[Kian] (Past) “Thank you… for saving me…” Carys smiled, looking into my eyes. I gave her a curt nod. She kept smiling brightly, beautifully. She licked her lips and even though I didn’t want to, my gaze dropped to her succulent pink lips. I immediately brought my eyes back to her gaze. “Thanks for saving Snow White, as well…” Carys cradled the female owlet in her arms. “You’re the one who saved her,” I said, and she squirmed in her hospital bed. “Right…” she dropped her gaze at Snow White, stroking her. She placed Snow White in her cushiony basket and got down from the bed. I stepped away from her, my heart pounding faster. There was a nervous flutter in my stomach as she stepped closer to me. Even with all the anxiety and rush, I couldn’t stop looking at her. They she walked, the way she breathed, the way she slid her hair behind her ear. “Umm… where do I start? Maybe I should start with an apology. But let me male one thing very clear, I-I am not sorry because I went out hu
[Kian](Present)I ran my finger over the torn edges of the last page of her diary. No wonder she tore the last page off.Taking a deep breath, I shut the diary, and I placed it on the nightstand beside Carys’ bed.What I don’t understand is why did Christian give it to me?I glanced at Carys. She was still asleep. The doctor said she’d regain consciousness in an hour or two. Tucking the blanket around her, I increased the heat of her room. After landing in the Winter pack, I secretly took Carys to one of my alpine estates located deep in the Vizsnow mountains. I had to keep her hidden for the time being. Now that she was a rogue, the entire world would come for her without having any fear of the consequences. Because there would be no consequences even if they killed her.“There’s something I don’t understand, Alpha,” Jackson said. “Why did Alpha Christian let you take her so easily? Like you said, he didn’t even try to stop you.”“Because that’s what he wanted,” I said. He was te
[Carys]‘You can’t leave me. Where do you think you’ll go? You cannot run away from me, Carys. I “am” your cage. No matter how far you fly, where you go, I will always have a leash on you. You will find yourself confined back within my bars.’I was floating naked in a blank space with nothing but those haunting, distorted words and their incessant echoes. The darkness around me crackled itself around me until I found myself locked in a gold cage. I tried to step out, but the shackles caught me crawling around my ankles up my legs.Like thunder, thorny rose vines crept into and around the cage.The bars of the cage slithered into golden snakes, baring their fangs at me as they slithered all around my body. They coiled tight until I felt my skin sever and heard my bones crack.‘If not my beta, what the hell are you? If not mine, you are no one’s!’I fell to my knees, panting as the thorns of the vines stabbed right through my skin. In no time, I was kneeling in the puddle of my blood.‘
[Carys] (Past) Click. Click. Click. Another reason I didn’t like morning hunts. I turned around and glared into the lens of Joshua’s camera. The lens of his brand new camera extended out as he focused it on my face. “Will you stop it already? We are on a hunt, not some photography competition,” I said stoically. “Keep your camera aside and focus on what’s important.” “Oh, I am focusing on what’s important and God, she’s so fine.” He said, clicking my photos from all the stupid angles. “How about this?” I pressed the tip of my nose upwards, making my nose resemble that of a piggy. “Oink! Oink!” He started clicking my photos more vigorously as he broke into laughter. “I am sending these photos to beta Logan. He’d be delighted to see his daughter morph into a piglet. Haha!” “Hey!” I lunged at him. “Stop it! Give me that camera! Joshua! It’s not funny!” “Why? You made that face.” He dodged me deftly as he ran up the mountains. “You’ve been clicking my photos ever since we lef
[Carys](Present)I dropped my gaze from the marshmallows floating in the hot chocolate and placed my hand over my chest.That incident still created a warm knot in my chest that tightens and tightens until something inside me snaps. Destroys. I don’t know what it is that I lose every time Kian’s memories float back to me. But it makes me feel things as anew as I felt them back then. Everything that I shouldn’t have felt back then.But once again all of it is back and with such force that sways me right off my foot.I reached out for a roasted marshmallow, but my hands stopped on the way as tears flushed into my eyes.Shit!What the fuck! Why the fuck! Damn it!Only I know what I had lost to let go of him and his memories and all it took was a hot chocolate and some marshmallows to bring them all back. My heart clenched as I peered outside the window at the mountains.“Verity, can you take the hot chocolate away, please,” I said as I got up to draw the curtains. Revisiting old scars
[Carys]They took a completely unknown route, dropping off Verity at some random port before sailing out for Xafran again.The waves violently crashed against the ship, sending quakes with every drift.I had never felt so helpless ever in my life. My strength was nothing before the power of the wizard’s mind manipulation. When Nox erased Verity’s memory of their crew and the ship, I could move my lips slightly because his attention was on manipulating her mind.That’s when I realized Nox wasn’t using some extraordinary air magic to bind me. He was using a simple mind magic to make my mind believe that I was his captive. The kind of magic which might not even qualify as a middle grade magic, yet I was completely powerless against it.When we reached the shore, they covered my face with a black cloth and transported me to a van. From their talk, I could make out that they were going to sell me to some illegal slave distribution center. It was then I understood what King Elysar and Jack
A/N: Readers discretion is advised.***[Carys]They tied my hands and legs with shackles on a metallic torture bed.Had those shackles been normal iron shackles, I would have easily broken them apart, but they were probably enchanted. I grunted, struggling to pull my hands out of the shackles. They hadn’t branded me yet because their boss seemed to have had a change of heart during the time I tried to fight against the hundreds of them on my own.He asked his wizards to catch me and put me in this place, which was nothing but darkness.Even with Zara’s vision, I couldn’t see a thing. It was a cold place where even the sound of my breaths echoed.I don’t know how long they kept me there, but that place was draining my energy as if it was sucking life right off my soul. Except for the shackles cutting through my skin around my wrists and ankles, it was quite peaceful. It was as if that pitch darkness was drugging my senses, putting me in a state where struggling seemed futile and
[Kian] “You should be here. With her. She’s going to leave. You can stop her. Come on, alpha. You know how dangerous this can be for her. You can’t just let her walk into the mouth of a monster. We know Xafran better than anyone else. That place has rules, but laws? There are no laws. Those magic folks are insane,” Jackson spoke from the other side of the phone. “It’s her decision, her life. Who am I to interfere?” “Alpha. I know things have happened in the past, but I also know your heart…” “No, you don’t, Jackson. If she’s leaving, guide her to the safest route and make sure she knows what she’s getting herself into. That’s the most we can do for her right now.” “Maybe if she sees you in person and if you talk to her, maybe she’ll listen—” His words settled in my chest like a severe discomfort. “Be real, Jackson,” I said, sharply. “Then why did you save her?” “Because she called for me!” I controlled a frustrated yell. “I saved her for the peace of my mind because if I didn’