JessamineI chose to leave with Lloyd instead. I won’t live with him. He’s only escorting me to the borders where I’m supposed to live out the rest of my days as a loner. Yes, I got banished from the Sunfire pack, as per the council's demand.Kier hadn’t even fought to make me stay. Am I surprised? No. Disappointed? Yes. Angry? Very. Loathsome? I don’t know, but I’m done here. I’ve done everything I can. Anything more and I’d be bordering on desperate. My heart has been caving in on itself since he named Moira his winner. My insides have been twisting since he made the announcement that she would be crowned in a fortnight.I feel betrayed and my emotions are all over the place. But I won’t cry or make a fool of myself. I’m too much of a mess right now to decide what to do next, but I’ll figure it out. Soon.Lloyd jogs down to where I stand, and I peek a blonde trailing behind him. Helen. Right. She must be here to rub it in my face that her friend won. I hardly see the need, since Moi
************We ride in silence, and aside the constant cooing of birds and the flaps of their wings, coupled with the animals darting about the forests, weaving through the trees and hiding behind the trunks as we pass by, I see and hear nothing else. I hover atop the saddle, keeping my thighs still to minimize contact with the horrible thing. I wonder if I'll ever like riding. Maybe I should have taken the carriage."A little further and we'll reach the borders of Aldenwood," Lloyd says, breaking the silence. He slows his beast's pace to match mine. "We should stop for camp. It'd be dangerous to be close to the borders at night.""How long until we reach?" I ask, wiping the sweat rolling down my neck irritably."Five days tops." He leans over, brushing his fingers of my horse's rear. "Three if we ditched the horses and ran all the way, but you can't shift.""No, I can't.""About last night --""I don't want to talk about last night."He raises his hands in the air, clearly frustrat
JessamineI start awake with a gasp, hands clawing at my throat for air. I flail, thrash and kick at an invisible assailant for several minutes. A sharp snarl snaps me out of my reverie and I open my eyes, panting. I see the sky first, the clouds rushing overhead to cover the moon. It’s no longer full, and it makes me wonder if Kier has ridden back home with Moira.Smoke fills my lungs and the heavy thudding of boots causes me to turn my head to the left. There’s something roasting above the fire. My skin crawls when I take in the skinned prize. It looks like a coyote. Or even worse, a wolf.Something tugs at my subconscious and I sit up straight. My heart jolts at the sight of the rogue who abducted me. His eyes are on me and there’s something odd about his face in the light. It takes me a moment to realize that his scarf is off and his face…layers of flesh on his face has been burned off, leaving behind scars and disfigurement so profound, it makes me wonder just how his eyes and li
Licking the water off my chapped lips, a sudden thirst overwhelms me. I push myself into a seating position, itching both my wrists and the binds around them that I had nearly succeeded in getting off last night. The complicated knots have been reinforced. Thrice. I glare at Farrow, who has his scarf is back on. “Up.”“I need to relieve myself, and wash up.” I seriously doubt the oldest trick in the book would work against him, but there’s no harm trying. “Untie my hands at least.”He cuts me a dark look that says, “Do I look stupid to you?”“I’m going pee on myself, and then you’ll be forced to inhale the reek of it all day, all night, for as long as you’re stuck with me.” He still doesn’t look bothered. “You can keep watch, but I need to pee. Right now.”He yanks me up, adjusting the binds. When he’s satisfied with his work, he points south. “You have one minute.”Dragging my ass down the path, looking for a suitable spot is harder than normal with the ropes around my ankles, and I’
JessamineI didn’t try to run. I didn’t have it in me to. When I return to Darrock, he’s sorting through my bag, looking for Goddess knows what. I proceed to where he stands, attempting to snatch it from his grasp, but he holds it up, above his head, well aware that I’m too short to reach.Not. He’s just a tall moron with red eyes and a stupid attitude.He pulls out my locket and peers at it with interest. “Give that back.”He slips it into his pocket, ignoring me, and he pulls out my mother’s journal next. I lunge for him, snarling. Not the journal. That is private. He opens it and it violates my mother’s most private thoughts. Only two people have the right to those words. Me and my father. The latter is dead, in mother’s words. “That’s mine,” I rage, pouncing on him. Darrock plucks me off him with one hand, his fingers gripping the back of my collar. He dumps me on the ground with half a thought. “We travel by foot,” he says, flipping through the pages before I can recover and he
I stare hard at Lloyd as he makes his way over to my desk. “You shouldn’t be back for another five days.”His green eyes are angry and tired. “I suppose I wouldn’t be if she didn’t run off.” He collapses in the chair opposite from mine. “She’s gone Kier.”I sit up straighter, the pen in my hand snapping in half. “What do you mean…gone?”“I gave her a bathroom break, and that was it,” he growls, rubbing his hands over his face. “I combed the area in fright that she might have been taken, but I found a note by the stream.” He pulls out a white sheet from his front pocket, and hands it to me.My fingers tremble as I calmly take it from him and read from it. I changed my mind. Darrock is an amazing man, way more pleasant looking than you and Kier put together. I’ll be his Luna. Tell Kier he can rot in hell with his shrimp of a Luna. Don’t look for me. – JH.Frowning at the arrogant scrawling, I retrieve Jessamine’s last note to me and compare the writings. They are not at all alike. I sni
JessamineIt takes three days before we reach civilization. Darrock is back in his clothes, leading the way through a busy street. He offers little to no explanation of where we are, other than, "This is Stormfort. The village offers direct passage into the capital. It's a shortcut."The only problem is... I've seen villages, and this place isn't a village. It's a...I don't even know what to call it.And...the capital? Only humans bother with such things, demarcating lands into provinces, countries and capitals. In Neredia, there are packs and territories. Villages and cities exist within the territories. The villages aren't always decrepit and rundown, depending on who lords over them, but even the finest, richest territories in Neredia do not look like this.The cobblestone streets beneath my feet glisten as if kissed by the Goddess's light. Each stone is meticulously placed like whoever constructed the roads had all the time in the world. And resources.The houses stand tall and pr
We pass the night at an inn, and against my will to stay awake the entire night, I sleep like a child, waking only when Darrock pounds on my door the next morning, threatening to break it down if I didn’t come out. I was given all of ten minutes to shower and put on his clothes that now reeked of sweat and hell knows what.We journey out after a quick meal and we barely speak to each other the rest of the way. Or stop to rest. I move along tiredly, and find myself asking after every minute if we’ve reached yet. He stops responding at some point and I stop asking, focusing on making my feet work.The only indication that we are somewhere different is the sudden shift between scorching hot sun and a heavy downpour. Darrock keeps moving like it’s nothing, and I’m forced to trail behind him, shivering, teeth clattering with my hands wrapped tightly around my bag. I’m unsure how long we walked for, but when we stop before a set of enormous gates, I’m soaking down to my underwear, the fabri
Az rubbed his eyes tiredly. It’d been days since he last had a peaceful night’s rest. Lord of Grimstone. He often found himself laughing at the title. He wasn’t lord of anything—at least not yet. His people didn’t seem to think so with their constant rebellion of him and stealing from him, no matter that he tried his best to ensure even the darkest parts of Grimstone got ridded of their poverty.They didn’t warm up to him. They called him a freak. It was pathetic and he should have known Jessamine was lying the moment she started batting those long lashes of hers and speaking to him sweetly.He left Dawn after the wedding and he’d been at Grimstone for a total of seven months now. And in that time she’d come to see him thrice, with her twin boys, Wren and Alder. They both had their mother's eyes, but that was where the resemblance ended. The rest was all Kier. From their red hair down to their angry growls whenever Az didn't give them what they wanted.Of course, Jessamine had come to
Jessamine If you’ve ever been away from home for too long, you’d understand the feeling of your stomach plummeting at the most familiar scents, the urge to breathe in deeply, feel everything, reacquaint yourself with every single detail—details that suddenly seem more vivid and…and intense. That is all I can call this—coming home. Somehow, between punching Kier and telling him I hate him and I’ll return to my father’s castle and find me a man who isn’t quite as infuriating as he is, he’d kissed me. Concussion be damned, Kier’s lips heal me in more ways than any physician could. I walk Kier back into the throne room, pushing off the remains of his shirt. His fingers tangle in my hair as his lips on mine reminds me of the first time…the first time I saw him. His eyes looked like a tear from an ocean of peridots. His hair was shorter, not long enough to run my fingers through, but I was fascinated by the rich hue of it. He rarely smiled then, but when he did, it was bright as starlight
My fingers shake and I hide them behind my back as I round the corner. Slowly, I approach, the large oak door standing ominously in the distance. I wipe the sweat from my wrist against my light skirts and grip tightly as my chest thumps. Once. Twice. The closer I draw, the heavier the dagger under my skirt weighs. The maids behind me chatter, but I barely hear the words they say. I try to hide it behind a show of boredom but the fear creeps up my spine and it is all I can do to keep going. It takes an eternity, but I reach the door eventually. “He’s not in,” the guard tells me when I start to open the door. There usually aren’t any, but after this morning, I understand why he has his chambers guarded. My fingers still by the door. Not in? This is when we have dinner. Every night. I didn’t factor his possible absence into my plans. Gods above. “Where is he?”“Throne room. The reports from the prisoners came back. He’s off attending to it and said to tell you to wait for him.”Oh no.
Jessamine“I didn’t do it,” Killian growls for the umpteenth time. His gaze darts to me. “She did. This is her attempt at trying to get rid of me. Tell me what motive I would have to set the freak free. I’d gain nothing from it. I wasn’t even in the castle!”His argument would seem solid enough to Atticus if he wasn’t also accusing me of framing him. Darrock got out last night. Kier didn’t. When I heard the news, I bawled for hours in the bathroom, keeping the water running to drown out the sound. Why didn’t he leave? Because he’s mad at me? He claimed that I destroyed him last night. His eyes were hurt and broken. Why didn’t he just fucking leave?Atticus’s head tilts left. “Where were you last night?”Killian hesitates, his jaw grinding. I ponder on his reluctance to tell Atticus where he’d run off to. The bonfire. His gaze cuts to Raya and his fists clench. “The queen informed me of Raya’s plans to leave. I had to go bring her back.”Raya gives me a look that is equal parts be
JessamineHe’s drunk. I should have known serving him glass after glass would lead here. My hands trapped in his, held above my head, and his body a cage above mine. His long lashes flutter as he breathes in deeply. “Say it again.”The lie comes as easy as breathing. “I’m yours.”His canines gleam as he gives me a smile no one else has seen. “Youknowwhat intriguesme themostaboutyou?” His words tumble out together and it takes only a second to pull them apart as he leans in, his hot breath tickling my nose. “That I can’t tell your lies apart from your truths.”“Now, that is a terrible lie,” I whisper, reaching up to brush my lips against his chin. He shudders, a strangled noise building in his throat. “You like that you never know what I’m thinking. You love the danger I present. It excites you. It is why you keep me close, despite knowing I have a dagger strapped to my thigh, especially made to kill you. You romanticize with death, and death I will be, for you.”His response is a hea
JessamineKier might have been in chains and covered in dirt and blood, but there will never be any man as beautiful as him. He hasn’t noticed me yet, his teeth bared at the guards fighting to put him on his knees. The humans gasp, the smell of their fear filling the room when his bound arms ram into the side of a guard’s head, knocking him out.That earns him a growl from Killian who doesn’t hesitate to draw his sword and ram it into the back of Kier’s head. My mate stumbles, his blood spilling down his torn brown shirt, and he falls on one knee. I start to stand from Atticus’s lap, a growl traveling up my throat, when Atticus breathes against my neck, “Does his discomfort trouble you? You forget that he abandoned you, left you to rot here while he chose them again over you.”Kier would never, but I don’t say that. My mind is whirling in so many directions. How could he surrender? How could he let them…take him? How…my eyes widen when Lloyd walks in next and bows low, to the hip as h
JessamineI’ve been involved in an unhealthy number of ceremonies, and each time, it’s even less eventful. That isn’t to say that our wedding wasn’t a large affair. I’m fairly certain nearly all of Ashbourne was in attendance, all eager to see the werewolf princess with eyes like precious stones. Yes, someone said that as she delivered gifts to me, wishing me a long, happy marriage—a duchess, maybe. If only she knew.The castle couldn’t contain all of the guests and the guards around me were triple the normal size, like Atticus half expected someone to disrupt the ceremony. Someone who I can bet is Kier. Nervous, the entire time, I’d waited, staring at the door, hoping for a commotion that would bring a special redhead to me.But Kier never showed up and the ceremony was sealed. I was the puppet queen of Ashbourne. I was Atticus’s dove, his pet. I was thankful that nothing else was expected of me, other than sitting still and looking pretty. Unlike Kier, Atticus didn’t entertain the
JessamineI get a visitor a few minutes to my…wedding. My gaze lands on Darrock’s and nothing could have held me back. I launch myself at him with whatever little strength I have garnered in the past hour—which is close to nothing and he snatches my wrist before I can impale him with the butterknife I’d stolen from my dinner tray earlier.“Violet, please,” he rasps. “Listen to me—”Reaching up, I slam my head into his. He groans, retreating a step back and I see that I have caused no damage except the ache spreading through my head. I stumble in the bid to attack him again and he steadies me before I can fall. “Take your hands off me—” A firm hand clamps down on my mouth, silencing my scream of outrage before it can escape. “I’m trying to help,” he whispers. “We’re leaving. Now.”I let him see the response to that in my gaze; Over my dead body will I follow him anywhere.Darrock glances over his shoulder and when his eyes return to me, they’re troubled. “I know you have questions, an
Kier“It can’t be breached,” Lloyd explains and a disgruntled sound from the man seated beside me, whose aura rivals against mine greatly seems to set us all over the edge again. “Do not speak in absolutes,” King Hunter murmurs, his grimace turning darker. “He doesn’t have enough of us to guard his foothold. Surely, an army of humans can’t be that lethal.”Lloyd laughs, and it is nothing charming. He’d been the first I’d gone to for help after Randale convinced me that I’d get myself and Jessamine killed if I headed first into Ashbourne without a plan, and it had taken a lot of convincing to get him in here—the council room. “They have weapons and banes that’d render you useless in the twinkle of an eye. If you wish to bring him down, you must do it from within. An outright attack will if anything, help him kill your daughter quicker—and believe me, there is no level of relevance that would prevent him from doing that once he decides he has no use for her.”Pain flickers behind Lloyd