ARII have been bleeding.I haven’t left my room ever since the party, afraid that the outside world is going to be unbearable. I have been having nightmares, too. From dreaming about Olivia circulating the video of Zade and I making out, but it's not just making out this time, it's more to me being beaten up because I am a slut.How did I end up getting here? From being uninterested in boys to having my first kiss stolen to now dreaming about being shamed about my sexual endeavors?It's not like there are any sexual endeavors, but it's there. It's implied, and it's all because of Zade. He is the root of all my problems.Classes are going to resume tomorrow; the long weekend is over, and I am terrified.My phone has been off for a reason.Groaning, I curl up in a ball and pull the duvet over my head, sinking deeper into bed. If I don’t have to deal with it today, then maybe sleeping until I have to is the remedy. I just wish I could disappear or be told I don’t have to go here anymore
ARI“let's bond. But I will have one wish that I will ask of you in the future. Se it like a business deal. You get what you want, and I will collect my wish whenever. You must do it, though.”He looks at me, probably trying to see if I am tricking him or if I am telling the truth. Whatever he sees makes him nod once. “deal.”“if you break it-““it’s a promise formed under the completion of the bond, sort of like a blood covenant. I can't break it. Have a little faith in me.”“That’s something I will not do, but sure. Let's do it then,” I clap, sit on the couch, and pat the space on my left.He looks confused. “what?”Rolling my eyes, “I don’t need eyes on me as you sink your teeth into my neck, so let's do it now.”He walks over in quick steps, eyebrows raised, looking at me incredulously. “we need to have a ceremony for this. You do know I am the next king alpha, don’t you?”“And I know you don’t want your sweet girlfriend seeing you claiming and marking another woman in front of ev
ARII am going to burst into flames, and yet, I can't move.I am weak, my body, not my own, as I feel myself falling, but strong arms catch me before I slump on the floor.Zade finally retracts his fangs and looks at me, his eyes like the snow of my Alps… my home. I feel like I am in a fever dream the longer I stare into those pale eyes, no longer silver.There is blood trickling down his chin, mouth slightly open.“Ari.”My eyes shut close as the feeling finally starts coming back to my body, but the fire in my blood isn't ceasing.Zade doesn’t utter another word but tilts his head to the side, baring his neck open for me. It feels like I am moving in slow motion as I kneel and lean forward, getting closer and closer to his neck.I can't call in my wolf; I can't extend my sharp fangs out, either. My feverish brain is registering all of this, but I still clamp down on his neck. His soft grunt is the only indication I get that, yes, I have bitten him.Not enough to sink deeper, but I d
ZADEShe is everywhere.I can feel her in my blood, in my bones, under my skin. She envelops me, traveling through every neuron from my head to my toes.But then it's gone too soon.She slumps down, my neck tingling where she has bitten me. All I want is for her to bite me again, for me to feel that closeness that I have never known existed. It's heavenly to be close, to be one with her … her blood still in my mouth, her scent intertwined with mine.But she is twitching on the floor. She is in pain, and I want to help her. But I am weak; my body doesn’t feel like mine. Something is making me immobile, this heavy=iness over my body.I can't breathe as I watch her from where I am kneeling on the floor.But then she exhales, as if she has been released, just as the feeling of being repressed fades away, and I am back to myself.My head is feeling hazy still, in a good way. I feel high. I am high on her …She is shifting. Her wolf seems to be awakening …She is beautiful. She is so beauti
ARII feel alive for the first time in over ten years.The first thing I wanted to feel was freedom, and that meant running until I forgot everything and everyone. I became one with the wind until someone started tailing me.My senses are open: the wind, the smell, the ground beneath me, the surroundings, it all feels so different from how I have been used to now.How did I live for so long, feeling like my head was underwater all this time? I lost Lin when I was a child, fear and grief crippling me that when Lin left, it just added to the pain that I felt.I didn’t think much about it then, growing up feeling like I was just floating in the world, running and always afraid.Every child gets their wolf and forms a bond with them, and it gets harmonious, bonding and blending into one as you mature. It might be because I am not used to the strength and all these sensational things I feel, but I don’t hate it.I have always thought that I would feel disconnected from my wolf, but it's lik
ARII hesitate.Even in my hesitation, he doesn’t do anything but wait. He hates me, doesn’t he? Then why is he letting me get this close to him? I deflect, going for his jugular, and instead bite his shoulder instead, as if marking him a second time. His blood is so refreshing, those pheromones tingling my whole body I have to get off him, shaking off that weird feeling as I glare at him.“you. what are you doing now?” he is pissing me off with this act.“I should ask you that. You are the one who is attacking me and wounding me.”So annoying.All the fun is now ruined, like always, whenever he shows up.“you need to get back to the academy. No one knows that you have your wolf back.”“did you come all this way to tell me that?”“it's not safe out here; you are alone and vulnerable in this state.”“I have never been less vulnerable.” I pointedly look at the brown wolf that’s watching us from a distance in wary. Who the hell is he anyway?“I get that, but you haven’t gotten a pass to
ZADEI don’t understand why I care that she is hungry.I don’t understand why I feel the need to make sure she is well-fed and then get her back to the academy safely. She is not my concern; she never has been and never will be.Yet here I am, feeling satisfied as she is eating the hamburger, gulping it down, and not even raising her eyes to look at me or bother talking to me. She hasn't pretended not to be hungry; I know she must have been starving. A bonding ceremony is exhausting, mentally, and draining on the body.I feel like I can sleep for a week. Adding to shifting, too, I know she is bone tired. Being bonded to her is a curse. Before, I could feel most of the things she felt, that is, if I didn’t block her.Now, it doesn’t matter if I block her or not, she has shit me out. It's very weird, something being taken from you, a thing you didn’t even care about that existed in the first place.I feel like my whole life is cursed. I am not lucky; I am not favored, unlike what people
ZADE“you mated her?”“livie, I did try not to but-““you mated her! You completed the bond, and now she is your mate. You two are linked for life,” Livie is pacing in my bedroom, hands pulling her hair roots.“I need you to stop moving and calm down first,” I try approaching her, but she shakes me off hard and steps back.This is what I was fearing. This is what I didn’t want to see: the betrayal that’s in her eyes when she looks at me.“How can I ever listen to you? How can I ever believe you ever again?”“because it doesn’t matter to me who my mate is! You are the woman I love; I don’t care about her.”She stops and looks at me blankly before she starts laughing. “what? You don’t love her? You love me, and I am the woman for you?”“livie,”“no,” she raises her hand and looks at the floor. “I mean, I am the woman who has your love, right? What does it matter if I don’t get what I have wanted from you since I was ten? I mean, I have all your love, and nothing else matters.”“livie.”
ZADEEverything should have gotten better.No, everything should have changed once I decided not to let my dislike for silvers get in the way of me making amends to her. But she has been avoiding me and acting like I don’t exist at all.I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind before but now? now she is all I see. Now she is the epitome of my existence.She is posing a challenge and that is to ignore me and treat me like I am inviscible. Like we are not bonded and I cant sometimes fele her when she hasn’t blocked me out.Like I cant feel her so close to me like we are sharing the same skin, breathing the same air. We are intertwined, I am wearing her mark on my skin, and she is wearing mine, a sign that we are meant to be together, wheter we like it or not.I haven't liked it for a long time and I hated her some more for it. But even then, when I was swimming in my denial, I knew that my life would never be the same once she busted in.She is not someone you simply forget or even
ARII learnt how to drive when I was thirteen.My mother was so sick in the middle of the night, and it was the month we had to stay in a cabin away from towns and civilisations because she feared that the ones we had been running away from had caught up to us.I still don’t have a driver’s license, but I am a decent driver.The car, too, is so good and so sexy that I can't help the laugh that bubbles out of my throat. When I told Mr. Parker that I needed a car to get out of school like other students, he told me he already had one for me.It was a gift that he didn't think I would like but bought anyway. He is … thoughtful and trying to fill in my father's role.I appreciate that.I run my hands on the steering wheel, smiling so widely my cheeks are aching.A black mustang; sporty, sexy, just how I love it. The interior is all dark red and leather too, that new smell making my norse itch and I giggle as I start it, gearing as I speed out of the gate.Weeks ago I couldn’t get out of t
ARII am a girl that is broken.I have tried not to let it consume me, and when it was too much for me, I have tried containing it so that it won't consume those around me.Life for me has not been easy. It has been an endless darkness that threatens to twist me and fold me, shatter every new vine, every bone I form, and render me helpless, weak all my life.You can say I have tried not to let it show that I am drowning and just how broken and damaged I am. My mother can't tell you that I have been dead; she thinks I am fine.How can she know when my one purpose in life was to ensure that she never once realized the truth about me?But I am tired of keeping the darkness away. I am tired of carrying it like it weighs nothing, when it's only I who knows the truth about it—about the weight. I have been dead for a long time, just floating in the world.I have had to be with nothing, be nothing that it has infused in my blood, in my psyche. If you are nothing, if you don’t know anything, t
ARI“Are you sure you're okay?”“I am,” I take Max’s hand. “I promise if I feel any discomfort pain, I will tell you immediately.”She laughs. “You better.”“Okay, Mom,” I roll my eyes as I get off the bed. I have been cooped up here for some reason, but I have had enough.“I am just taking care of you, I feel partly responsible for this.” She isn't looking at me, head bowed in guilt.“You have no reason to. You aren't the one who pushed me off the roof,” I shrug. “I was a little reckless too, going up there in the middle of the night to meet with the same girl who beat me to death a few days earlier.”“Why did you?”I sigh, leaning on the small closet in the room where my clothes have been put. “I wanted to get it over with? I knew we had to talk at some point, so getting that out of the way … and I was curious what she wanted to say.”She frowns, obviously disagreeing with my choices. I can't blame her, I mean, look where it got me. "What did she want?”“She wanted me to stay away f
ZADEI get to my room, feeling like I am about to lose it, only to find …“I have been waiting for you.”Olivia. Naked in my bed, waiting for me.“I knew we had to talk alone,” she kneels on the bed.My strides are quick as I reach over to the bed and clamp my fingers around her neck, making her gasp and look up at me with wide eyes, confusion, and then terror reflecting in her eyes.“I told you I don’t allow anyone in my bed.” I don’t feel a thing, not even as she starts to scratch my hand, trying to get me to let her go.“I thought I made myself clear when I told you that me amd you are done. Why don’t you get through that your little skull?”I squeeze tighter, all the mindache that has been assaulting me since I got away from that hospital room, finally zeroing in on the girl in front of me. Maybe she should die.Would Silvers forgive me if I killed her? Would she see this as a good form of apology? Will it be enough?Olivia starts to lose consciousness, the fight leaving her body.
ZADE“I did it for you.”Experated sigh, then an eye roll. “I didn’t think you were attached to her like this. Don’t you hate her?”The longer Olivia keeps talking, the angrier I get.“Get out.”She looks at me, surprised. “What?”“Get out.”“You can't be serious,” she huffs, flicking her hair over her shoulder. You can't talk to me like that and tell me to leave just because of her.”I have a feeling if she doesn’t move, I might remove her myself. “I am. Now get out while I am being nice.”She tripped. I am not to blame that she is clumsy! What was I supposed to do when she fell? Jump after her? I called you, that’s enough to show I care.”“you didn’t call me, I found out on my own.” my hands are shaking. I a barely holding myself back from making sure she gets what she has done to ari only worse.“Whatever, all I am saying is, I did it for you. I called you and found you not because of her but for you.”“Olivia.”“You only call me that when you are serious.”“I want you to listen ca
ARII shouldn’t have agreed to come here.I don’t trust her, but I couldn’t ignore the call either. I wonder what she wants to say now that she has called me.The location too is very strange. I mean, who call someone up a frooftop in the middle of the night all in the name of talking?Olivia, that’s who.“I thought you wouldn’t come.” Her voice echoes before I see her. She shows herself from the stone she was leaning against, blending in with the shadows.“I was curious as to what you wanted to say to me.” I try not to show that I am intimidated by her. She did try to kill me, so of course I am wary. I would be a fool if I weren’t.“I suppose you would be,” she chuckles, tilting her head to the side. Her long hair slides off her shoulder, making the angle even more alluring. I still cant see her face, as her back is facing where the moon is illimunating from the sky.Soo, talk,” I shrug, hoping she will start already and I can go back to sleep. Not that I was, but she doesn’t need to
ZADEI don’t move an inch from where I am, exhaling slowly as Olivia sits next to me, shoulder to shoulder. I didn’t hear her coming up.I must have been distracted. Again.“can't sleep?”“When have I ever been able to?”She chuckles, before laying her head on my shoulder. “sorry, I forgot you are an insomniac like me.”When I don’t say anything, she sighs. “Just one of the things we are alike, don’t you agree?”“I guess.” I have been trying to spend less time with her. She must have noticed that he sought me out like this.“You haven’t come to see me for a while. I am starting to think you are ignoring me again.”“I have been busy.”“If its school work, I know you are way ahead and you have already aced the exams even before they are announced.”“I have other duties other than academics.”“I know, I have your full schedule, remember?”Right, I forgot.“Why have you been ignoring me?”“I thought it would be easier if we slowly got out of each other's lives.” Not even my grandpa is sup
ZADEShe has changed.It's in the way she is talking and interacting with others, or lack thereof.It's in the way I can't seem to be getting under her skin anymore. Even the way she is looking at me nowadays, like she can see me but not really. As if she is looking right through me. Together and in front of me but not truly with me.It's annoying me.We are back to the academy, thank hells for that because I couldn’t take more of that camp any more. I dont want to be around her, so close yet so far away and I don’t know how to even fix it.She was starting to look at me differently, too. It started as wariness, then to fear and then to something akin to … familiarity. Comfortable.But now it’s something I hadn’t seen from her before. She is looking at me like I don’t matter at al. she can see me and in her mind, I simply don’t matter, don’t hold anything of importance for her to regard me as anything but someone who she has to deal with in the specific moment I am with her.I don’t l