Good news and dealsPov: MaddisonMr Winston had been holed up in his office for hours, dealing with the shrewd investors from Milan who decided they couldn't have a zoom meeting like every other foreign investor.During the more delicate matters of the process, Mr Winston sent me off to do whatever and it's either because he didn't want me witnessing the grueling process of trying to sway loaded investors into your filling your pockets or supporting a project.. OR, he just read into my body language and realized I was sick and tired and bored of just standing there like a very effective ice statue and not trying to talk about the booger in one of the bodyguard's nose. It was honestly RIGHT there staring right at me, as if trying to annoy me further and I was beyond irritated and annoyed at the hunk of muscle for just standing there and looking menacing with a booger in his nose.The investors left after the very successful meeting (I can tell that it was successful because Mr Winsto
RoommatesPov: MaddisonMr Winston had been true to his words and let me off early, just to get me used to the fact that I was going to be working closely with Lady Donatella and give me some time and space to deliberate on and settle into the idea of modelling for the brand.I found Olivia also clocking out at her front desk and stopped. "Hey, you're off early."She seemed to have just gotten off the phone with someone and she had probably just had an argument with that person because the light cinnamon colour skin of her face was red and heated and her eyebrows were etched into an annoyed scowl.When she realized that I was talking to her, she sighed and shook her head. "Ugh, it's just my roommate. She's been flaking out on paying the rent for a while, coming up with one excuse or the other, so I usually cover up for her and pay her share of the rent before the landlord comes knocking. And now, my neighbor called that he saw THIS BITCH leaving the apartment JUST NOW with all her thi
Slumber partyPov: MaddisonShe came to open the door, her usual golden hair in tight spirally coils were piled high on her head and tied up with a bandana to keep it in place. She was wearing a black teeny tiny crop top that only covered her breasts and stopped just below it, covering only half of her ribs, her nipple piercing pushed behind her shirt. And very loose gray pants that dropped low from her hips, exposing her very toned stomach and belly piercing.Olivia was very beautiful. All shades of gold and brown and this was the first time I was seeing her out of office and really in her comfort zone.She had an exasperated look on her face and sighed, "you're late!"I paused for a moment. "I am?""Yes!" She opened the door wider and ushered me in.I lugged my carry on bag with me and dragged my trunk behind me, entering into the foyer with her. She closed the door and locked up, looking at me when she was done and sighing again. "Kat was right. Lois kicked her out."Whuuuttt?!I
An unexpected visitorPov: Maddison"Maddie?!" I heared Olivia call out nervously from the sitting room. "Someone's here to see you!"I paused from where I was folding my clothes and stashing them into a cupboard in Olivia's spare room.I walked out of the room, past the hallway, past the living room and into the foyer where the door was left ajar and Olivia was talking with someone."She'll be out in a minute," she was telling the person."Can't I come in?"I froze, realizing the voice and resisting the urge to run and hide from him. My heart attacked my rib cage mercilessly."You can't," Olivia said, her voice firm. Leaving no room for an argument. "Maddie has to recognize and identify you before I let you in my house."That soft chuckle like light rain and soft sunlight. "If I wanted to force my way into your home, I would have pulled a gun on your head the second you opened the door for me.""I'm not defenceless. I know jujitsu.""Hot."I didn't see it but I knew Olivia rolled her
RevealPov: MaddisonI hadn't seen Gwyn in a while, so you can imagine my shock and excitement when she walked into the C-suite, reserved for me and Mr Winston, her six inch heels, clicking on the marble floor."Hey Maddie!" She greeted first, smiling warmly at me. She was ethereal. So beautiful, she seemed to glow. There were pearls of water droplets on her hair and shoulders, probably from the light rain that was pouring outside. She was wearing a snow white cashmere sweater, tight fitted skirts that stopped at her thighs and showed off her beautiful, flawless legs and two solid gold bracelets rattled on her wrist as she raised her hand to wave at me."Gwyn!" I cried excitedly, standing up and pulling her into a warm hug. Hmmm. She smelled so nice. Like something sweet snd spicy, like butterscotch and vanilla.She leaned into the hug, her arm clasping around my back."If you're here to see Mr Winston," I started immediately, because the man didn't have much time left before his next
ScarePov: WinstonA hand banging on the hardwood of my desk right in my face caused me to raise my head up at the intruder.Gwyn's eyes were blazing with terror and unbelievable horror. "Winston, what did you do?!" She asked, her voice deathly quiet, her face, deathly pale."Gwyn," I said, raising an annoyed eyebrow at her, before going back to going through a request to extend paternity leaves by an extra month. "Do we have a problem?""You revealed your true nature to Maddie?!"I froze, my pen hovering over the spot where my signature was meant to be. "How did you get this information?" I asked, trying to restrain how anxious I really felt."Maddie!" She exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air and pacing about my study. "Maddie told me that she saw YOU transform. Are you trying to fuck this up for yourself?! For the rest of us?! The entire clan?! Are you trying to scare her away?! We're on the verge of an attack and a possible seige. In case it hasn't occured to you yet, we need o
Inner modelPov: MaddisonMy stomach dropped as I peered out of the window of the shiny luxury car as we rolled into a parking spot and caught sight of the building that was going to be my photoshoot studio for the day.Yes, you heard me. Photoshoot studio.Thanks to Mr Winston, Mighty persuasion from Olivia and Kat and my deep rooted love for money, I decided to do the shoot after all and abandon ship if I didn't like the end product.Really, it was a win win. I get to try out being a model and get paid. And if I flop trying out to be a model, I still get paid for the time and effort... Just a little less than I would have gotten paid if I had gone all the way.Mr Winston drove me himself and looked over to me as I struggled to get out of my seatbelts. "Have you ever done this before?" Came his kind, yet domineering voice."No." I admitted. "Not really.""It's going to be okay. I'll make sure you're comfortable in there," he assured me. He reached out to take my hand, but thinking be
Concussions and oraclesPov: WinstonIt was a long drive to the doctor's office with Maddison yowling and mewling like a frustrated kitten in the passenger seat. From her movements and speech, she was dizzy, unbalanced, and incoherent and kept crying about how I didn't have to do this for her. She was fine, it was just a fall, she just needed to go home and sleep it off and it will all be better.But she was downplaying how hard she had fallen. I had seen it and I swear, an earthquake ripped through my chest when I saw how her head had bounced against the floor and made a BANG sound.There was a large bump on her head, an actual swelling the size of a tennis ball.I had felt around her head to check if her skin was broken and she had shrugged me away insisting that she was fine... And tried to stand on her feet. She swayed and would have fallen again if I hadn't reached out to grab her.Dr Collins was a good friend of mine. He had been over the years and the only human so far that I h
It was a blur from then on.They whipped me with whips laced in silver, fed me Aurum and argentum and made me inhale wolfesbane, the grounded petals of a flower that attacked our cardio vascular system. They flogged me with silver studded sticks and kicked me with silver soled shoes and stabbed at me and poked fun at me and laughed at me.Maddie was struggling so hard in her seat, crying and begging in mumbles for them to stop.I was weak. My eyes were closing. I could have died any second...And then, i heard a growl so gutteral, so beast like, from the other side of the room, in the direction where Maddie was.At first, I thought that it was all in my head, because no no no... It cannot be.But the others fell silent and stopped their assault on me.Maddie was growling, deep in her throat, her eyes were flashing yellow with beast like slits as pupils. Fur sprouted out of her skin. She seemed to grow bigger and bigger on the seat and stood on her feet, still tied to the chair, and ke
daysPov: WinstonIt took me a while to rouse to consciousness. Gwyn had been the first one to wake and porge the sleeping pills out of her system, because she had the lightest weight and then, she made a disgustingly smelling potion and held it up at each of our noses, to wake us up too.And so, that was how I woke up to a pungent, egg smelling potion bomb, exploding in my nose.I looked up at the grim faces of my best friends, together with Cerulean and Lapis' worried gazes and wondered what the fuck their problems were.Why were they in my room, looking at me like that? I turned to my side to ask Maddie if she was seeing what I was seeing... And had the shock of my life.Maddie's side of the bed was empty. "Where is she?!" I had growled desperately."We don't know," Gwyn had whispered, "but from the looks of it, she had drugged us and ran away.""What?!" A tremor shook my spine. I was up and out of the bed immediately, tugging on a shirt and pants and grabbing my car keys, a mill
The ghost of a smile stayed on my lips but as I continued the story, my smile dropped and fell from my face. "I stayed with Mr Winston for a while, but one day, I decided to go back home to get the rest of my things and really leave for the last time... Or at least, the last time before I start the divorce process... My husband. He was a raging angry drunk that night. There was a party playing in the apartment and I had already packed my things but he cornered me and... And he..." my voice shook.Olivia looked at me worriedly, her beautiful face twisted into a concerned scowl.I took a deep breath. "He beat me up, Olivia."A shocked gasp escaped her lungs."Yeahhh... Winston kind of... Saved me that night, and took me away to one of his islands while I got healed up. He took care of me, Liv.""Like he should," she beamed at me. She suddenly froze,her eyes going wide. She snapped her fingers. "THAT'S why the two of you have not been at work lately!" She exclaimed, her eyes softening. "
AmbushPov: MaddisonIt was an entire month and half before I hatched my failproof plan. Before I got the motivation at all.I was able to sneak out of the Grand Mansion without Winston noticing that morning.It actually helped that I had taken charge of dinner and I may or may not have drugged everyone's food.I left the conservation at five in the morning, when Winston was still sleeping peacefully beside me, his arms around my waist, pulling me close and tugging him to his torso.I had made the call last night and the recipient was probably eagerly awaiting my return, back in the city... But I needed to do this right, and I didn't want any distracrions.I hadn't slept a wink last night, and we had talked and laughed and even made love and I swallowed a sigh of relief when the drugs began to take effect and his speech started slurring and he was mumbling and falling over his words.My eyes were wide open, i slid his arm away from my waist, slowly, quietly, just incase I had not give
see for yourself Pov: Winston "Drive me back to my mother's home," Maddie said, weak and exhausted as I held her quietly in the car. "But we just got back from there," i said confused. Nonetheless, I extracted myself from her body and strapped myself to the seat. She was quiet as I inputed the address information into the gps all over again and I understood why she would be so rattled. She had just lost her best friend. What I didn't understand was why she had suddenly stopped consoling Olivia, the moment she saw that thing on her phone. I was dying to know what it was. I was dying to let her let me in. But her end of the telepathic bond I shared with her had gone depressingly silent and cold. It took a while. Hours and hours and more frustrating hours on the road, but we finally got to her house. She stepped out of the car and looked at the stately brick house surrounded by a green lawn in front and green fields at the back. The front door had been smashed in, thanks to me,
The SetupPov: MaddisonSomething is wrong.Something is wrong.Something is terribly wrong.That was the sound track playing in my head when I roused from my sleep that night and checked my phone.It was almost eight o'clock.It was almost eight o'clock and I was still asleep.Any moment now, Ethan would knock on the door to inquire about why I wasn't down in the courtyard for the early morning jog.I never sleep this late in the mornings... Because, since the assault from William went down my mother always calls me up at seven in the mornings.But today, I didn't see her phone call."Winston!" I cried alarmed. "Winston, wake up," I begged, already sliding out of bed.He sat up, awake and alert immediately, searching my face frantically. "What happened, Maddie? Did anything happen to you?""Yes. I need you to drive me back to the city. I need to see my mother," I explained hurriedly as I slipped out of my nightdress and shimmied into a pair of jeans and tugged on a tank top.Winston
Heart to HeartPov: MaddisonAfter the study and books aspect was out of the way, I found out that I actually looked forward to Gwyn's lessons the most.I was currently sitting cross-legged, high up on a cliff, eyes closed, facing the setting sun.I felt her presence all around me, her voice was soft and delicate as she explained to me the basics of the technique she had used on Nathan that time."Chakra is a Sanskrit word and it means “disk” or “wheel” and it represents the various energy centers in your body. These wheels or disks of spinning energy each correspond to certain nerve bundles and major organs. To function at their best, your chakras need to stay open, or balanced. If they get blocked, you may experience physical or emotional symptoms related to a particular chakra."There are seven main chakras that run along your spine. They start at the base, of your spine and extend to the crown of your head. But these are only your main chakra points where energy is gathered in the
fighting stancePov: MaddisonEthan was a brutal taskmaster. Cold and calculating and belting out orders, pushing me to my max.I had changed my diet to contain more protein and carb contents as per Nathan's instructions and I had jogged and worked out and pushed my body to the extreme under Ethan's tutelage and Gwyn helped with my meditation and tutored me in basic human anatomy.The first day of my training with Ethan, I was a sweating, sobbing, puking, breathless mess on the floor of the sparring courtyard in the big house that was really the grandest mansion I had ever seen.On the fourth day, I wasn't doing much better, but at least, I had learned to throw a punch without causing much damage to myself, and I wasn't as breathless and winded after each early morning jog."You're punching all wrong," he told me in my first day. "When you hit your target, you want to strike with the first two knuckles, not that flat front part of your fist or the smaller knuckles on your ring or pink
Favourite fixPov: WinstonMy entire body freezed mid strike as I felt another presence join me in my private sparring room."I thought I would find you here," the very familiar voice said aptly.I exhaled the breath I had been holding and completed the punch–kick sequence I had been been doing on the sparring dummy, before I turned to him, grabbing my bottle of water and draining the contents thirstily."Who invited you in?" I asked my best friend now, raising an amused brow.He looked at me, shocked at first, and then he caught on to the fact that I was actually smiling at him, and his lips stretched into a conniving grin that was so Nate... That grin that made him look like you two were in on a private joke or something. Even if he had no idea what you were talking about, his goofy grins made you think he did."Thanks, man," he said now, his voice turning serious as he went to perch on the raised steps to the boxing ring. "I... I was actually going to leave today, immediately afte