“Tatum, where is this?” Leila asks when Tatum takes off her blindfold and her vision is welcomed by a dimly lit cave with candle lamps hanging from the walls, a small red clothed table with two glasses and a bottle of wine on top of it, as well as an array of covered dishes. Red rose petals cover every expanse of the floor, including where she is standing and she turns to look at Tatum, confusion and curiosity clear in her eyes. She guessed right, this is a date but why a cave of all places? “What do you think of our crime scene detective?” Tatum asks with a small smile, watching her reaction as she takes in the scenery. “Well it’s quite aesthetic I should say, our culprit put in a lot of thought. Favourite flowers, nice ambience, favourite wine, I’m sure I can smell the sweet savoury dishes covered as well, perfect to lure our victim to–” she pauses, “what happened to the victim?” “That’s why I brought you here detective, to figure out what happened but I’ll tell you the story
“Right from the very day we drew this, up until this very moment, my love for you has never waned. I love you, Leila.”Tears peel out of Leila’s eyes and she just stares at Tatum, stunned by the words that just came out of his lips. Whether her heart stopped beating or cannot stop beating is a matter of irrelevance to her.She has dreamt of this day, fantasised an unholy amount of times about it, lived it in her head for so long but never did she believe the day would come.Her heart explodes with so much joy, it can only be expressed in shock and the tears coming out of her eyes. She opens her mouth to reply but her lips just quiver and she cannot find the words.Tatum kneels and holds her arms, gently pulling it against his pounding heart, his grey eyes completely sullen yet full of passion as they reflect the warm light hanging above them.“I should never have married you. I should never have made you lie that we were second chance mates but I saw a chance to keep you by my side an
“You insolent little twat! Do you have any idea of the sacrifices that were made to put you in this position?” Trent, Carmela’s father, barks at her. “I thought you said Tatum loves you, that it will be enough for you to take his side as Luna.”Carmela keeps her eyes on the floor, her body vibrating with a soft tremor as she kneels, taking in the bearting words of her father.Trent leans forward from his chair and places the burning edge of his cigar on her shoulder but Carmela does not dare to move despite the searing of her skin as her cloth melts against it, she does not want to incur his wrath past a verbal extent.“Forgive me sir, I can still fix this,” Carmela replies in a monotonous tone. Her father does not care about emotions, only about results and as far as he is concerned, Carmela is failing him.“Do not be deceived by this tattoo on your neck,” Trent replies, yanking her dress from the shoulder down to reveal the mark of the phoenix on the joint of her neck and shoulder.
After that night at the secret cave, Tatum has been nothing but sweet to Leila. Not a day has passed since then that she has not received some sort of gift from him. She goes to bed with foot rubs and back massages and this morning, she woke up to breakfast in bed, prepared by him but she suspects Adaline must have been there to coach him because the food was really delicious. Right now, she is heading to meet Clayton. He called her and said that he may have some news about Bobby Lister, Carmela’s hit man. Surprisingly, Clayton has been open about the whole process and isn’t hiding anything from her as she first suspected he would. The usual scowl on his face when he sees her is gradually becoming a full smile and he even took her out to lunch on one occasion, called it partner bonding as they are now partners working on a case together. Leila opens the door to his office, somewhere she now enters without permission and the first person she sees is Carmela. Leila immediately feel
Leila watches as Clayton’s eyes glow repeatedly as they wade through the sea of green trees, making their way to one of Bobby's hideouts, a wood in the cabins.They had gotten an anonymous tip from a man about the place who happened to have escaped from Bobby’s kidnapping attempt during the course of the investigation.“Who was that?” Leila asks Clayton when his eyes stop glowing.“None of your business,” Clayton sneers at her in a playful manner. Leila punches his arm and grabs his sleeve. “Hey! We agreed no secrets between us right? I know you were talking about the case, you had that distant warrior look in your eyes.”Clayton smiles at her. “Good instinct, we may yet make a full fledged warrior out of you. I was talking about a case, just not this one.”He was talking about their particular investigation, he was mindlinking Tatum on the progress of things. He is under orders from his Alpha to update him every thirty minutes whenever he is with Leila.He also got a severe warning
In a flash, two of Clayton’s men have also been shut down as he covers Leila with his body, laying on the ground. Fear immediately grips Leila and she quivers. Maybe she should have listened to Clayton and not come in the first place but she did not want any valuable information to pass her by.She trusts Clayton to an extent because he hasn’t lied or hidden anything from now up till this point but he has been texting back and forth with Carmela a lot lately and for that reason, she cannot wholly trust him.Has she made a mistake? Is this an ambush on her life? Has she played right into Carmela’s hands? Will Clayton really sacrifice his men for Carmela?She tries to open the mindlink but they are too far out from the pack for it to work. Her heart rate increases and she heaves, fearing the worst for her and her baby.Several canisters fly from inside the cabin and immediately begin to emit gas that makes Clayton cough, his eyes turning red.“It’s aconite gas. It can’t affect you beca
“I killed a man Tatum, I killed someone.”It’s been two days since the incident but Leila cannot seem to stop thinking of talking about it. Seeing the wolf she had shot transform into a beautiful woman around her age made it all the more traumatic.“You saved Clayton, you did the right thing, you had no choice,” Tatum replies, tightening his hold around her, kissing the back of her hair and stroking her back gently.“Can you do me a favour?” He asks, spinning her around to face him.Leila nods, her eyes sullen.“Whenever you leave the house, make sure to take guards with you, I already assigned them,” Clayton replies calmly.“Why?” Leila asks, “I’ve never required protection within my own pack.”“See them as escorts,” Tatum replies, hugging her closer and he kisses her neck which eases her anxiety.She knows why Tatum doesn’t want her to go out without protection. She heard some omegas whispering about it in the house and she sees the hateful glares she gets when she steps outside.It
Leila mulls over the words of the witch, grinding her teeth and staring outside the window from Amanda’s office.Amanda comes in and hands Leila a glass of hot steamy chocolate.“Here you go.”“Thanks,” Leila replies with a small forced smile.She just cannot wrap her head around her discovery.“I can’t believe that bitch is not the Alpha’s real mate. I mean after everything she’s been doing. Such a cunning snake,” Amanda snorts and rolls her eyes.“What’s even more cunning is that her father is the only one who knew how the phoenix mark would look like before Carmela got it,” Leila replies with a deep frown.“What?!” Amanda’s eyes bulge, she almost spits out the chocolate drink in her mouth.“How is that even possible? I thought the only person who knew what the mark looked like is the pack witch and that she confirmed Carmela indeed got the real thing.”Leila heaves a deep sigh, taking another sip from her glass before she drops it on the table.“I just came from seeing the pack wit
“Everything will be alright father,” Leila gently wipes Darren’s forehead with a warm cloth while the rest of his body is covered in a blanket.He is freezing up, despite the averagely warm weather outside. No one truly understands the nature of this cancer that he has, he gets better a little on his own and then he seems to get worse. Darren nods weakly, his pale eyes full of gratitude.“I have to leave now, I’ll come and see you first thing in the morning tomorrow,” Leila says, she had spent the whole day tending to him after Trent left.“You’re leaving?” Adaline comes in carrying a tray of food, “I made dinner, I was just bringing you yours.”“That’s very nice of you but I’m fine,” Leila stands up and adjusts the blanket over Darren properly, “please take care of him.”“Leila please don’t go,” Adaline drops the tray hurriedly and rushes towards Leila. “I already had the maids prepare your room for you. You’re our only insurance against those men outside. As long as you are here,
Hearing that, Leila frowns. Of course Adaline did not come to apologize to her out of the remorse of her heart, it is only because she knows she’s the only one that can stand up to Trent in Tatum’s absence.While she may be bitter towards Adaline, Darren has remained like a father figure to her, she must go and find out what’s going on.She stands up immediately and leaves Adaline in her office with not even a word in response, wasting no time to rally some of the trusted men Tatum had left behind and makes her way to Darren’s house.Trent must have learnt of her move to take back the seized properties and now he is making another move to undermine her but why Tatum’s parents?What is his goal here? Whatever it is, she is going to find out.“You’re not allowed to go in, no one is.” One of Trent’s men blocks Leila’s path at the entrance to the house with several of them standing outside.They far outnumber the men Leila had brought with her but she doesn’t even need her guards to handl
“Please have your seat,” Leila offers Adaline, keeping her face calm and polite.“Thank you my daughter,” Adaline replies, hurriedly sitting down. Leila doesn’t know how to react to being addressed as ‘my daughter’ from the same woman who would bring hell down on her if she dared to address her as mother in the past.It feels strange and beyond strange, it’s quite discomforting. She tried several times to be a daughter to Adaline and she always got served a bad hand in return.The only reason she’s not rebuking her right now is because the sooner she can handle whatever brought Adaline here, the sooner she can get back to the important work of getting a legal team ready for the battle in court that may happen.“How can I help you?” She replies, keeping her voice curt.“Leila….” Adaline stretches her hand over the table to hold Leila’s hand but she withdraws it before Adaline can touch her and keeps it by her side, a mix of a puzzled and irritated look on her face.‘What is she trying
Leila is distraught upon hearing the news, the pain she feels is cataclysmic. She knows Tatum is not dead, if he was her wolf would feel the bond snap and she’ll be in even more terrible pain.Yet, he is nowhere to be found, presumed dead and she has no idea if he got to save Amara or not.What is she supposed to do now? The wedding may have fallen through but it is secondary to the claiming ritual, she is the Luna in the eyes of the pack members whether they said I do or not.“What do you think you’re doing?” Her mother steps into her room, giving her a stern look, where Leila’s sitting on the floor, a mess of tears.“Mother, I—”“He’s not dead!” Liana snaps at her, “you said so yourself. And if I know anything about that young man from recent events, he’ll claw his way out from hell itself to get back to you and he certainly won’t let any harm come to his daughter but when he returns, who does he return to meet, the woman he trusted to be Luna and left his pack to or a pitiful wife
“We have to go right now! I can’t wait another second,” Leila cries, her eyes red and puffy, an unbearable pain lodged in her heart for fear of her precious angel.Anything could be happening to her daughter at this moment. She does not want to even think of it. How is it possible that the one place Leo chooses to attack is just where Amara is?This hardly looks like a coincidence, her heart throbs with pain, pounding in fear. Is it possible that Leo learnt the truth about Amara being Tatum’s daughter and is trying to hurt Tatum by harming her, but how would he have learnt that? Amara’s identity is a well kept secret.She looks back at Tatum from her trembling feet just as he slams his phone down, grunts and runs his hands down his face in frustration, his eyes weary and sad but his rage is clear in them.“I can’t reach anyone over there, it’s like their communications system has been cut off or something,” his voice is laden with worry “That’s why we should be on our way there alrea
It’s her wedding day, it really is her wedding day and it’s not the rushed secret night wedding she had the first time, everything is as she wants.Even if her dream wedding was something small, intimate between just her and her family, she could not deny the pack members who had been abuzz with its attendance so she decided to host it outdoors to accommodate everyone.Several Alphas and Lunas from other packs are also present. It’s a happy day for Leila and the members of the blood oak pack.The wedding was the needed boom of joy to topple the gloom that had overshadowed the pack in recent weeks.Not a single soul wanted to miss it. If they had opted to use a hall as Leila initially wanted, it would be full to the brim and not enough people would get seats.“The crowd outside is wild,” Amanda says, stepping into the room where Leila is getting the finishing touches to her makeup. “This has to be the biggest Alpha wedding I have ever witnessed.”Leila makes a face at Amanda, half roll
“We’re going to the temple?” Leila asks Tatum, seeing the path they are walking down, his hand intertwined in hers.“Yes we are,” Tatum replies with a smile, taking her hand up and planting a soft kiss on it that makes her blush and sets her heart racing even more.She wonders what this surprise may be that it has to happen in the temple. This is the most sacred place in the blood oak pack. Pack members can only visit it on invitation from the priestess of the temple. She has only ever been here once with her dad and even then, she had to wait a distance outside while he went in. The temple is located right in the heart of the pack and yet it is the most secluded place.When they get to the gate of the temple, they are welcomed by attendants who give them water to wash their hands, feet and faces before they are allowed to enter inside.Leila stares in awe at the gigantic statue of the goddess riding a three headed wolf with a sceptre in her hand, the walls of the temple adorned with
“Leila! You have guests!”She hears the sound of her mother’s voice calling her from downstairs and she drops her phone on the bed, which she had been browsing the internet with searching for pictures of a wedding gown and trying to also find a designer even though Amanda swore she had that part covered.Who could those guests be? She doesn’t remember expecting anyone, she’s not exactly the most popular figure in the pack, even though she’s going to be their Luna for the second time.A part of her is honestly quite troubled about how the pack is receiving the news of her wedding to Tatum.It still feels surreal but she knows it is happening. She is going to get married to the love of her life twice in her lifetime. The first time they got married, it was Tatum saving her, now it is her who is more or less saving him by agreeing to be his bride, such an irony.Coming down the stairs, Leila freezes and she takes some steps back, seeing the crowd gathered in her living room, members of t
“I already told you I summoned her, she doesn’t have to answer—” “It’s okay,” Leila gently holds Tatum’s hand to calm him, feeling the change in his aura. She smiles gently at him, letting her palm trace down his blood ridden forearm, her body tingling with a subtle pleasure as she interlocks her palms with his. Tatum unconsciously or perhaps consciously clasps his hands against hers, while looking at her with confusion in his eyes and feeling as one with him in this moment, the power of Trent’s Alpha’s command dissolves into thin air. That pressure that wolves always felt to speak the truth once under the alpha command is not felt by her wolf, what she feels is different. It is a feeling of bliss, a calmness and a knowing that this is meant to be. Her union with Tatum. Whatever happens next, whatever hurdle they have to face, whatever storms they have to brace, whatever challenges may come, they’ll face it together and so out of her own free will and not under the influence of Tre