Lyra“What the hell was that?” I turn to Silas as soon as we are back in the car. “Why did I feel as if I was being drained each time, she touched me and why wasn’t it like that when we were working in her store?” My voice goes up an octave. “And I thought we couldn’t kill humans.”I’m hyperventilating by the time we pull into the road and Silas takes both my hands in his. I can see in his eyes that he knows I’m completely overwhelmed, but I feel my heart rate slowly calming. I breathe in his scent, closing my eyes for a moment to just to find my center.“Look, there’s a lot that won’t make sense right now, and I probably won’t be able to answer all of your questions, but I should be able to answer some by telling you a couple of stories.” He pulls me closer as we slowly make our way home.According to Silas, Fiona changes her appearance every couple of years, and she has the ability to completely hide what she is from literally everyone. When she touched me, she was draining my energ
Lyra“What are you saying?” Silas looks worried.“I’m saying it’s time we draw our enemies out into the open.” I turn to look at him. “If I have to wait for them to attack for one more second, I’m going to go out of my mind. If we draw them out, we can set the terms. We set the stage.” He starts to shake his head.“No. I’m not going to put you in that kind of danger. There are just too many risks. Too many things that could go wrong.” He shakes his head and closes the gap between us. His hands on the sides of my arms normally calm me, but not this time.“Fine. If you won’t do it, I will do it on my own.” I growl softly, and I can see the pain in his eyes. We go to bed with things still unsettled between us. I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I know I’ve had enough.I’ve been hiding since the day I was born. I might have known that I was at one point, but now I do, and I’m done. In the morning, I start working on a plan. Silas is out all morning and I have enough time to figure
LyraI can’t think about the werewolves around us. All I see is the blood spilling from the man I love. Helena comes running toward us as Silas crumbles to the ground.“Hunter! Where is Hunter?” His eyes are filled with panic as a smile starts to form on my face.“At home. Safe. It was cabbage. I brough cabbage with me.” I press down hard on his wound while Helena runs back to the library for the first aid kit. Our warriors are rounding up Eli’s wolves that survived the fight.Minutes later, our doctor appears, and I sit back, but I stay close. Silas has lost consciousness a couple of times and, from the look of things, he’s lost a lot of blood. I want to go with him when they load him into the ambulance, but our beta stops me.“Luna, he is in good hands. You have responsibilities here.” He looks at the wolves gathered just a few meters away. I nod and tell Helena to go with Silas and to keep me updated. She nods, and I watch as the love of my life is driven off before I turn my atten
LyraThankfully, Silas doesn’t take long to heal and within two days he is back home ordering people around. He seems happy with everything I’ve done while he was out, and now he is the one who has to make the arrangements for Eli’s old pack to join ours.Although I’m their alpha according to werewolf law, they will be swearing their loyalty to Silas. At first, I wasn’t happy about it all, but Silas convinced me that it is for the best. Our numbers should scare off the Hunters and if it doesn’t, we will have more than enough people to fight whatever they bring our way.“I still can’t believe you replaced our son with cabbage.” Silas laughs as we sit in front of the fireplace in his office. I smile, thinking back to what is probably one of the worst and best days of my life. I found my strength that day. I also saw what I could be, and I didn’t like some of it.“Helena and I had to think fast. I didn’t want to put Hunter in danger, but I wanted Eli to think it was him. I’m surprised no
Lyra“Silas, I didn’t think about it at the time, but how expensive could this favour of Fiona’s become?” I start worrying on the way home, and he smiles.“She is going to demand energy. I can promise you that, and she is going to demand it from you. She won’t kill you, but she will probably come close. Don’t worry about it. We aren’t going to give it to her.” He tries to reassure me, but his words do the opposite.Waiting for Fiona’s news is nerve-wrecking. Hours turn into days and then into weeks. I’m just about to have a coronary when I get some news. It’s not the news I’ve been waiting for, but at least it will keep my mind occupied.“What do you want Lisa?” I sigh as I walk into the basement where she is being kept. Eli’s mistress is the only one from his pack that we locked up. She is the only one that Silas believes is dangerous. We believe that she knows the hunters thanks to Eli.We don’t want her running to the hunters to make a new deal. Not that she has anything to give th
LyraSadly, what I want is still in danger from the hunters thanks to Eli. Even worse, Lisa somehow escaped during the night. I pace back and forth in my office while Silas questions the guards on duty. How she escaped is clear.One of our guards is also missing. We know he must have helped her, but we just don’t know if she killed him or took him with her. Lisa doesn’t have a pack anymore. I watched as she slowly turned rogue in our cells.You can smell the wild wolf when someone turns rogue and, although it’s a first for me, I could smell it clear as day. I’m still getting used to some of the things I’ve been able to do all my life, but never understood why.While I was married to Eli, he just told me that it was wishful thinking. That I wished I was one of them and imagined I could do all those things. In the meantime, I was far stronger than he was and he knew it. I glare at the guards and turn away before I kill someone.“She’s going to go straight to the hunters, Silas.” I sigh
Silas“Alpha! There’s been an accident!” The voice of one of the warriors that left early this morning with Lyra echoes through the pack link, but when I try to speak to him, there is nothing. We rush to the library, but it’s all locked up.I’m going out of my mind as we make our way back. Then something on the road’s surface catches my eye.“STOP! STOP THE CAR!” I growl and jump out as soon as we come to a stop. The scent of fuel is thick in the air the moment we get out, but there is no sign of a vehicle. As I walk closer to the spot, I note a small piece of glass.The road surface is wet. I smell the air and catch Lyra’s scent. She was there, and she was out of the car! What happened? Where is she? How on earth did they clean up the scene so quickly? There weren’t any signs of the accident when we drove past to go to the library.LyraI wake up to a pounding headache and when I touch my head, I can feel the dried blood.“Lyra, oh, thank the moon goddess.” Helena rushes to my side a
TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCELyraWhen I wake up, I’m tied to something. The cold steel behind my back almost burns my skin. It takes a moment for my vision to clear, and I can hear voices somewhere in the darkness. A huge light is shining on me as I try to free myself from my restraints.My head is pounding, and I can’t see Helena anywhere. I have to find her. We have to get out of here. I hear footsteps coming closer, and I close my eyes in the hopes that they will leave me alone, but I feel someone tying something to my upper arm.“Let go of me!” I growl, making the man in the white coat jump back.“Go ahead, doctor. She can’t do anything.” I hear the voice of my captor and snap my head in that direction. He is standing to one side with his arms crossed and that damn smirk on his face.“My husband will come for me. You will die.” I growl. I don’t know if they know anything about Silas and the pack and suddenly, I realize that I just put all of them in danger by trying to scare him.“O
EsmeLunar and Summer are the light of my life. Lunar just doesn’t want a mate, which kind of drives me a little insane. He is the heir. He should have a mate and procreate.“The boy is still young, my love. His opinions will change as he grows older. Give him time.” Gabriel comes to his son’s defense. “Males are usually a little older than their mates.” Gabriel always distracts me as he pulls me into his arms and my darling Lunar escapes the conversation.Summer, on the other hand, planned for her mating ceremony from the moment she could walk. Everything was planned to the last detail before she even turned sixteen. Summer has a thick file that contains everything she wants for the day, and it is literally growing by the day.“You do realize that this is not going to be a human wedding, my dear?” I sigh each time she shows me what else she found. Summer would just roll her eyes at me, and continue. All Gabriel has to say about our daughter’s flights of fancy is that she has to remem
EsmeOver the coming weeks, the gossip about Jason and Camile eventually die down as life at the pack house becomes very busy. It’s Gabriel’s birthday soon, and I want to have a huge party and invite everyone. Literally everyone.My hope is that a celebration will pull everyone out of the slump we’ve all seemed to be in. It’s very rarely that a one pack member kills another, which has kind of forced a dark cloud of depression over our entire county.Gabriel’s birthday finally arrives and everyone seems to be having a good time. I can literally feel the doom and gloom lift as the evening continues and even Gabriel, who very rarely smiles when others are around, is laughing.His birthday party is exactly what we all need, and I can feel it in the air. Once his birthday is over, however, I feel a little lost. There was total chaos while I was trying to arrange everything and now that I spend my time on what are my normal duties as Luna, I find myself wandering around the house aimlessly
EsmeOver the coming days, there is a lot of back and forth of information, and it’s clear that Jason killed Camile. The only question that nobody seems to be able to answer is why. They didn’t have the perfect friendship, but I just couldn’t see why Jason thought killing Camile would solve anything.The day the trial starts, the square at my old pack house is packed with people wanting to find out what happened. I hear people whispering, and it seems everyone believes that Jason is guilty. It still astounds me that nobody is asking why.I listen to the court case, which is pretty straightforward, and I watch as the video footage they got from us is played. The entire time, Jason keeps his head low and I have to admit, although not out loud, that I’m surprised.He was never the kind of guy to just keep quiet when he was accused of anything. After two days, the trial is over and my cousin announces that he will have his final decision about Jason’s fate in a couple of days.People disp
EsmeMom and I are in my office discussing my ideas when Gabriel and my dad walk in looking very grim. I frown, tilting my head to one side and wondering what on earth could have gone wrong so early.“Esme, we have some bad news.” Gabriel sighs and then looks at my dad before they sit down in my little lounge area in my office.“Camile is dead, honey.” My dad sounds hesitant, and I just stand there gaping at them like a fish out of water for a moment. “Jason has been arrested.” Shock runs through my body, but deep down, I kind of expected that last part.I sit down beside my mom feeling dizziness suddenly hit. I might not have been that close to them in recent months, but for a long time, they were the only friends I had. I just process what I have been told while my dad gives me the gory details they just heard from my uncle.“We don’t have to go to the funeral if you don’t want to go.” Gabriel sighs when my dad is done, and I just sit there in shock. Mom hands me a drink and I reali
EsmeWe do the rounds and spend just enough time with each group so that nobody will feel left out. The only group I have a problem with is my old friends. The first thing I notice is that Camile isn’t there. I’m not sure if she decided not to come to the ceremony, or if she just isn’t there right now.“We can’t avoid them, my love, but I can make an excuse for you if you like.” Gabriel pulls me closer and kisses my cheek.“No, I want all of them to see how happy I am.” I look into his eyes and smile before we make our way over to the group of people my age. At first, everything is incredibly uncomfortable, but Gabriel has this way of just making people feel comfortable.The only one that doesn’t seem to relax is Jason. He keeps glaring at Gabriel, and I just know that is never going to change. Jason will just have to accept that his mate is a lower-ranked wolf. We don’t stay as long as we did with the other groups and I breathe a sigh of relief as soon as we are away from all of them
EsmeThe day of the ceremony isn’t any better! I’m woken in the early hours of the morning and the omegas quickly start to move my things to my new bedroom. I’m a little disappointed when I walk into our room and I can smell that Gabriel had been there just moments ago.It smells of soap and I know he has taken a shower. I really want to see him before the ceremony. I need to see him, but my mom keeps telling me that it’s bad luck. My anxiety slowly builds as the day is spent on waxing and whatever is needed to make me look pretty.Right before I put on my dress, I’m completely freaking out, and I lock myself in the bathroom. My mind is all over the place. I know I want to be with Gabriel. I don’t understand the anxiety all of a sudden. I am sitting on the floor when I hear his footsteps coming closer.“Esme, it’s me.” He softly knocks on the door and I can feel it. The floor was cold, and I hoped that sitting on it would just calm my anxiety a little. I lean against the door and try
Esme“But this house is too big for two people? Where does everyone else stay?” I feel incredibly confused as he climbs the stairs with me in his arms. He stops before the door and looks into my eyes.“It’s big enough for our family. Now, will you give me a moment to welcome you to your new home before the pack arrives.” He grins and I nod. I have a lot of questions, but they can wait for now. He steps over the threshold and I burst out laughing.“Welcome home, my love.” He kisses my forehead and I slowly turn around. I gasp at the sight of it. The house is filled with what looks like only the best. The enormous grand staircase is clearly the centerpiece in the foyer.I note as Gabriel takes me on a tour that the materials used to make the furniture wasn’t cheap. The chairs look like they have been handcrafted out of wood. The cushions are covered in thick lush velvets and the curtains draped in front of the windows look heavy.The bottom floor consists out of the kitchen, a dining ro
Esme“Mom, are you okay with all of this?” I put some of the living room things down on the coffee table while she wraps them and puts them into the box.“All what, honey?” She stops wrapping and frowns at me. I sit down beside her trying to find just the right words. That is really difficult to do when you haven’t gotten along with your mother for most of your life.“Moving to a new pack. Me being mated.” I shrug, hearing the hesitation in my own voice and knowing that she is going to hear it.“Well, honey …” She sits back and studies me for only a moment. “Are you okay with all of this? That is really the big question. None of this makes sense if you aren’t okay with it.” She frowns.“Yeah, I’m okay with it.” A shy smile starts to form, and my cheeks turn bright red.“Then we are all okay with it. The time has come for your brother to take over, which means we won’t have much to do around here.” Mom shrugs and carries on wrapping. “Hey, did you get your robes for graduation yet?” Th
Esme“I … Uhm …” I look from mom to dad to Gabriel, and I’m at a complete loss for words for the first time in my life. Honestly, it’s been nice to have Gabriel there, but I’ve been so focused on just trying to get through the exams that I kind of didn’t think about leaving with Gabriel.“I think we should get through graduation first before any of us make any plans to move.” Gabriel saves the day and I literally breathe a loud sigh of relief, making them all laugh at me. Later in the evening, after dinner, Gabriel and I walk out to the lake.As we get into the cool water, I think how this could be the last time I ever see this lake. I will come to the pack territory to visit my brother, but I can’t imagine us coming here to swim. My next week is going to be filled with finding a dress for graduation and all that, so I can’t see us coming out here.We swim out in silence, each trapped in our thoughts. When Gabriel closes the gap between us, I don’t even notice until he pulls me into h