I couldn’t have gotten this more wrong. Hope is there and I’m my fucking wolf form. My so-called rescue has turned into a sick joke. If I shift back I’ll be dead in half an hour. She’s staring at me with her iris ablaze with rosy-pink colour and it takes my breath away. It might actually be a good thing I’ve shifted because I’d have already grabbed her and babbled desperate nonsense before trying to kiss her. I need to get this right. One shot, one desperate opportunity to try and earn forgiveness from a woman who still mumbles about beating the shit out of Elvie in her sleep. I don’t think about Ryan. The taste of his blood is fresh in my mouth, scraps of his once-warm remains are wedged under my claws. That's kinder than he deserved. Her bruised eye and swelling jaw tell me everything I need to know. Even if she hadn’t got to rejecting him yet, the guy didn’t deserve to live a second longer. My father said he would be disappointed in me, if I took a life. I can live with tha
Mireille quickly filled me in, full of giddy excitement about the younger of the two men. Cal apparently.As soon as they pulled in and turned off the engines, Mireille walked quickly towards him, “you’ve just missed her! Ryan was chasing her in your direction. Did you not see Hope!” “I did,” he snapped back, and if his face hadn’t looked so broken I’d have had words with him about his tone towards my angel. “What?” she continued as Reu and I noted the snowmobiles were ours, not new machines. It meant Declan making hand gestures to leave Cal alone were not seen as she pressed on. “So where is she then? Has Ryan hurt her? She rejected him, you know, you can be together!” I stepped towards them, as Mireille turned to look at me in pure confusion at Cal’s stoney, dark-eyed silence. His jaw muscles are working overtime, his teeth gritting venomously. My angel had imagined a fairytale. Reject Ryan and gain Cal. I don’t know the man, but it’s clear that hasn’t panned out. My wolf picks
Throughout the night, none of us get any rest. Trucks continue to arrive full of expectant fathers and brothers. All who want to believe the rumours aren't true. The first thing they all do after leaping out of their cabs, wearing and tired, is ask for their relatives and friends. The brave group of men who stayed behind to hand over the supplies to Raze and his crew of machine-gun wielding thugs. The plan was to hand over the goods and return to the Light, sit out the Freeze, and fight for my freedom. The more I think about the cruel move Raze made, the less I resent Dee’s poisoning. Cyrus keeps asking me to rest, but I feel I owe every arrival my time. The crushing guilt I feel at surviving multiplies with every arrival. The guilt is so severe because I haven't just survived, made it out of a husk of a person like poor Hope. I've exploded into a joyous life. Now I'm forced to look into the crinkled eyes of desperate men as they realise their prayers have been ignored whilst mine
The instant Mireille left, I put my plan into action. Fighting the competing urges to be sick or find a dark cave or tower to skulk in, I forced myself to sit with some strangers. Then I spoke to them. My personal idea of hell, but for Mireille, it’s not a challenge I can back down from. The two men I choose first have grey eyes, long shaggy, ashy hair. So far, everyone has reported to them, not Declan. Might as well start at the top. “Can I join you?” sitting on the bench to face them before they have a chance to refuse. The bench creaks, and my wolf and I pray our gamble doesn't see my ass hitting the deck in embarrassment. “So you’re her mate?” the first one mutters, rubbing his stubbled chin. The night has been long, and dawn is almost approaching, but I can’t wait any longer. “I am,” trying to ignore the way my tongue feels five times bigger. Out of nowhere, Lauren appears with a huge plate of food for us to share. Toasted bread and cheeses. “Here you go, I know it’s been
I know he only keeps me alive for the fun of it. Like now, I’ve done a full week in the hole. It’s basically a dried up well that Chase likes to use for a holding pen. If he’s feeling particularly malicious, he puts us down in pairs or even threes. You can’t sleep standing up. Not properly. I’ve had years of practice, and you just end up waking up in fright when your legs give out. The only food and water I get is from the other girls. Not all of them are generous, though. It takes one bit of side-eye, one paranoid thought to send a ripple through the group, and then suddenly the food stops. I don’t blame them. It’s survival of the fittest, after all. They know I’ve been here since the start. The new girls always think I’m reporting back to Chase. Until they realise I am treated just as poorly as they are. Sat at the bottom of this dank, dark well, I curse my foolish resistance. Refusing to have his head Beta Grant’s filthy, disease riddled prick in my mouth. I couldn’t face it.
We left the Light the same morning we found out about the prisoner. Elvie and Reu were full of worry, making Mireille promise to write, to hopefully visit with the babies. I think they have plans for us to spend our first winter as parents at the Light. We’ll see about that. Mireille just embraced them tightly. Declan was kind enough to give us a lift back to civilization in his truck, insisting he had to return to Lyra before she worried any further. I like him. We didn’t talk much, but the devotion to his mate is everything I want to be. The protector. The one to make sure life is as it should be. The way he shaped his blood-stained past into something more was admirable. When I dared to tell him that whilst the others slept, he shrugged it off as if it was easy. No effort at all. He’s steered clear of violence all these years, yet I was plunging my mate straight back into that vile world. It makes my wolf uneasy. Is it really possible to never find trouble again after this? De
Our world has shifted. I was Luna in the bunker, in charge of the day to day life, but now Cyrus has stepped up to lead. I know he doesn’t enjoy it. He’s doing what he must. His responsibility, and there is no point trying to tell him any different. I’m not naive enough to assume finding the mate bond means an instant happy ever after. Look at Hope and Ryan. I knew it would just be the start of us learning about each other. What makes the other happy, but also the pressure points that cause us to show our worst sides. For Cyrus, it is waiting. For someone who silently guarded me without complaint for all those weeks, he is seriously impatient. Having to trust Dee and Quinn, then waiting for Declan, just ate him up inside. Sitting in that increasingly rickety chair watching the horizon, his already infrequent voice vanished. I would stand and rub his shoulders and prepare hearty meals using the stack of recipes. Lauren thrust into my hands as we prepared to leave. “Key to their h
It’s easy to drive away in a truck when nobody is begging you to stay. If Cal had shouted one word, made one move to chase after me, I know my resolve would have shattered. It’s amazing that I even made it through the mountains, seeing as most of the way was blinded by tears. I sold some of the guns to a random hut-dwelling villager for supplies. I studied the map. Recognising some of the steeper, stranger passes I had slowly worked through, it appeared I had gone a completely insane way through. The route most people mark with a large cross for “absolutely no fucking way. Shattered limbs ahoy.” Declan had used our brief time together to describe what to look out as he walked me back to the truck. My mind was elsewhere, torn between what I needed and wanted to do. He didn’t say anything about Cal. I didn’t ask either. Just looking at Declan stung, seeing as he shares the same perfectly dark, intoxicating eyes as his son. Instead, I numbly listened to him, trying to keep up to his
Standing in the courtyard, I can feel my heart racing. It’s a strange feeling to know you’re going to die in a few minutes. I made my vow to Mireille all those years ago. I’ve been an Alpha of the North, overseen peace, and brought up our beautiful children, but this is the vow that matters. Because this promise was the one that eased my angel’s mind. Knowing we would have this final offering to the Moon Goddess and pray it is enough to free our children. /I love you/ I whisper to her, noticing her hands shake. I take her hand in mine and squeeze it. /You don’t have to do this/ she links back, her voice still as soft and light as the day I met her. Age has barely touched her. I am most definitely grizzled and rough around the edges. She is ethereal. Her pale green eyes shimmering with love and sadness, her white hair plaited tightly. She’s wearing a simple white dress. I insisted on wearing my huge winter fur. It seemed the right thing for me. /Wait, I want something/ I urge. I h
The last twenty years have been a rollercoaster, to say the least. That night in the hail, when Cyrus pulled me back from the brink and I spilt every single woe from the bottom of my soul to him, was the turning point. Since the triplets' birth, I had walked around with lead weights in my shoulders, dragging me down. Guilt chipped away at my self-confidence. To the point when I didn’t even feel I could be a Luna. Standing at the top of that tower, thinking the isolation helped clear y mind when it only bogged me further down in the doubt. Cyrus changed all of that. He took my guilt and made a solemn vow. Twenty years. If we can’t fix it together in twenty years, we will offer ourselves to the Moon Goddess. After that night in the hail, I cried for two days in a row. Once whipped away from the beam, the full horror of what I’d almost done was crushing. I couldn’t look at the children without damning myself all over again. Cyrus though, he became the Alpha. With everyone’s bl
If it wasn’t for the three women I lived with and little Opal I’d have lost my mind. Delilah hadn't changed from our blessed childhood friendship. Morgan’s mate Nell was full of bizarre ideas for preserving food and practising emergency drills. Lyra remained stoic and calm. Our lighthouse of sense and hope. Opal cried for her Daddy, and I had to try not to join in with her. I had to promise her he would come back, based on nothing but pure, desperate hope. It turned into full-scale war out there. The various Rogue armies were enormous, but they never quite made it to Filney. We were prepared, though. Thanks to Nell, we each had a gun safely stored by the bed. Escape routes planned. Little Opal still slept with me, keeping her close to my heart. Finally, one day, they returned. Trucks pulling in to Lyras white walled villa woke us up. One by one, we all screamed with excitement. Cal didn’t even try to trick or provoke me. He just pulled up the truck and sprinted towards us.
**FOUR YEARS LATER** I don’t know how time flew by so quickly. Everything Cal promised me has come true. We have bickered, disagreed, and walked down the beach in a huff. Mainly me each time, knowing he would be sat on the porch waiting for me with an amused smile. That lopsided grin that makes my stomach flip. We never stopped fighting for each other. Not for a second. It's been everything and more. That first morning, dozing in the hammock together, I woke up with a start. Realising the time, how late I was for retrieving poor Button made me scramble and swing so violently he crashed to the floor all over again. “You know I might ban you from my lovely hammock,” he groaned. I just laughed and pulled him up, pretending to rub his muscular shoulders, back, chest better until he growled and finally bent me over that porch. It was perfect. Of course, Button was absolutely fine with Declan and Lyra. They were already playing on the beach with her, Declan, having his toes burie
“Shit, the weather look,” she whispers, lifting her head up from my bare chest. From our cosy tower room, we can see wind is starting to howl, hail pelting the glass. The first savage winter snowstorms have begun.“It’s time to start prepping,” I grunt with disappointment, sitting up to get a better look. My beautifully naked angel sits in between my legs, allowing me to start nuzzling my chin against her neck. Her hand absentmindedly trails up and runs through my dark hair, keeping me close to her. “We’ll be underground for the first moon,” I add, which is the only thought that makes the idea of humping all those supplies down below bearable.“Hmm, you might be right. Let’s see how it goes,” she whispers back in a soft little voice before turning to plant a loving kiss on my grizzled cheek. “Better get dressed,” she groaned before pushing me down back onto the mattress and climbing on top of me. My fingertips brushed against her still red, warm asscheek and she jumped at the sensat
** TWO YEARS LATER **The first snows have landed. The next full moon is a fortnight away, but we will probably be underground before then. No pilgrims have arrived this month either. Things are a lot quieter at the Fortress these days. The grand days of my parents' first few years have definitely waned. A trickle of pilgrims instead of floods now make the dangerous journey over the mountain tops.I still stand at the top of the fortress and watch the sun descend. Every night, I stare at the black ridges of the mountains. I did it as a child. I did it the night before the rogues arrived and turned my life upside down. Now I stand every night we are above ground and observe its fiery descent and try to be thankful for what I have. Three wonderful children. A mate who worships me. Loyal, wonderful friends and family who made the last two freezes more than bearable. At first, I struggled with my survival. When Cyrus held me in his arms and told me dozens of times how he doesn’t need
“Hey there,” wasn’t the smoothest opener, but there was nothing else I could say. In the same way he knew my heart would melt for the flowers he put in the inn, he must have known that I would make some kind of entrance. My coppery hair is down, catching the breeze. For once I felt like a queen in my black dress after leaving Button with her kind-of adoptive grandparents. It’s tight, strapless, hugging my curves and showing off my long legs just as I intended. I don’t want my reunion with Cal to be about Button, as much as I love my little wonder. We'll get there, after tonight. After all, this moment has been a few days in the making. Cal’s not the only one capable of making plans. In fact, the first people I saw were Lyra and Declan. When I produced Button from out of the passenger seat, I felt a surge of panic. “She’s not Cal’s,” I said too quickly to sound polite. Then, allowing her to scamper off merrily towards the sand, I added softly, “She’s technically not mine either. I’
It’s a good job Hope was still asleep when I left. Otherwise, she might have caught up to me parked on the side of the road, still completely torn in two as to whether my gesture was romantic or insane. I ran my hands through my shaggy brown curls so many times it’s a wonder I wasn’t bald when I finally pulled up to the shoreline. Nine months after setting off I’m finally home. I raced home in dangerously quick time, panic-stops excluded. Because I have a home to build. A life to prepare. Howen and Pearl’s old villa at Finley is still magnificent, but it hasn’t been lived in for over five years. When I knocked on the door, there was only my mother there. Half a second of shock was followed by fifteen minutes of being almost throttled by her cuddles and kisses. Her long black hair was wavy from her morning swim, her gentle face full of worry. She quickly explained that my father had left to help Mireille and Cyrus after being summoned.. “So…what happened with Hope? I’m guessing tha
Only after she fell unconscious did the room check who was actually capable of performing such surgery. Sven and Quinn immediately pointed to me and my heart sank to its lowest, darkest depths.Slicing open her soft, perfect skin was terrifying. The tautness of her bump meant every cut felt far too deep yet not enough. Plus, if I didn’t hurry, the medication would wear off and leave her enduring more pain at full volume.With my poor angels whimpering cries finally silenced, you could hear nothing but the tearing, slicing sound of raw flesh as I cut ever deeper. With everyone's eyes burning into me, the blade shook in my hand.. “Hurry, this is no time for hesitation,” Arlen insisted. Stifling a growl, I steeled myself and made a sweeping horizontal incision. Then it was a mad rush to gather the babies. Cords were snipped, Arlen telling what to remove and what to stitch. I blindly followed, vaguely aware of tiny cries in the background but unable to do anything but care for my pale,