack. No one would believe that would have happened if you told them, yet it did, and all the world will care to know is that those weapons are still in his care and they should not be.They’ll try to attack Caelum from all sides. They’ll try to come at him with lawsuits for lack of a license to handle such weapons, try to label him a national enemy, of course, the real consequences of Ca
Caelum’s face is scrunched in a light frown when he watches the video, but I notice there’s nothing foul about the frown.He looks conflicted, like he’s trying to decide on something and he can’t, so he’s keeping quiet about it. Mulling over it again and again in his thoughts.I feel a surge of worry and concern go through me and I speak without thinking about it any longer, “If you’re worried about the weapons and your identity, I'm sure we can find a way to get the video pulled down.I can.I can find a way to help with that. This video is only up because you came to save me, and I don't want that to affect you.” I realize how sappy I sound and some rebellious spirit in me lets out a barf sound, nope, it’s Alora. I shoot her a glare, and she looks away as she chuckles, but I feel Caelum’s gaze accurately on me. I feel the intensity of it, the moment it alights on me, and I feel the emotion that courses through it, his gaze bathes me in a subtle heat, like sunlight.And through it,