LIANNA POV The first time I thought about killing myself was the night of my mating ceremony. I married the Alpha of my pack, Ethan and I thought I had hit the jackpot. When we first found out we were mates, he was second in line and his brother Sebastian who happened to be my friend was to be the Alpha. Everyone congratulated me and told me how lucky I was to mate with a beta, but that didn’t matter to me, even if he was very poor, it wouldn’t have changed my love for him because his status didn’t matter to me. All I was after was his love. Lianna and Ethan, forever together. I couldn’t stop my tears as I closed my eyes reflecting on the past. I heard my wolf whimper and tried to comfort me. I was nineteen when I first met Ethan, he was studying abroad and had just graduated, and we quickly realized we were fated mates. Handsome and charming at 24 he instantly swept me off my feet, he was everything I dreamed of and my wolf and I couldn’t be happier. That night I thanked th
LIANNA'S POV Afterwards, I tearfully went back to my room to pack some clothes before Ethan sent me out with only the clothes on my back. As I shoved clothes into a duffel bag I came across a photograph taken of us at our mating ceremony. I picked it up and stared at it, I looked so happy with Ethan standing by my side not knowing what I was getting into. When I looked at Ethan's face it confirmed what I had always suspected, he never loved me at all, he was just pretending. While I was smiling at my new husband he was smiling at someone else, the waitress who appeared in the background of the picture. Tears began to gather in my eyes, even on our wedding day he would rather look at someone else and pretend I didn't exist. I put the picture aside and finished packing, I grabbed the duffel bag and went down the stairs where Ethan and his mistress were waiting for me. I kept my head down and tried to walk out the door but Ethan stopped me. "Come back here you cunt." I stilled
LIANNA’S POV "Lianna?" He was surprised to see me as well. We had been best friends since school even though he was several classes my senior and that was only because I had been doubly promoted several times. But we drifted apart when Ethan and I started dating. And then he just left with no goodbyes or explanations. "Oh my God." I smiled. "You look great." He had always been handsome but the past year had been good for him. His features were now more defined. His brown eyes looked almost dark now and his pink lips were fuller. His killer jaw was covered with a light stubble. His smile faded as he gave me a quick inspection with his eyes. Even before the man attacked me I already looked horrible. Dirty and tired and my eyes were likely swollen since I spent most of the day in tears now my clothes were in shambles and I had bruises all over my body "Let me take you home." He started toward his car parked on the other side of the road. "No no, you didn't have to, I'm sure you
LIANNA'S POV He started to pull away but I held him, I needed him right now. And I was scared of what he would do in his current state. Because at that moment, he looked like he was ready to kill Ethan for me. "No just stay with me. Stay and be my friend" And I felt him nod against my forehead. The next thing I remember I was waking up in the morning. I got up to pee and brush my teeth and when I checked the time it was 10:15 am. The feeling of sleeping in was a bit strange since Ethan always made me wake up at dawn to do house chores and cook and if there was nothing to do he would create things to do. As I turned on the tap, everything that happened yesterday came back rushing into my head and I had to press my fingers against my eyelids to stop myself from crying. I didn't want to give Sebastian any more reason to worry. Oh my God, how was I going to face him after yesterday? What would have happened if he hadn’t come along and saved me? I didn't want him to treat me
LIANNA'S POV "What?" Did I hear him correctly? "Marry me." He repeated smiling. "Fuck you." I spat at him and started to walk away. "Lianna wait." He said urgently. "I tell you what I've been through and you think it's cool to make a cruel joke like this." "No, it's not that. I would never do that." "Then what the fuck do you mean by that." "I mean it, Lianna. Mate with me." I stared at him blankly. "I mean it. Think about the advantages." "Advantages? What advantages? Do you want to solve my marriage problems with another one? Am I supposed to use one brother to cancel out the other? I'm already being called a gold-digging whore and now you want me to marry the elder brother of my ex-husband who happens to be the rich former Alpha. They would bury me alive." "Only if you let them. Ethan mistreated you, I would never do that I would show them just how valuable and important you are. And even if they still didn't like you no one would dare say a negative word to you, not eve
Lianna: I had said those words without thinking and now, I wasn't so sure if that's what I wanted. I didn't know how exactly to feel. I glanced at him as he swerved out of the Palace, his jaw clenched and his fingers tightly wrapped around the steering wheel. While I wanted to reach out to him and run my fingers through his hair, I knew it was an absolutely bad idea that wouldn't age well. And I didn't want anything like that. So I remained glued to my seat, replaying memories from minutes ago over and over again. I felt humiliated. Today's encounter was the final straw that broke the horse's back. Seeing Ethan look at me with so much disdain broke my heart further. He didn't even try to come to my rescue when Freya tossed that note for me to read out loud. I had thought he wanted me to stop reading it because he felt guilty for the position I had been in, but it turned out he was probably irritated by my voice and how pathetic I looked. Where did it all go wrong?
Lianna: I finally slept off. My eyes were really tired and droopy by then. I woke up later at night, breathing heavily as I clutched my chest. I had woken up from a nightmare and of course, Ethan was the one in my dreams, reminding me that I was worthless no matter how much I tried to find my worth. Leaning against the bed, I stared out of the window, into the dark night. The fear was crippling. So crippling I could barely breathe. I fought against the thoughts that dominated my mind but it was damn near impossible to get rid of them. I wished there was a way for me to actually just...be. Just fucking be. But I knew I had to sit in this feeling for as long as I could so every day I woke up, it would be less painful than the last. My stomach rumbled and I knew I was hungry. Climbing out of the bed, I padded my feet across the room and made my way out of the room. Not only was I hungry, I was thirsty. Eating a few snacks wasn't going to hurt. The whole suit was dark, s
Edward: As soon as I woke up the next morning, I headed straight for the Palace. My Beta, Harvey, had called the council elders together as there was an important meeting to be held. Lianna was still fast asleep and didn't even move an inch as I walked around that morning. It made me wonder how much she must have given up sleep to cater to my brother. I slowly started to loathe him. Lianna was the gentlest soul I ever knew. She was always smiling t everyone and trying to make everyone feel better. So why the fuck did he do all that to her? And they were mates? It was beyond me how he could do such to her. Fucking beyond me how the little brother I had thought to respect people turned into a monster. Fuck him. I climbed into my car and zoomed off towards the Palace. I arrived in less than ten minutes and handed my keys to one of the guards hanging around. "The elders are waiting," Harvey said as soon as I got to the entrance of the Palace. He fell into step w
Lianna: I woke him with a kiss. It was gentle and slow, the kind that lingered on his lips like sunlight brushing the edge of dawn. His skin was warm beneath mine, soft and familiar. He stirred slowly, lashes fluttering like leaves catching the breeze before his eyes opened, that drowsy gray haze still clinging to them. “Is it time?” he murmured, his voice low and hoarse with sleep. It was the kind of voice that made it feel like the world was still paused for us. I nodded, fingers brushing back the strands of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Yeah. It's time.” He sighed, sitting up reluctantly. I could tell his body felt heavier than usual—grief had a weight all on its own. Still, he moved, slow but sure, like he owed it to himself to keep going. I slid off the bed to help him, but the rug betrayed me. My heel caught on the edge and I pitched forward with a sharp gasp. And just b
Lianna: The Palace was too quiet. That kind of quiet that sat thick on the skin like humidity before a storm, smothering and heavy, as if the very walls were mourning. The corridors were dimly lit, the sun long gone, and I could hear the distant creak of wooden beams settling overhead, slow and reluctant, like the house itself didn’t want to exist in this version of our reality. Edward hadn’t said a word in hours. He lay curled on his side, one arm slung carelessly over the edge of the bed, his knuckles pale against the white linen. His lashes fluttered occasionally like he was trapped somewhere between sleep and waking. Sometimes he’d blink open his eyes and just stare blankly at the ceiling, unmoving, unblinking, lost in a place I couldn’t reach. I sat behind him, cross-legged, one hand tracing slow circles along his back. His shirt had ridden up, exposing the bare slope of his waist. The skin there was cool, soft beneath my fingertips, marred only by the faint scar
Lianna: The morning light was shy, barely bleeding through the velvet curtains when I cracked my eyes open. I didn’t need a clock to know what day it was. My chest already felt like it was caving in. The air hung heavy, saturated with that stale chill that often preceded sorrow. A mourning fog rolled outside our window like some prophetic omen, brushing ghostlike tendrils across the glass. Edward hadn’t moved beside me. His breath rose and fell in shallow waves, his hand still loosely curled around mine like he feared I’d disappear in my sleep. I shifted slowly, brushing a thumb over his knuckles. We were going to banish his brother. I sat up and pulled the duvet around me, the fabric swishing softly against my bare skin. My toes hit the floor with a shiver, the marble tiles beneath me as merciless as the decisions we had to make today. My robe hung at the edge of the armchair, still draped from the night before. I sl
Freya: The night felt too loud for how quiet it was. Crickets whined in the grass like tiny, angry violins, and the wind kept slipping through the cracked wooden shutters, brushing cool air against my bare arms like an unwelcome ghost. I was lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling like it held the answers I’d been chasing in circles. My bed creaked with the slightest shift, the old mattress groaning beneath the weight of my body. I shouldn't have come back here. I shouldn’t have returned to this house. I shouldn’t have ever listened to her. My chest ached. That tight, slow burn of regret that started somewhere beneath my ribs and dragged itself up to my throat like it had claws. I reached up and rubbed the heel of my palm against my eyes, trying to stop the tears that had already found their way to my pillow. My face was warm, wet. I could taste salt. My breath shuddered on the exhale. “I didn’t want this,” I whispered into the room, voice barely audible over
Edward: The eggs Tarantino made were, as he warned me, an absolute disaster. But the bread was warm, and it was good enough to make me forget about the burnt rubber taste of the eggs. We ate in silence, only the scraping of silverware and the occasional sip of coffee filling the air. My mind wasn’t exactly on the food anyway; it was stuck on the conversation we’d had earlier. Tarantino was right, of course. Everything happens for a reason. I could hear the words repeating in my head, like a stubborn echo bouncing off the walls. But as much as I wanted to believe him, that sentiment did nothing to ease the weight in my chest. Nothing could change the fact that I was sending my brother into exile, to a life without the Pack, without me, without any of the privileges that came with being a royal. But I couldn’t just let the sorrow flood over me, not in front of Tarantino. Not in front of the only person who still seemed to see me for more than just my title. So I swallowe
Edward: The drive was long, and Harvey wouldn’t stop humming that off-key tune under his breath like he was trying to win some invisible award for irritation. I didn’t say anything because well, silence stretching between us felt safer than opening my mouth and letting all the tangled thoughts spill out. My jaw ached from clenching it too tight. My nails had dug half-moons into my palm by the time we pulled into the small, quiet Pack territory that felt like the world had forgotten it. “I remember this place being a dusty excuse of a town,” I muttered, eyes flicking over the paved roads and fresh buildings. “Now look at it. They have actual sidewalks. I should’ve sent Ethan here for humility training.” Harvey chuckled but didn’t comment. Smart choice. It’d been years since I last came here. I was just a boy, clinging to my father’s hand while he laughed and pointed at the bakery with the awful scones and the house with the broken weather vane that somehow never got
Lianna: The palace had never been this quiet. Not even during the former Alpha's father’s funeral, when the halls were draped in black silk and everyone spoke in whispers like mourning had a volume limit. No. This silence was different. It hung in the air like a mist, curling around the columns, sliding under doors, seeping into my skin like cold. I sat on the balcony, elbows on the marble balustrade, chin resting against the back of my hand. My eyes drifted somewhere beyond the courtyard, past the rustling hedges and the guards stationed like statues, to a place I couldn’t name. The sky was pale and slow today, the clouds dragging their feet like even they couldn’t be bothered to hurry. A soft breeze combed through my hair, lifting strands across my face, and I didn’t bother to tuck them behind my ear. Ingrid was beside me, her legs propped up on the ornate table, scrolling through her phone like it held the cure to this numbness
Ethan: The moment Edward’s footsteps faded from the dungeon, I felt my chest constrict. I was alone. And not in the usual way where I sought solitude; this time, I felt like I was suffocating. I collapsed to my knees, the cold, damp floor seeping through the thin fabric of my clothes, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. My tears came in torrents, hot and bitter, an unforgiving reminder of everything I had lost, everything I had thrown away. There was no one left to blame but myself. I didn’t even care how pathetic I looked at this moment. All I wanted was the sting of reality to fade, even if only for a second so I could catch a sense of monetary relief. The memories of my life before all this pain before Freya, before Lianna, before the twisted path I had walked flashed through my mind like a parade of ghosts. I remembered how everything had been so simple back then. It was supposed to be me and Lianna, always. We had a bond, a bond that nothing could break, or so
Edward: The echo of my boots against the marble hallway was all I could hear as I stepped out of the study, my hand still clenched from how tightly I’d been gripping the edge of the desk moments ago. My jaw ached from how tightly I was clenching it, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Not now. I told myself I wasn’t going to interfere. I promised Lianna I wouldn’t. But promises made in the eye of a storm rarely stand when the wind changes. And gods, it changed. The moment the elders started screaming over each other like a pack of senile hounds, all clamoring for blood, I had to shut them up. I didn’t even remember raising my voice until the silence hit. Until they all turned to me, and I, like a damn fool, spoke the decree. Now my baby brother would be banished to the Drekavac Hollow, and somehow, my voice had sealed it. The air grew colder the deeper I went, but I barely noticed. My fingers brushed the stone walls out of