“Why do you want to disrupt the natural order of things? Packs have thrived for hundreds of years because of the structure we’ve maintained. If you make everyone think they are equal, would anyone obey laws anymore?”Eleanor pressed her fingertips to her temple as she listened to the Alpha on the other side of the phone. She had known this one would be hard to convince–he was proving to be outright impossible.“Omegas are part of the community too,” she told him, “so they also deserve the same rights as everyone else, don’t you think?”“Can they protect the pack like the rest of us can? No. So the least they can do is provide labour when needed. If the law is changed, they’ll start thinking they can lead packs or something. Why waste pack money educating them when they are just a liability? Do they need education to do the things they do now? And, why would we use money to provide medical support for members who cannot even protect the pack in case of an attack? Shouldn’t we focus on
It had been days since Eleanor had last seen Henry, and she badly wanted to seek him out with her eyes. But she knew if she looked at him, she would not be able to hold back her emotions.The last thing she needed right now was to alert Thomas of the connection between her and Henry. So she fought the urge, focusing on chatting with the other Alphas and Lunas.However, she could not fight the feeling that Henry was watching her. She could feel his gaze on her, almost as if it was a physical touch.As the minutes passed, she could feel him getting closer, as if he was intentionally gravitating towards her. She risked a glance. He was only a few yards away, and their eyes met instantly.Her heart sped behind her ribs while her body warmed up. She looked away and gave Thomas a weak smile. “Excuse me, I need to go to the restroom.”“Sure,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.She did not dare look at Henry again as she made her exit. She knew how much he must hate any contact between
When the meeting resumed, the Chief Councilman announced it was time for the council to listen to personal petitions.When he invited Eleanor as the first person to make a petition, Thomas’s brow furrowed. She hadn’t told him anything about a petition. Was it related to the new legislation? No, it couldn’t be.Personal petitions did not involve pack affairs. They were used to solve cases that needed the council’s intervention, or cases that only the council could determine.When Eleanor made it to the petitioner’s stand, the Chief Councilman asked, “Luna Eleanor of Blackstorm, what petition would you like to make today?”Eleanor looked all over the hall, met Thomas’s gaze briefly, and then focused on the Chief Councilman. “I would like to request the council to grant me a divorce from my husband, Alpha Thomas of Blackstorm.”A shocked silence gripped the hall for a moment. And then it was raptured by fierce whispers. Thomas’s eyes widened in disbelief, and he shot out of his seat. “Wh
The room grew tense as the two Alphas glared at each other, animosity swirling around them. Thomas tore his eyes from Henry and looked at Eleanor, his eyes full of confusion and questions.“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded, gritting his teeth.“Henry is my fated mate,” Eleanor told him.Thomas blinked and scoffed. “Wow.” He released her hand, and she stepped over to Henry. As the crowd watched on, he let out a bitter laugh. “Wow, so this is what all of this is about.”“What are you talking about?” Eleanor questioned.“You,” he said, pointing a finger at Henry. “This was all your idea, wasn’t it? You used my wife just so you could expand your pack’s territory and weaken my power.”At his accusation, the room burst in discussion.“That’s not true,” Eleanor countered. “I planned to divorce you long before I met Henry. This is all your fault, don’t bother trying to shift the blame. I just happened to be lucky to meet my mate after everything you’ve done to me. There’s nothing you
As the explosion rocked through the space, Thomas threw himself forward, shielding Eleanor with his body. They crashed to the floor of the hallway. Screams and cries of pain emanated from inside the hall.But they sounded muted to Eleanor’s ears, which had been momentarily deafened by the loud explosion. The air was thick with smoke billowing from inside the hall, making it hard to see anything.But as she struggled to adjust her eyesight, she saw a figure standing at the end of the hallway. She could tell it was a man. He was dressed all in black. He stood there, watching, doing nothing. Couldn’t he hear the calls for help from the hall? Why wasn’t he helping?He took a few steps closer, and her eyes fixated on his face. That was when she recognised him.It was the man from the other night, the one who had accused Sophia falsely and later escaped from the prison at Blackstorm.Eleanor had been thinking about him every day since then, trying to crack his identity. She had finally reme
“Let’s go inside and check on the injured,” she told him, starting towards the entrance. “There was wolf poison in the smoke. Everybody could be affected.”Before they could get inside the hall, Thomas’s voice reached them, groaning Eleanor’s name. Eleanor stopped and looked towards him. The smoke had dissipated, and she could see him lying on the floor a few paces away.Thomas had expected Eleanor to check on him because they had been together when the explosion happened. But when she recovered, she only cared about Henry. Henry, who hadn’t been near the blast site. She had completely ignored him, even if he had shielded her from the worst of the explosion.And now, she wanted to go and help others inside the hall while he lay on the floor with a back on his injury. He had thought the injury would heal quickly as usual, but it still hurt as much as it did right after the explosion happened.“Help me,” he called, looking at her. “I’m not healing.”She stopped and looked at him, then t
Eleanor wished Thomas would shut up and let her do her job in silence, but that proved to be too much to ask for.“Is this his plan? Did he convince you to do this when you stayed at Darkfall?” he asked.“Why do you ask? You don’t think I can make my life decisions on my own? Or do you believe we were in such a good relationship that it would take an outsider poisoning my mind for me to think about leaving you?” She sat back on her haunches. “Get rid of your jacket, it’s in my way.”He grabbed his jacket and pulled it off. “See? I’m even willing to protect you with my life. What else do I have to do to show you how much you mean to me?”He was so good at making her sound like the bad person in this situation. As if she was the one throwing away a perfectly good relationship, and he was the one fighting tooth and nail to save it. As if she couldn’t see how good she had it, and he wanted to help her see what a big mistake she was making.“Our marriage is over,” she reminded him, because
Leaving Thomas behind, Eleanor walked into the hall and looked around to locate Henry. She found him and rushed over. He was helping an injured Luna with a bleeding wound on her upper arm.“How is it?” she asked, looking around the hall.“Bad,” he said. “Both Lunas and Alphas were attacked. Those who were near the site of the explosion did not survive. Some are unconscious, others with serious injuries. I also think the wolf poison is weakening them. Even those with minor injuries cannot help others because they are too weak.”As Eleanor looked around, she found that what he was saying was true. The explosion had occurred in the middle section, affecting both groups of the congregation. Everything near there was damaged, and several bodies lay on the ground.“No!” A loud scream came from a Luna who was holding onto one of the bodies as she cried for her dead mate. “Come back to me! Don’t die like this! Don’t leave me!”Painful cries of help and pain filled the hall from a dozen differ
Eleanor woke up in the morning after the coronation ceremony to the sensation of Henry’s fingers stroking down her arm. Electricity skittered across her skin from the simple contact, waking her completely.“Are you awake?” Henry asked, as if he could tell without even looking at her face, which was buried in his shoulder.“Yes,” she mumbled.He hooked his fingers under her chin and lifted her face. He smiled at her softly before kissing her on the lips. It was a soft kiss at first, but before long, it intensified into their tongues tangling together and her hand rising to sink into his hair.His hand on the other hand went lower, slipping between her legs and seeking her warm centre. She moved her legs apart, granting him easy entry. His fingers teased her nub, rubbing her until she was panting against his mouth and humping into his hand.“Please,” she pleaded, wanting to feel him inside.He pulled his hand away and before she knew it she was lying on her back and he was positioning h
was the culmination of Henry’s efforts in the past few months, which had seen him rise to the position of the Alpha King of the South.While Blackstorm started rebuilding and putting things back in order, Henry had gotten busy strengthening Darkfall’s territory.The alliance with Jonathan had left most of the rogue packs around Darkfall weak. They had sacrificed most of their warriors and funds in plotting against Darkfall and Blackstorm and helping Jonathan wage his war.They had been promised territories and titles, but with the hybrid’s defeat, all they had gotten were losses. This made it easier for Henry to conquer and absorb them without extending a lot of effort. He also took over Alpha Elroy’s pack, making it part of Darkfall.In the months that followed, he had not faced any serious threat, and Darkfall thrived and became the most powerful pack in the southern region. Soon, all the packs in the region selected him as the Alpha King of the South, asserting his dominance and Da
The next day, members from the two packs–Eleanor’s and Thomas’s–gathered in the square, awaiting Mia’s trial. Word about her involvement with the hybrid attackers had spread, and everybody was looking forward to her sentence.Her execution would close a chapter everybody wanted to forget and move on from. After that, it would be time to rebuild the pack, as one, to what it was before all the chaos.Mia was tied to a post, with wood arranged beneath her feet. She struggled against the rope around her hands and feet as she cried out, claiming innocence. “She is only doing this because of jealousy!” she screamed so that the people gathered could hear her. “She killed Alpha Thomas because he chose me instead of her, and now she wants to kill me and his only heir.”“Witch!” someone in the crowd yelled and pelted a stone at her. “Shut your filthy lying mouth!”“There were many witnesses present when you killed Alpha Thomas,” one of the warriors who were with Thomas that day said, “and even
It was then that it occurred to Eleanor that she had not heard from Miller since she came back. She had been communicating with Sophia all along. If something bad had happened to him, Sophia would have told her, right?“Hey, have you seen Miller?” she decided to ask Henry. He had been at the pack before the attacks so she thought he might have an idea about her Gamma’s whereabouts. “I haven’t heard from him or seen him anywhere.”Henry sighed, his chest shifting beneath her. “Did you ever find it funny how he agreed to become your Gamma?”Eleanor frowned and shook her head. “What? Why? No, I…he had promised to support me no matter what, and he wanted the best for the pack. He knew Sophia would be my Beta all along and was okay with the position he got.”“So you think he was just being selfless, giving up his position as the Beta of Blackstorm to be your Gamma?” Henry asked her.Well, there was that, but there was also the fact that Miller had confessed to having feelings for her.Even
Henry deepened the kiss, his lips moving against hers with strong strokes. Their bodies, pressed against each other with nothing in between, lit on fire as a burning passion passed between and through them.Eleanor pushed him back into a tree, trapping him there while her hands roamed his muscular body. “Will anyone miss you if I lock you up in a room with me for the next one year?” she asked when they pulled back to catch their breaths.“They’ll just have to do without me,” he replied as she pressed her lips to his face. She trailed kisses from his temple and down to his lips, where she only teased him before moving on down to his jaw. He tipped his head back into the tree as she continued on to his throat.He groaned in pleasure when she wrapped her lips around his Adam’s apple and sucked. While she tormented him with her lips, he ran his hands down her back until they reached her ass.He squeezed her cheeks and pressed her forward, letting her feel his hot erection against her bell
Elroy cracked his neck as he smiled arrogantly. “Once you lose, your territory will become mine.”Good luck, Eleanor thought, wishing he would shut up already. Her wolf growled and hit her paw on the ground, letting him know that he was wasting time blabbering. He seemed to get the message because he shifted back to his wolf form and faced her.Henry got out of the way and the two rushed at each other, growling. They met mid-air and crashed into one another before falling to the ground. Elroy’s wolf lunged for her throat but Harper was quick on her feet and got away.She went straight for his hind leg and snapped it between her fangs. Elroy’s wolf howled and violently pulled himself away, the scent of his blood filling the air.Eleanor wished she could taunt him then, ask him whether he was sure he wanted to go ahead with this. Taunting him like that would make him see red and attack out of spite without caution. It would be a quick way to end this battle.She settled for regarding hi
Nessa fell to her knees beside her brother, tears streaming from her eyes. “Thomas! Thomas!” she called, holding onto his arm and shaking him. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave me!”A sombre mood engulfed the warriors who had accompanied Thomas and they watched helplessly as his sister cried over his body. It was such a sudden death, and none of them could have imagined that it would be the end for him.They had left Blackstorm determined to aid their former fellow pack members and fix the strained relationship between the two packs. Nobody could have foreseen such a tragedy.Eleanor wrapped an arm around Nessa’s shoulders and pulled her into a hug. The girl turned to her and accepted her embrace, crying into her shoulder.Eleanor wished she had been able to notice Mia earlier and stop her from hurting anyone. Nessa’s pain awakened the despair from losing Liam.She wished that the thought of bringing Mia to justice could do anything to erase the pain she had caused. It would not bring back
Thomas’s warriors rushed towards him where he lay on the ground unable to move. Eleanor looked up from his body and to Mia, who had shot the arrow.Mia’s eyes were filled with rage as she faced Eleanor. There were about a dozen werewolf warriors baying for her blood, but she did not even seem to be bothered.After being sprung from the interrogation room, it had taken her a while to find her way to the east gate without discovery. Before she could make it there, the building she had taken cover in had blown up. She was lucky to get out alive!She was running on fumes from the anger she felt towards Jonathan. How dare he set off the bombs without first ensuring she was out of harm’s way? She was the one who had introduced the idea to him.She had delivered Henry to him on a silver platter, but he had botched that up to. How could everything go so wrong after everything she had done?She could not believe that he had allowed Eleanor to escape. Was this the she-wolf he regarded far above
By the time Henry got to Eleanor’s pack, there were buildings up in flames.“What happened?” he asked Sophia when she came to meet him.“There was an explosion,” she told him, and then continued to give him a rundown of the situation. “Fortunately, we were able to evacuate most of the pack members successfully.” Worry took over her features. “However, there are a few Omegas trapped in the kitchen and basement. We are working on getting them out. Some of my warriors are holding off the attackers away from the compound.”“Where is Miller?” Henry asked.“He is keeping an eye on Mia,” she replied.“Coordinate the rescue for the Omegas trapped in the basement and I’ll go check,” he said. “That woman led me and my warriors into a trap, I don’t trust her.”He was already suspecting that she had a hand in the explosions. Jonathan had not had a chance to send a signal before he killed him–at least not one Henry was aware of. So if the explosions had gone off, it had to be one of Jonathan’s spi