Buckle up. The calm before the storm ends here.
(Leo Bloodstone POV)After round five, Piper fell asleep with her head on my chest and her arm around my waist.Piper was the only she-wolf that I had ever shared a bed with for anything other than sex. After just two weeks with her, I was not sure I could even consider sharing a bed with anyone else. Yes, the sex was amazing, but it was more than that. Her body and soul fit mine like f&&king puzzle pieces.I happily watched Piper sleep for as long as I could, memorizing each of her features, until exhaustion tugged me into dreamland too.Just before I fell asleep, I set the alarm on my phone for 8:00 am. It was later than I normally woke up, but after the night that we had had, I figured it was fine to skip my traditional morning workout.My plan was for Piper and I to wake up together, enjoy round number six in the shower, and then have just enough time to get ready and meet my family for breakfast.Unfortunately, that is not what happened.Instead, shortly after 5 am, I was awok
(Piper POV)“H-hi, Axel. I am Piper. Why are you in my room?”Or more importantly, why was he in my room —while I was naked— and Leo wasn’t?“I am looking for my daddy.”“Why would he be looking for Ellis in here?” Penelope asked me in our link. “I am pretty sure Ellis hasn’t lived at the packhouse or at Bloodstone Pack for a long time.”I had the same question.“Why are you looking for him in my room?”“Because he wasn’t in his room, so Mommy said to check in yours.”I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “Sweetheart, I don’t think your daddy lives in the packhouse,” I told Axel gently. “If you want, I can see if someone else can help you find him…”Axel giggled. “Of course my daddy lives in the packhouse, Pwetty Lady!! He is the alpha.”I raised an eyebrow. “But the alpha is Leo….”“Yes!!! My daddy is Leo!!!” Axel said excitedly. “Do you know where he is?”I looked around again, hoping for some sign of him that I had overlooked. Unfortunately, the bathroom door was open, so
(Piper POV)“W-what am I doing in the picture?”“Leaving, so that Mommy, Daddy, and I can be a family again.”I looked at Axel as he said the words, and his face was full of youthful innocence and sincerity.My heart stopped.And then… as I processed what he had just said… my heart broke into several pieces.“Y-you want me to leave?”Looking back on it, I know that it was silly of me to have felt hurt and offended. I mean, the pup had known me for all of ten minutes. But I did feel hurt and offended. And sad too.This was a pup who was incredibly important to Leo… my future husband… and he wanted me to leave.Because I was standing in the way of his mommy and daddy being together.I did not want to be that person. As much as I loved Leo, I did not want to be the one that stood in between a family.“We don’t even know if he is telling the truth,” Penelope linked me.“Pups normally don’t lie,” I responded.“Usually they don’t. But maybe he is. He is Ingrid’s spawn after all. Or m
(Piper POV)The packhouse alarms were blaring and we had been told to head to our panic rooms.Thankfully, Leo warned me about these security features on my first day here, so I knew what the alarms meant and what I was supposed to do. It was a blessing that I paid attention and remembered his warnings; I don’t think either of us actually expected that anything would happen. Especially not so soon. I mean, this was Bloodstone Pack. Who would attack them? This pack attacked other packs; not the other way around. Even rogues knew better than to attack here; doing so was a guaranteed death sentence.And yet, it was already clear that this was no ordinary attack.The alarms meant that enemies had breached the border and were infiltrating the pack. Meanwhile, the directive to head to the panic rooms meant that enemy forces were closing in on the packhouse itself.I did not know how much Axel knew about the security features —at his young age, I would hope he knew very little— but I c
(Piper POV) Ingrid stood up, took a few steps forward, and slapped me.Her slap was hard. So hard, in fact, that I knew that my face would likely bruise. “YOU SL&T!!!” she screamed. “What the f&&k are you doing with my pup?!?!?! It isn’t enough that you are trying to steal Leo from me, now you are trying to steal my son too?!?!?!?!?”I looked at her, feeling both confused and a little pissed off.“I don’t know what you are talking about.”“Like hell you don’t,” she growled.I narrowed my eyes at her. Thanks to being best friends with Xander growing up and having to deal with his …ways… with she-wolves, I had plenty of experience dealing with jealous females. I knew most of the games that they would sometimes play. Ingrid’s current game was an obvious and overused one. She was pretending to be upset about something, hoping to use her own bad behavior to trigger me to do or say something even worse back. Then, she would go back to Leo and play the victim.I refused to play he
(Piper POV)“Back off, Ingrid,” I warned as I stood up. “This is not about you.”“Oh, it is about me, Blondie. And I’m about to prove it to you.”I had no idea what she meant, and at that point, I didn’t want to know. I needed to de-escalate the situation and fast.“You need to stop being so boring. You are only 20 years old,” Penelope complained. “Let your hair down and let me kick some brunette a&&.”Honestly, I wanted to. Believe me, I did.But — again— I had been around she-wolves like Ingrid in the past. Playing their games had never worked out well for me. Xander and I rarely fought, but when we did, it was always because of one of his “girlfriends” (term used loosely). Even when Xander believed that I had not been the aggressor —which he didn’t always believe— he typically blamed me for things getting out of hand:“You should have been the bigger wolf.”“You knew she was just jealous. Why not just walk away?”“I am disappointed in you. You should have been more respo
(Xander POV)As I stood on the border of Bloodstone Pack, waiting to give the “go” signal to the second group of fighters, I felt ready, nervous, and introspective.I knew that our odds of success on this mission were low, and that many of our fighters would die. It was a harsh reality for me to accept. The gravity of the situation weighed heavily on me, knowing that many wolves that I had known and respected for years may not be coming home…. and knowing that I may not come home myself.The weight was so heavy that I had been unable to sleep the night before the attack. My heart, my stomach, and every part of my body burned and hurt painfully. On a positive note, experiencing the stress before the attack caused me to gain a new appreciation for my father. Despite challenging him for years on why he had become so reluctant to engage in war, I now understood.War was not easy. Only a fool would think it was.Even so, I was determined to see this through. The risks and the stress
(Xander POV)There are a lot of things to tell you, and a lot of things I am sure that you want to know, so I will just dive right on in.How long have I known that Leo and Piper were fated mates?Since shortly after my father agreed to the arranged marriage between Leo and Piper.How did I find out?After I failed to convince my father to back out of the arranged marriage bullsh&t, I visited a seer. I needed to know what Leo’s interest was in Piper, and why he was going to such great lengths to get her, and my trusted investigators were coming up empty.Did my father know?He knew that I was going to see a seer, but I never told him what the seer told me. He had been adamantly opposed to me going. He warned me that it was dangerous to know the future, especially without any context for it. He also warned me that the quality of the information yielded from a seer not only depended on the seer, but also on the quality of the questions themselves. It was not something a novice shoul