Eliana POVThe two hour flight to the private airstrip seemed to take years. I sat with my hands gripping the armrests, my fingers turning white while Luca sat across from me. He looked serenely out of the window, almost as if he were on his way to a spa treatment rather than to meet a man who had been held captive and tortured for months on end. Only the occasional clenching of his jaw gave away the thoughts which rampaged through his mind. “Almost there, snowflake,” Enzo mumbled into my ear. “Snowflake?” I asked, amused. “Yeah, you and your little wolf are like a snowflake… all small and white. So I’m going to call you that from now on.”“Really?” Luca looked at his brother, and I was unsure if he was amused or annoyed. Enzo ignored him and passed me a packet of peanuts, leaning back in his chair on the opposite side of the aisle where he closed his eyes. I stared down at the peanuts for a second before I realised why he had given them to me. He was giving me something to do wit
Eliana POV The car pulled up outside a whitewashed building on the edge of the town, the back of the building pressed against a dense thicket of trees - probably to allow the werewolves to come and go through the trees without the fear of tourists spotting them. Enzo had made it clear that the tourists were only welcomed on the outskirts of the island and that the inner portion was designated to the locals. It wasn't as if they had a giant “No Tourists” sign up, but the private roads with security guarding the entrances seemed to deter the tourists well enough. Nina was waiting outside the clinic, her back pressed against the wall as she picked at her finger nails. Her flowing navy and white dress made her look casually chic, but her hair was pulled back into a severe bun and her lipstick was a shade of red a touch too bright for the casual dress. “Took you long enough,” she muttered as we climbed out of the car and joined her. She looked over my jeans and loose t-shirt and sniffe
Luca POVI was used to people kissing arse whenever they wanted something from me. Hell, it was a normal occurrence in my life. But the gratitude Eliana showed at finding her brother took me off guard. The man was a bloody mess, yet she wasn't angry that it had taken time. She wasn't demanding retribution for his mistreatment. Sure, Nico was going to be tasked to search for the arseholes who tortured Elijah and do to them what he does best, but Eliana didn't know that. “Get ready to see the best place on earth, Snowflake,” my idiot brother called from the front seat as the car turned through the ornate gates which marked the entrance to the backhouse property. Dense forest pressed up against the driveway, blocking the house from the sight of any who may drive past. Although, if I were to be honest, the driveway was rather long and even without the trees it wouldn't be an easy task to spy on the packhouse. I nodded my head to the two guards who stood out of sight in the shade of th
Eliana POV I'm not sure what I'd expected of Luca’s family and home, but it certainly wasn't this. The kitchen was loud, filled with Valenti and her six sisters - whose names I would never be able to get straight - all talking at the same time, yet somehow understanding each other in the ruckus. “You get used to it,” one of Luca's aunts smiled at me, squeezing my hand. They were all preparing a massive spread of food, enough to definitely feed half of the island. In some way, the chaos actually made sense and slowly I could tell the dishes coming together. While I was peeling potatoes - my assigned task - Luca and Enzo entered, causing another flurry of activity as each aunt went to greet them and make one or another comment. I smiled at the interaction, my eyes meeting with Luca's as he hugged one of his aunts. I quickly looked away, not wanting him to think I had been watching him - only to meet the gaze of his mother, a slight smile tugging up one corner of her mouth. Luca q
Eliana POV I pressed the button and instantly there was a mechanical grinding sound. I jumped backward, scared that I had triggered a trap or something along those lines. Instead, the bookcase moved an inch toward me. “And this is how we die,” Ayla muttered under her breath as I pulled on the bookcase. It swung aside like a door, without difficulty as if it was attached to well oiled hinges. I stepped inside the passage and pulled out my phone, switching on the torch to light my way in the darkening tunnel. “Did you not pay attention to those scary movies we watched as teenagers? Lesson number one, don't go down the dark tunnel of death,” Ayla practically shouted in my mind.“Shush, Ayla. It's not like we're going to meet a vampire or ghost down here. Those things only occur in horror stories,” I replied irritated with her irrational fear. “Yeah, just like werewolves are so not real,” she mocked with a roll of her eyes.I ignored her and continued down the tunnel until it split i
Eliana POVI didn't see Luca at dinner. Enzo said he hadn't returned from his run, but that there was no need to worry.“He's probably just checking out everything on the island. He hasn't been around for a few weeks so he needs to make sure I haven't run the pack into the ground.”He said it as if it were a joke, but I could tell by the edge in his voice that he was dead serious. Dinner was loud and an absolute sensory overload. I was actually grateful when I was able to slink back to my room, telling everyone that I had a headache so couldn't stick around for the after dinner entertainment. Yet, even as I closed the bedroom door behind me, I could hear the opera performance coming from the lower floor. “Looks like that headache is about to become a reality,” Ayla muttered as the performer missed the note and screeched her way through the last chords. “It would have been worse if we'd stuck around,” I replied, burying my head under the pillow. I must have fallen asleep, startling
Eliana POVIt was the best sleep I'd had in years, and I told myself that it was because I was no longer worried about Elijah. I refused to acknowledge that it might be because I'd had the most mind blowing sex I could ever dream about. I pulled myself out of bed, wincing slightly at the tenderness between my thighs.“The price we pay,” Ayla sighed in my mind and I wanted to slap her. “It's not like you're feeling this. You could have made me stop, you know,” I grumbled back. I was rewarded by her wolfy smirk which told me she definitely could have stopped the whole thing, but chose not to. “Arg! How am I going to face him now?” “The same way you always do. Head high. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”I guessed she was right. I hadn't done anything wrong, and I wasn't going to act like I had. Knocking on the bathroom door before I entered, I locked the door leading to Luca's bedroom before I went through the paces of my morning routine. I could hear soft snores coming from Luc
Eliana POVOf all the places in the world they could have gone, why did they have to be in Isolda di San Pietro? “Hello Stacey,” I replied politely to her before greeting the other two girls who stood just behind her. “Lacey, Tracey.”Tracey smiled at me and started lifting her hand to wave at me before Lacey smacked it back down and glared at for a brief moment before turning her frosty gaze my direction when she saw the smile slip from Tracey's face. “You didn't answer me, peasant. What are you doing here?” Stacey said slowly, flicking her bleached blonde hair back over her shoulder. “I'm here with a friend,” I said truthfully, only to have the three girls erupt into laughter. I'd purposefully been avoiding them at university, sitting as far as possible from Lacey in our Economics lectures and turning in the opposite direction whenever I saw any of them on the campus grounds. Even though I'd tried to make myself invisible to them, I'd always hear their laughter and jibes when I