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
Alpha Alvin Bruner Hiddlestone is the owner of Alvin and Bruner. The best law consultancy firm in the whole city, and much more than the city.I knew Alvin when I was still in college. I also knew Ariana then, and Breanne.Alvin and I weren't friends but we do have history together. We have history I hope he has forgotten, but I need his help now. If not, I would never be here.I want to wonder how Alvin will react to me being here today, but I need to. I know Ulric. I don’t know why I didn't insist on the assets being split before I vacated our house, now his house… but I don't know why I didn't insist on our assets being fully split before I left.Maybe I was still reeling from what I had done. Maybe I just didn’t want anything to do with Ulric and I really did plan to live my life out in a small cottage in the woods.I… I've contemplated leaving Ravenna in his care. I know he’ll never have time for her, not the way he ever should, but at least with him she wouldn’t live in lack
When it’s thirty minutes on the dot, I knock on the door once more and go in.My mind cannot help but input images into my head.I can literally see them the same way I captured them. Or rather the same way I caught them. Alvin cleans up well.There’s a new floral scent in the air that wasn’t there before, and while I am tempted to ask if his fling dripped so much juice she’s left a scent to the place now, I know not every woman has a floral scent down there.I notice she works in the same room as he does. Alvin’s office is a massive space. Almost half of the whole floor.“Sophia.”He nods to me as a form of greeting, making me dart my gaze from his woman on the side. She’s very young. Very beautiful too. I return his greeting.“Alvin. Thank you for having me.”I wait to be offered a seat but I do not get that offer. I scoff internally and glance at Alora, “Have a seat dear. We’ll be here for a while.”I am on my seat the next moment too and I see Alvin, staring at me. His voice is al
Alora throws the NDA back in my face.“No.”I sigh and try to make my voice as calm and as patronizing as possible. There’s nothing else I can do.“You realize this is just a formality, right Alora? This doesn’t mean anything.I just need it for… security purposes,”“Because you don’t trust me!Stop trying to lie to me and just tell me the truth. YOU DO NOT TRUST ME!”Alora is yelling and I can see that she’s angry. I sigh internally because we were doing so well just a few minutes ago.“I do trust you Alora.”“I picked out your thoughts the moment you asked for the NDA. Don’t fucking lie to me!”I feel shock go through me like a beam of lightning through the heart. Alora looks at me almost triumphantly with a sneer on her face. A basic look of betrayal oozing off her posture. I find myself lost for words and Alora releases a disbelieving huff.“How stupid I must have been to think I'd ever get into the trust of a Luna.”“It’s not because I'm a Luna, Alora.”She turns on me immediate
Caelum’s pov.Sophia spends two hours staring at the ceiling before she finally looks away and speaks.“Can you tell me about yourself?”Her scent makes me feel like I'm edging myself. It intoxicates me and then detoxifies me in the span of seconds. She goes on,“I’d really like to hear it.”You know that feeling where you are just at the tip of your release, your mind equal parts numbed and sensitive, that is how I feel whenever she speaks. The sound of her voice does something to my heart. But it’s probably just because I haven't taken the inhibitors. I hear something in her squirm as she hears my response,“I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to bear it.”She tries to hide the effect I have on her, tries to mask it with a chuckle, and asks a question that sets a small smile on my face but also makes my heart burn with anger.“You’re my brother-in-law, aren’t you? There’s probably nothing you can say that’ll surprise me.”Her tone is one that is laced with that sweet mirth. A mirth I w
Sophia’s pov.Caelum and I trade whens…Memories from our past, lingering on some years when we experienced the most traumatic things, or did the most traumatizing things to others.I ask myself one question over and over again.How possible is it, to share experiences, to share sad and borderline trauma-inducing experiences, shameful ones even… how possible is it to do that, and still be horny at the same time?Caleum’s voice is like a whisper in my ears now and the soft lights in the living room now are not helping my cause. The ceiling changed color.I thought it was a trick my mind was playing on me earlier but it isn’t. Caleum ends his words and I tilt my head to the side, ignoring the look on his face and the desire his attention stokes in me before responding with a slight smile on my expression,“You are intentionally making us linger, Mr Maximoff.”It is a statement I needed to gather some courage to make.This conversation with Caelum has been insightful, to say the least. I
Caleum’s pov.“Did I do something wrong?”I cannot help myself.I feel like smashing my head into the wall because I SAID I wouldn't ask. I PROMISED myself I wouldn't ask.I told myself time and time again, that I would let her be cold. That I would let her be however she wants to be.Why? Just why would I go up to her and ask if I'd done something wrong? So she can see what effect she has on me? So she can see how her reactions are hurting me?I am loath to deny they even are at all, it stabs at something in my pride. It stabs at something in my insides, and it stabs at it so furiously that I ask myself time and time again, why should I show her she has managed to spook me a little?Why should I show her she’s managed to get a reaction out of me?Yet I cannot help myself. She’s given me a bit and I want the entirety of her now“What could you have done wrong?”Sophia’s tone is at that tired level again. Like she’s been drained of all energy overnight and she’s manifesting that tir
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,