“What?” I asked, drawing back in visible horror. When I remembered the sleeping Alexei on the floor, I lowered my voice before I spoke. “They can’t do that. He couldn't break his word. He said three months. He had once played dirty with us. How can he demand so impatiently?” “I don’t have any idea but they already did. But I supposed that the Chasma was confident that they would win the war once we didn't surrender Alexia...” Yelena said, as though she still had information left unsaid. She kept contemplating until she surrendered. “Also, the Fedorovs...” Yelena trailed off and once again, I drew back in horror while looking at Yelena’s guilty eyes. From the way she gazed back at me, I knew something bad had happened again—No, even worse than bad to see Yelena’s face glaced with sorrow despite the fact that she had been treated badly by the Fedorovs. And in the back of my head, I already knew what it was. Opening the door, I shifted to my wolf and went outside the gate to confirm th
“Oh! Alexei...” I writhed against the wall, trying not to fall despite the pleasure roaring inside her body as if it was my first time. My clitoris pulsed and throbbed and then my breath rushed to my throat and came out as a demanding moan. “Don’t stop.” His fingers curled in my waist, drawing me closer to his face before I felt his hands clutch on my firm bottom and even sink in deeper. And with the last few strokes, I came into his mouth and Alexei took every last drop of my fluid and swirled it on his tongue as if it was his favorite wine before he swallowed it. His naughty tongue crawled out to lick the corner of her lips before he met my gaze. Alexei’s eyes darkened with lust before rising to his feet, capturing my lips the moment our heads leveled, which then caused me to taste my own flavor when he deepened the kiss. Although that didn’t make me stop kissing him back and I let him carry me and settled us together on the chair with me on top of him. Biting my lip, I reached fo
“It’s good that you are eating again,” I said while chewing my steak, looking at Alexei, who was now enjoying the food seated beside me. “Please, eat more. We can request additional food if this serving isn’t enough for you. I know how famished you are after starving yourself for fourteen days.” Alexei threw a sideways glance before taking a huge bite of the meat. “Forgive me, because of me you starved yourself. I didn’t know you were serious when you said you would take my self-punishment with me.” “It’s the least I can do. I’m the one who put you on house arrest,” I said with a frown, reaching for his hands. “I hope you understand.” “I understand. I was carried away by my emotion and the need to protect my sister,” he answered. He took a deep sigh before he gave me a weary smile. “When I declared going to war and seek for an alliance with other packs, the one thing I had in mind was retaining Alexia here in the pack because of my promise to my mother. But then I realized that even
“Alexei...” I called him, making Alexei look in my direction together with Mikhail.When he stood up, there was a whisper in the back of my head ordering me to run away, save myself from Alexei’s outburst he was about to express, and yet I was pinned on the ground, waiting for him to come to me and snapped with scathing words in exchange for keeping the information from him. He had every right to get mad at me and if I were in his situation, I would probably have done the same.Alexei trudged towards me and the moment he was inches away from me, I closed my eyes for his possible aggression but then I felt a pair of strong arms wrap around me and embraced me tightly.“What am I going to do, darling? I only have two days left to spend time with my sister.”With Alexei’s vulnerable reaction, I felt something inside me melted and rankled at the same time. This situation was difficult for Alexei, everybody was aware of that. If I could take his pain away, I would have done it already. I wo
“Are you sure you are not going to send her off? You can still change your mind,” I told him, in hopes that Alexei would reconsider his decision. It was his last chance to see his sister after all.“I’m sure. Besides, my heart couldn’t take it if I was there. Might as well not punish myself any longer,” he said with a sad smile, looking at me over his shoulder. “Are you going to be all right? Who’s going with you? I know you are capable of defending yourself but I still want you fully protected.” “I am, don’t worry. Yelena, Mikhail, Irino, Svetlana are going to be on my side and the whole battalion of Triton warriors on the lookout just in case the Chasma would pull a surprise ambush,” I said and then snaked my arms around him. “I just wish you could be there with me. But I respect your decision. I’ll get back to you once we are finished.” “All right, darling. Be safe.” Alexei gave me a kiss on the lips before he headed toward the bedroom. Looking from the windows where everybody wa
The weather was particularly pleasing on the day of September but my moods differed. It had been a month since Alexia’s departure but I still found myself staring at our training ground as if she was there, scowling at her trainees whenever chance she had and taunting them to keep their spirits high. It was her way of training these hardworking shifters who wanted to know how to fight just like her, but seeing them train without Alexia felt rather insufficient.Sadness filled my heart as I watched them train. The training from now on would never be the same without Alexia. Triton will never be the same forever.Heaving a deep sigh, I made myself to my office and welcomed me a frantic Yelena sitting on the sofa when I opened the door. She wiped her tears, placed the piece of paper in her pocket before facing me and giving me a bow. I had a glimpse of her letter so I took something out of my pocket and showed her mine.“I also got mine left on my bedside table on the day we lost her. Yo
“I— I— I—” Mikhail stammered, carelessly waving his hands which made all of us step back because the object might fire again. When he realized he still had the dangerous object in his hand, he immediately placed it down on the table and threw his hands in the air in surrender. “I didn’t mean it. I really thought it was harmless.” “You shit! It’s a weapon, you idiot! It’s called a gun and it can kill in one blow,” Alexei pointed out, still scowling at Mikhail. “It’s loaded with silver bullets and that’s how rogue hunters used to kill rogues in the Land of the Banished.” “What?!” Mikhail drew back in disbelief, horror began to glaze on his face. “Drat it. I’m lucky I pointed it to the door and not from anyone here.” Alexei pointed at the unnamed objects. “If you don’t know what’s the purpose of a thing, don’t ever fucking touch them.” He let out a grunt of outrage before the guards appeared at the door, went straight inside the office and held Alexei. The two guards had a small cut o
“Now sit far away from each other,” Irino demanded, waving his hands impatiently. “With a libido like you both, I don’t think two suppressants bottle is enough.”Alexei and I raised our heads and looked at Irino in objection. The way he received our reaction made me think that he was indeed serious and he refused to take no for an answer.With a frown, I stood up but Alexei grabbed my hand and pulled me back to sit beside him.“What’s wrong with you? We are not going to do it, all right. You don’t need to treat us as if I was we are star-crossed lovers,” Alexei complained. I could feel his hand tightening on mine. “We are mates for wolf’s sake. It’s normal.”“It’s normal, indeed! But what isn’t normal is mating in the hallway,” Irino reasoned out, his eyes starting to widen and deadly before he pointed at my chair. “If you want me not to take this prisoner back to his cell, move.”I withdrew my hands from Alexei and immediately complied with Irino’s order. Mikhail and Yelena, on the o
“I couldn’t believe that shifters here in Buenavista forgot the siblings after just two decades, what are your plans for the Martinez siblings and Calisto now?” Irino asked, breaking the peaceful silence I had with Alexei.“Well...” I looked at Mason and Miya and exhaled deeply. “I would love to give them a proper burial and let the Calisto know that they were the Martinez siblings who survived the fall of the Martinez twenty years ago. The shifters who should be the ones ruling Calisto and not the Alvarez. I would also love to conduct a rescue and search for anyone who survived other than Mason and Miya that day to give Calisto back into their hands.”“What if they were the last of their clan?” Irino asked.“I have no choice but to let Akim take Calisto as the new Alpha like everybody was expecting him,” I answered and paused before I faced Irino and the others. “But I won’t let the others face the same leadership here in Calisto, so I will take the shifters who wanted to leave the p
“I’m sorry, Miya...” I uttered under my breath when she dropped at the last blow.Witnessing how Miya shifted back to human, my knees gave up and I threw the gun in outrage, fear, and sorrow. As much as I was thankful that the gun saved me and Alexei, it was still the most dangerous weapon anyone could have possessed to kill one’s wolf.I immediately held my belly and made sure that the baby was alright inside me by caressing it several times. I watched the siblings' dead bodies lying on the ground and heaved a deep sigh.With a heartbreaking sight, I suddenly remember their fates read by the wolfsayer six years ago. It was blank. Unreadable, as the wolfsayer called it, saying she had trouble reading their mates and possibly that they were one of the few that aren’t fated for another. I recall refusing to believe our wolfsayer before, thinking that she only made a mistake.And it turned out that wolfsayers don’t make mistakes. Because the meaning of Mason and Miya’s blank fate is beca
Miya let out a horrified scream before she shot me using her malevolent, trembling eyes. “This is all because of you... this is all because of you! You killed my brother.”Stunned and weeping, I ignored Miya’s outburst and held onto Mason’s stab wound, pulling him closer to me as I refused to believe what Miya had done to her own brother. Mason's eyes were fluttering when I looked at him and his vision was unfocused while watching the setting sun.“Mason, look at me...” I told him as I kept tapping his cheeks. He slowly complied and gave me a sad smile when our eyes finally met. “The Moon Goddess is very kind to let me see you before my life ends, Aera. I had no regrets about saving you, so you should feel the same.”“No, Mason. You will not die! Do you hear me? You will live!” I persisted, but Mason’s breathing started to become shallow and short, making me panic more than I already was.I was now covered in blood. And I didn’t know where to place my hand when Mason suddenly reached
“I will not mess this up, sister. You can trust me,” Mason said, avoiding my gaze as he faced his sister and undisclosing the state I was in.He could have told Miya that I wasn’t unconscious anymore. Kill me the moment he had crouched down since I was secretly listening to their conversation when I should not. Slit my throat without waiting for me to gain consciousness but he didn’t. He remained pretending that I was unconscious for my own sake.With that considerate gesture, I felt like there was still kindness in him, which Miya had totally forsaken a long time ago because of her rage and her intense need for revenge. I most definitely feared that my life was possibly coming to an end, but I felt rather confident about Mason sparing my life.Silently, I just wished I was right.“I trust you,” Miya said to her brother and then she left the cell afterward, leaving Mason who suspiciously trailed his eyes on her sister and let out a big sigh of relief when she was finally out of sight.
MIYA26 years ago...“Yes, honey. You heard your father right. You will be the first female Alpha of the North and the North Canideans will love you once you take the highest rank,” my father, Manolo Martinez, said to me, twirling me in the air and my laughter and shrieks filled my room that blissful night.My mother, Susan Martinez, gave me a warm smile before she walked toward my father’s side. “Okay, that’s enough. The heir to the highest rank will need to get a lot of sleep so she can be the first female of the North when she turns twenty. And that is fifteen years from now. You need to be strong and brave when that happens, Miya honey. For your shifters and for Calisto.”“I would be strong and brave, mother. I promise,” I vowed with my hands spread in the air and then explained excitedly when my father twirled me even faster.After a few turns, my father placed me down and gently tucked me into bed. They kissed my cheeks and wished me good night as their daughter and now the newl
I woke up in a dark room with fear and anger filling me, my hands and feet tied behind my back and I was helplessly facing the floor, trying to shout for help but no words could emerge from my mouth other than a silent moan.Struggling yet determined to move, I tried to free myself by flinging my hands constantly behind my back but my whole body was still numb that I even find it hard to blink or even turn sideways so I would not put all my weight on my stomach since I was a month old pregnant. I am soon to become a mother and I couldn’t lose the most precious blessing the Moon Goddess has given me when other shifters are struggling to bear a child.I never thought that a shifter like Miya, let alone a shifter whom I treated as one of my closest friends and a sister more than I treated Aena would do such a thing to me. And maybe— no, certainly, I am to be blamed as to why I am here in this dark and cold room only the Goddess knew where it was located. It appeared that I trusted Miya t
A week later...Wearing a black dress, I made myself inside Calisto’s hall without minding the mixed gaze of everyone was piercing me.All eyes immediately turned on me when I stepped inside and they gave me a deep respectful bow when I walked past them. Not just Calisto but all shifters from other packs who paid a visit to my father’s funeral. After everything that I had been through, the praise and the exaggerated appreciation, seeing them treat me like I was next to the Moon Goddess was never new, especially when there was a rumor that I helped Muck and not long after when Andras revealed that it wasn’t a rumor but the truth.Aera the Great. That’s what they called me even before the revelation. Now that the truth was out, they began to worship me for driving out all the Antartis as though I did it by myself. I had help. Andras could receive some attention as well, including the Muck’s brave shifters who fought with me during the riot, but the North has never been a fair region eve
“I am what?” I blurted, holding my stomach, unable to believe what Yelena said. “No, I am not.”“You are. Look.” Yelena held my waist and made me face the mirror. And then she tilted me to the side and carefully scooped my bump I never knew I had. “You are pregnant.”I gasped when I realized Yelena was right and my hands flew to cover my mouth in shock and delight. “Oh, my Goddess... I am! I am indeed with child, Yelena.”“You are...” Yelena gushed and did a little jump while holding my hand. Out of excitement, the news made me jump as well with her, but Yelena stopped me immediately. “Careful, Aera. You cannot jump or fight, or do straining activities from now on. You have a precious life inside you now. Oh, what a blessing for you and your mate! We shall tell the others, especially Alexei.”“No,” I cut her off, making Yelena's eyebrows arched in wonder and confusion. “I'm afraid we have to keep it for ourselves, Yelena,”“Why?” she asked with a little wondering laugh that turned out
“W-What?” Mason asked, his tone in utter disbelief and rather contemptuous. “Aera, are you hearing yourself? Are you forgetting yourself? He is your father.”The corner of my lips arched and I looked away, dropping my gaze to the table with a silent yet spiteful laugh before I looked back at him testily.However, this time, my lips turned into a thin line and my reaction turned cold, my face went slack quite intentionally, not because I regretted what I said but because I was disappointed by the fact he had the courage to ask me such an absurd request when he knew my painful past. And seeing how he gave me the reaction, right exactly the opposite reaction I would like to receive from Mason, I knew that the madness inside me that had been kept and caged for long awakened, wanting to spew forth and wild.“A father who abused me mentally and physically,” I corrected him, my voice rising in fury. “Now, let me return the question to you, Mason. Are you hearing yourself? You know exactly wh