Bowden “Please!” the Omega begs. “Alpha Orion ordered me to do it. I had no other choice.” “What’s your name?” “Armin.” “All right, Armin. Why did Alpha Orion order you to poison me?” “Not you. The queen. I'm just an Omega, he doesn't tell me shit.” Frowning, I return to the food trolley and lift the other plate’s dome. This food smells clean, uncorrupted. “Why were you so sure the queen would eat the poisoned food?” “I was going to serve it to her myself?” "Okay," I decide to switch gears. It was stupid asking him why Orion wants Kaiya dead anyway - I wouldn't trust the Omega werewolves in my castle with that kind of information either. “Tell me why you burning down the city?” The Omegas wild eyes flit around the room. “He listens,” the Omega whispers. “I know that,” I say and lift up one of several black boxes set up around the suite. “That’s why we use these.” “What are those?” Kaiya asks. “Audio jammers. It interferes with the listening devices.” “Oh,” she looks at th
BowdenTonight, more than any night in so long I can barely remember the last time this happened, I crave intimacy with my mate. The three mates before Kaiya existed purely for Knox’s wellbeing, and it never progressed as far as sex with any of them.Since Nolene died, I only had a few partners. I never humiliated my mates by taking mistresses. In between mates, I’d find myself women if I needed them. They warmed my bed, and in return, they received special treatment. I made sure they understood our arrangment, and they all accepted it.But it was never the same as being with your mate. It was always empty, meaningless, and after a while joyless. Most of the time, it was just easier to masturbate, but without a mate, my nights could become cold and lonely, which was when I’d go in search of a mistress until Knox started to pine for a mate again.“What is it?” Kaiya asks and contorts her body in a strange knot so she can look me in the eyes.Instead of answering her, I smile and grip h
Kaiya Bowden wakes me with a soft kiss. I smile before I open my eyes, remembering with a bang that I fell asleep while naked and that I'm on full display with my legs wide open. I blush and grab for the sheat, trying to cover myself. My mate chuckles and grabs my hand. “You do realise I’ve been looking at you the whole night, right?” he asks. With my face on fire, I fold the sheet around myself regardless. “That doesn't mean you can look now.” "Yes dear," he jokes and turns his back on me. "Go wash and get dressed. We leave in fifteen minutes.” I don’t really feel like it. All I want to do is stay here, in this room, alone with my mate. When everyone left, when it was just the two of us, I felt so safe and protected. It felt as if I finally found my home. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” He looks over his shoulder and smiles at me. “Orion would probably prefer it that way too.” “Am I not an Alpha and his equal?” “No, you are not his equal.” I open my mouth to prot
Bowden Kaiya sits at the table, looking out over the city while I talk to Trevor on the phone. My mate is not in a good place. Confronting Orion did not exactly go as planned, and she's beyond devastated. Her emotions are racing like a runaway train, and every so often, she wipes a tear away. “Have the Alphas left?” I ask my assistant. “Yes, King, for the most part.” I am exhausted and not looking forward to the drive back to the castle with our prisoners. I don't want to talk to the Lycans about what happened here and why. I don't want to tell them about our dead but not dead mates in the catacombs. It's too much. All of it. I need a fucking break. “Who is left?” I ask. “Claxton and Nero won’t leave until they’ve spoken to the queen.” “Why not?” “They want to hear from her own mouth that she’s giving up her claim to Moon Dance.” I sigh and sink to the couch. After what happened last night, I'm confident Kaiya would just as soon burn that entire place to the ground and wipe he
Bowden Kaiya curls up on my lap like a cat as Elowen softly starts to purr, calling out to me. Knox surges to the surface, so eager to comfort his mate. Our wolves don’t understand Kaiya’s very big and complicated human emotions - all they know is that she’s upset…and both of them expect me to fix it. After hundreds upon hundreds of years on this planet, I thought I’d seen and experienced every Goddess-awful thing this world had to offer, but I was wrong. Likewise, after seven mates, three of which I loved fiercely, I thought I knew everything about being a good mate. I was wrong. None had ever broken my heart in the way Kaiya breaks my heart. None had ever been as complicated as she is. Of course, none of them were the daughters of Deimos fucking Cole. And, I realise with a shock, I’d never loved any of them more than I love her. I will burn this world to the ground to keep her safe and happy. I will skin Orion alive and feed his remains to the dogs if that’s what she asked of me
Kaiya I don’t even know why I am angry at Bowden. Nothing that happened was his fault. Maybe if he didn't lock himself away and ignored the werewolves unless they went out of their way to contact him, everything could have been avoided, but I can't lay the blame at his feet. Not for this. Or any of it really. The kingdom is vast, he's the last king left, and the Alphas are some of the sneakiest assholes around. My father would still have gotten away with it…and for much longer too, if Bowden didn’t find me along the way and mated with me. Perhaps I’m wrong about everything I thought I believed. I never believed in the Goddess or The Fates. If they existed, why wouldn’t they protect me? Why did they take my family from me? But now, it all seems so unbelievable. It's as if everything happened exactly as it should have, so it would lead us right to this place and time. “Kaiya?” Bowden asks softly. “Can you talk to me? I'm worried about you.” I look up at my mate. He’s been extraor
KaiyaI have never been so happy to be home.The driver opens the door for me and I get out to stare up at the castle with new appreciation.To think, not so long ago, this placee filled me with dread, but now I already think of it has home and can’t wait to go upstairs and sink away in my soft, familiar bed.“Take the witches to the dungeon,” Bowden orders the warriors that approach us as he gets out of the car. He looks like he’s ready to collapse under the weight of carrying their auras. “Put them in the magic rooms.”“Yes, Sire,” one of the warriors says.Neil and Trevor come running down the steps, both of them looking slightly terrified. “Neil, take Demi and her mother to one of the Omega rooms. Make sure they are comfortable. Put the harem she-wolves in the servant’s quarters. Tell Deacon to take a look at them. They’re not healing well.”“Yes, Sire,” Neil says without any hesitation.The butler summons his Omegas and they immediately start to unload the women from the bus we e
KaiyaThe guard smiles at me and momentarily drops his stern demeanour. He dusts imaginary dirty off my shoulders, then grabs them between his massive paws and straightens my back. “Take charge. Tell them that Clara…Shannon is ready to go. Ask them if they need anything. End the meeting as quickly as possible and send them on their way. Offer an escort to the werewolf hotel in town.”“They won’t stay here?” I ask.“Castle’s full. You and the king brought back too many strays,” the guard says with a little chuckle.I take a deep breath in and slowly let it out when I open my office door with Oswald right behind me. Two minutes later, the emissaries arrive. Two Omegas and the pack’s new Gamma who looks like he’s not a day over nineteen.They’re a surly looking bunch, a little on the dirty and smelly side, but clean for wolves that live mostly outdoors and only seek shelter when the elements force them into it.The she-wolf resembles Clara, but her face is hard and she looks much older t
Dear Readers, Here we are at the end of Kaiya and Bowden's story. This one flew by didn't it? I loved working on it, and I'm genuinely sad that it has come to an end. Kaiya is perhaps one of my favourite characters, and I loved exploring her story. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I was once again blown away by your amazing support. I want you to know that I do read your comments, and they do always encourage me to work harder and write better. I love hearing from you. Writers always love hearing from their readers, so please never stop! You have no idea how much it means to us as writers. Thank you, as always, from the very bottom of my heart for your support, comments, gems and ratings. It means everything to me. I hope to see you for our next adventure. Much love,Celice
KaiyaThe returning Lycans didn’t care where Deborah and I came from, especially not after Bowden told them that going forward, none of them have to give up their mates unless they want to do so by choice.None of them wanted to break their bonds. None of them wanted to suffer through the heartache again. Centuries of living in fear came to an abrupt end, and they embraced it with open arms and hearts.A week later, Neil mated with one of my father’s ex harem girls. A sweet young woman named Kaylee, a week after that, Deacon mated with Sparrow. A new light shone in the castle, one of hope and happiness.Three weeks after I came back, Vanessa returned, but she wasn’t the same. Jaeger told her what happened, and it scared her. She couldn’t get her mind wrapped around it – the magic, the deaths, the mayhem, all the things things that humans find unimaginable. We were the living embodiment of her nightmares.She gave Jaeger an ultimatum – leave his home and live with her in the human world
Kaiya I wake to the sound of the song I sang to the mates the day they exited the catacombs. Deborah stands next to me, a confused frown on her face. “They’re all dead,” she says. “They’re supposed to be,” I say without thinking. I have no idea where that little nugget of knowledge came from, but I know it to be true. I groan softly and sit up, looking around me. There's no light coming in from outside, but I can feel the full moon. A white sheet of snow cuts the outside world off from view. The only light comes from the flickering torches against the walls. Bowden isn’t here like he was the last time, and I feel completely and utterly abandoned, cold, and lonely. “Why aren’t they waking?” Deborah asks, her face pulled into a frown of confusion. “You could never wake them,” Lauren says from the darkness. I swivel my head in all directions, looking for her. “Not by yourselves. They were dead and you forced them from their afterlife, pulling their souls into the void.” “We didn’t
Bowden “Bowden?” Griffin asks from the entrance of the catacombs. “This is not healthy. You have to get out of here. Time is running out.” Every day, just before sunset, I come to the catacombs and stare at Kaiya’s face, willing her to open her eyes. I shake my head, unable to move. Three days after Kaiya died the first time, the bond started to come back to life. It helped to keep some of the darkness at bay, and I did all right until the day after the full moon, when it happened all over again. The pain of it woke me from my sleep, tearing through my like a blunt knife. I was still trying to take a breath when Griffin stormed into my apartment, a look of pure agony on his face. "Is it breaking?" he asked. "Are they proper dead?" "I don't know." I gasped through the pain. The first time it happened was still too raw, too fresh, and it all blended together into a stewing pot of abject suffering We rushed to the catacombs to see all the mates back in their sarcophagi and Kaiya
Kaiya I didn’t expect to go back to sleep when I entered the catacombs. I didn't give it much thought before now, but what the hell are we supposed to do down here, day in day out, unable to sleep, unable to live, unable to die? No wonder everyone is so fucking angry. I've not even been in the catacombs that long, and I'm already pissed off at the world and the dark witches that cursed me to live this waking nightmare. Lauren leads us into a vast, open temple. It's bigger than the one in Junction City, but unlike the one under that pack house, this temple glows brightly. It is warm and inviting, and I feel no trepidation when I step inside. There are twenty witches in the temple, including the old woman that did the purity test on me, standing around the altar, chanting some ancient spell in an ancient tongue. A spell at least as old as the catacombs. On our way here, I tried to talk to Elowen. I could still sense her, she didn’t die, but just like I couldn’t talk to Bowden anymor
Kaiya I open my eyes, but it’s as if I’m trying to see through a deep mist. I can’t make anything out around me. My arms and legs are trapped against my body. Someone tied me up. I let out a high-pitched scream and try to struggle out of my bindings, grunting and crying as panic wells up in my chest. “Sh-sh-sh,” Bowden’s voice flushes over me. “Stop fighting. I’ve got you.” At the sound of his voice, I relax and allow him to lift me up off the hard surface I’m lying on. He unwraps whatever it is that kept me trapped like a swaddled baby, and the more he works to undo me, the more of the world comes into view. What happened? I remember falling asleep in Bowden’s arms, and then nothing. Not even dreams. Did I make it? Were we wrong? My heart sinks when I sit up and take in my surroundings. We’re in the catacombs. The thing that bound me now lies at my feet, and looks like some kind of funeral shroud. The full moon is casting it’s glow in through the opening. Two weeks went by, but t
Bowden When we return to the castle, we find two more dead werewolves. Mindy, the one who always did Kaiya’s hair, and a male that worked in the kitchens. “Fuck!” I growl. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” “Bowden,” Griffin says gently. “I’ll take care of this. Go upstairs and get started on your whiskey.” “No. I’m taking care of these fuckers once and for all.” “What are you going to do?” I give Jaeger a cold stare. “We have a dungeon full of witches.” “No,” my Gamma says. “No, you can’t tie them to you. You already battle with your own darkness. Tying that many to you…it will swallow you whole.” When I mated with Kaiya, my darkness faded in the brightness of her light, but it’s back now with a vengeance. I want to kill something, preferably hunters. “Leave me alone,” I say and stomp through the castle to my apartment. I get the ritual box from the safe, locking the office behind me again, and go to the dungeons. Griffin waits for me at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you going to try to sto
Bowden The Lycans formed an honour guard on either side of the path that leads to the catacombs. They’re dressed in their mourning clothes, the same as everyone else, hands clasped in front of them, heads bowed. A few of them are openly crying, including Neil. He never did take a real liking to Kaiya, but he loved her. When you live as long as we have, you start to learn that the two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. It's the only time I feel comfortable showing them all my emotions, open and raw, bleeding for all to see. They've all been here more than once, and they all know the enormity of it. The exquisite and unending pain. Jaeger and Griffin walks ahead of me to show me the place they had prepared for her. It’s a little deeper into the catacombs, but not so far that the warm sun streaming in from outside won’t catch her. Oswald came to light all the torches that had gone out while the mates were roaming around outside, and they flicker in the breeze, casting their soft,
Bowden “That’s it.” I slam the last of the hunters’ diaries shut. Out of sheer desperation, we turned to them but found nothing important. “There’s nothing. No answers.” We have spent the last two and a half days frantically reading, searching for answers to the mate problem, while also trying to figure out how to break the death curse. I went into the dungeons and questioned the witches I brought back from Junction City to hear if any of them could break the death curse, or at least knew who cast it, but they were as clueless as Samantha was. I stare at Kaiya, who is sitting next to Oswald on the couch, reading a book about nymphs. We know a lot more about them now, but very little about wild children. No one bothered to write about them because they’re so rare. A knot pushes up in my throat as I realise that we’re not going to be able to save her. Up until a few minutes ago, I kept expecting a miracle, kept thinking we’d find something somewhere, but I was arrogant...and so, so