[Kian]My fingers rested on the keys of my laptop, but I didn’t even know what I was doing. I was lost somewhere in her tears and the last kiss we shared.The worst had already happened. Still, there was a foreboding in my chest.I curled up my fingers and shut the laptop. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, no matter how hard I tried. My thoughts kept wandering back to the illusion I witnessed in the Forest of Mirrors. I rubbed my stinging eyes with the heels of my palms. Shutting my eyes, I ran my fingers through my hair, leaning back into the chair. Hoot!Snow White screeched, perched on the windowsill of my office.I looked at her.“The window’s open, Snow White. Fly out if you want,” I said.But she didn’t stop screeching.I let out a sigh and got up, walking closer to the window.“What is it? You want me to close the window?” I asked, looking at her. She turned her head 360 degrees and screeched again, looking outside the window. “What do you want me to do?” I asked, follow
[Carys]My body had been constantly shaking from the moment I saw Xander throw Snow White’s lifeless body on the ground and lung towards me.How could I have been so blind all these years? I was his beta for ten years. Why is it I never even suspected that something was wrong with him? He had been my closest friend almost all my life, yet I never knew him beyond the perfectly curated version of himself he presented to me.Only if I wasn’t stupid enough to be so easily manipulated by him, I could have protected everything and everyone I lost. And once again…I looked at Kian, who impatiently searched for some kind of magical card in his deck of cards. Cards were spread all over his desk. Some were even on the floor. He looked through the cards on the last deck and threw them away as well. The cards fluttered to the floor.I peered at him, lost in the tsunami of thoughts and conflicting emotions. Maybe now I know how he felt when I blamed him for my miscarriage. Because at the moment, I
[Carys]All the way to the Neutral zone, Kian didn’t say a word. He just kept peering outside the window, looking at the clouds and birds sprinting behind us. Verity and I sat together on the private plane that Alpha King had sent to pick us up. Silence felt safest in that five-hour flight. Once we landed in the Neutral zone, we were taken to Alpha King’s palace instead of AAC’s headquarters. Verity said she had direct orders from Alpha King to bring me safely to his palace. Getting invited to Alpha King’s palace wasn’t something that happened daily because King Elysar kept his personal life and family away from the eyes of the world and media. So, except for rumors, the world knew nothing about his family members. That was, of course, for the peace, privacy and security of his family.Except for Liam and a few of his trusted people, even AAC didn’t have much access into King’s palace. So, it just made me wonder how important this meeting was going to be.After a fifteen minute dri
[Carys]“What incident?” I asked.“During one hunt, Calista was rivaled against Raphael, Kian’s father and… she won. And things went downhill for her from there. As the camps went on, everyone in the camp started distancing themselves from Calista. Not just lycans, but werewolves too hesitated from going near her or talking to her. Since Calista mostly spent her time alone reading books, we didn’t find it odd. We thought maybe staying alone is what she wants, but it took us some time to understand that she was facing social rejection.” He got up and poured tea into three cups. He passed me and Kian a cup each. “But her performance just got better and better. Hunting became an emotional outlet for her and it was in killing that she found refuge. A very negative and dangerous state of mind to be in for a werewolf. It was later we found out the actual reason…” King glanced at Kian and continued after sipping on his tea. “Raphael and his friends had threatened everyone in the camp. Th
[Kian] Carys was drenched in sweat. She clenched her fists in a desperate attempt to hide the trembling of her hands. A past so wrecked the only way her mind coped up with it was by making her forget all those excruciating memories. I couldn’t even imagine how broken she would be after being rescued from her own mother. No wonder she never talked about her childhood and whenever she did, it was always about her father. The mere thought of her enduring such a dark past was heart-wrenching. It pained me to even imagine a weak, scared, vulnerable kid going through all that. How heartless one had to be to torture their own child and for what? “Mate bond’s not ours? What does that even mean?” she asked. King Elysar looked at her, but didn’t reply. He was lost in his thoughts for a few seconds. “Fine.” He said, getting up. “Would you mind coming with me? There’s something I think you should see and it might make more sense to you because honestly, I am not a genius and as a two hundr
[Kian]“Wait, you can read this?” Carys asked Alpha King.“Yes,” King Elysar said.I looked at the foreign letters on the pages of that book. “What language is this?” I asked.“Faemorish,” Carys said. “Ruin said it was an extinct language. How do you know it?” Carys contemplated King Elysar.“Oh. Well…” he cleared his throat. “I am old. I know stuff you guys don’t.”Carys narrowed her eyes, examining King Elysar.“It might just be a rumor, but people say the Neutral zone was enchanted by fae magic. In case it’s true, how did you get access to fae magic? Because that too went extinct centuries ago,” Carys said. “And if you deny it, then how would you explain the decrease in the Alphas’ powers when they enter the Neutral zone? Making you the Alpha King, the most powerful.”“Carys…” I held her elbow. She looked at me over her shoulder and then glanced back at the King.“I didn’t mean to put it offensively. I am just trying to make sense of everything, like you said, Alpha King. I know e
[Carys] “If this folktale has any truth, and the Bond is actually evolving, then we might be in a little greater danger than we already were with all those deaths and disappearances and deforestation…” Alpha King tightened his jaws, letting out a frustrated sigh. Deforestation? Where did that come from? “What do you mean?” Kian asked. “Well… you see. Emrys wasn’t able to save Moratia. Her existence was wiped off from the world because of the moon goddess’ deceit. And while the goddess sliced Emrys apart alive. With every severing of his limbs, he pledged that he would return. Stronger. And when he does in the name of love and justice, he would destroy everything and everyone precious to the moon goddess before obliterating her forever.” A haunting silence hung in the air until Alpha King got up. “But this is all a crappy myth! Nothing else! It can’t be! Never! Absolutely ridiculous! I don’t believe that crap! I’ll never believe that crap!” he grunted frustratingly. “I’ll excuse m
[Kian]She looked nervous and, for some reason, Zarek had become extremely restless.I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Carys, you can talk to me about anything. You can trust me to understand you,” I said, holding her gaze.She bit her lips and nodded.“The thing is, during the duel, I almost killed him…” she said, her eyes restlessly moving around. “My dagger pierced right through his heart and he sort of died for a few seconds. His breathing had stopped and… I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. If he died, I would have been stuck in his ice castle forever, so…” she took a deep breath. “He is a half vampire, so I thought maybe my blood could do something to help him?”“O—k?”“I pulled out the dagger and while I was doing it, I felt like I had turned into ice inside out. Like my heart had frozen. I felt cold and numb and… strange. But as soon as the dagger was out of his heart, all of that stopped and… he pinned me down and… well…”I grabbed her arm with a surging impatience, “and