ZADEEveryone tells me that Grandpa is the scariest man to ever exist in this world. I do agree with them because I feel the same way. But I also have a different relationship with him, one that’s not known by anyone and who he is inside his home.Grandpa is a family man. He loves and cherishes his family and protects them, too. He is the only man I have ever seen love and protect unconditionally.People see him as the ruthless, cold, hearted alpha, a powerhouse, and he is. he is the spine of this family. But he is also my grandfather. He is warm caring, and he loves me. He treats me like his grandson and probably still sees me as the ten-year-old who broke the precious bowl that Grandma made for him on the first date they went to.Grandma died a long time ago. She was the nurturer and a very tong woman. Grandpa still holds on, but he misses her, it's evident when you come into this house. Everything remains as it was when she decorated it, how she did things around the house.Coming
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
ZADEThe whole world seems to fade out as I walk towards the girl who’s getting out of the car, looking around.“What are you doing here?”Her head snaps my direction, looking directly at me before she dismisses me by looking over my shoulder.My jaw clenches as Max walks up to me, looking a little uncomfortable. “Hey, Zade. We thought we could join in on the fun.”Is she dismissing me even now, in my event that she is not supposed to be? Seriously? “Were you invited?” I don’t conceal the cold venom dripping from my tone.“That’s the thing we-““Crashing my race?” I cut her off, raising my voice a little. “Leave.”I start leaving, not able to stand there and be ignored. I don’t know what's annoying; the fact that she is ruining my life or the fact that she is here, unbothered and blatantly treating me like I am invisible.“Are you okay? You seem a little bloated.”That voice stops me in my tracks, and I raise my eyebrows. Bloated? “Did you talk to me?” I turn around and point at mysel
ZADEI didn’t think much of anything at first when the guy I have been going for these races tried to deny me access and make the night fun for me.But when my car collection was suddenly gone from my warehouse, I knew something was up. No one knows about my warehouse save for the boys and the people who work there.They cant even meet my eyes, as I wait for them to explain why I cant see my cars, why the warehouse is fucking empty.“We didn’t do anything, we were all told to stand aside as they took the cars and left without a word.” One of them tries to explain, but my patience is starting to run thin.“Who are they?” Rowan asks as I turn around, looking around, trying to think who could have the guts to try crossing me like that.No one can try pulling some move like that on me because they know they won't be sleeping with their head attached to the rest of the body.“King Alpha’s command. He told us to stand down. We didn’t have any other choice! I am sorry, please spare us!”Of
ARII look hot.As I look at my reflection in the mirror, I can't help but notice the progress in my psyche and how I look so different from the girl I was months back.That girl dressed and spoke from a place of pleasing everyone around her, to not upset anyone, and to remain in the background. I didn’t dress how I wanted, I didn't even eat some of the foods I wanted when I was at a party that my mother had hosted on yet another Friday night.I wasn’t myself, accepting to be dressed like a doll, going with the motions until I couldn’t know what was real to me and what wasn’t.I never had a chance to grow into myself, decide what I like and what I didn’t like. All of that was pushed away because it didn’t matter when I didn’t know if I was going to live long enough to see spring.Nothing held meaning in a life of survival, and all that I could do once we found a new home and we could sleep a full night without waking up to walk around the property was to continue living the life of a
ARII am lying on my couch playing on my phone, Mimi and Max hanging out with me, when Max sits up from her seat, looking at her phone with wide eyes.“I can't believe them!”“What is it?” Max asks, looking up from her book.“The boys are doing an illegal street race,” Max shakes her head. “The last time they did this, someone died and the human police had to be involved.”“Who died?” I ask.“A human girl died. There are usually humans joining in on the fun, and the night is so wild and dangerous. I wish they would just notice how dangerous the people they are hanging out with are dangerous.”I shrug casually. “Some people prefer the darkness and the danger. How did she die?”“She was killed.”“What? Why?” Mimi asks, her round eyes wide behind the glasses.“Logan killed her.”That makes my jaw drop. “Whoa.”“yes, that’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea to hold another race especially with how unhinged they have been lately,” max lies down on the couch again. “those stupid assholes.
ARI“Ari! What a surprise, what brings you here?”I smile, bowing slightly in greeting. “Hello, Mr. Parker, I was in the city and decided to come in and say hello to you.” I meet his eyes. “Well, and thank you for the car and the new suite at school.”He laughs, sitting behind the large desk. “You don’t have to thank me, it was nothing. Sit.”I sit on the plush chair facing him, the large luxurious office very intimidating, or it could be the king alpha himself. His presence is very commanding, and his energy is felt, even without him trying to. You have no other choice but to obey and listen to him.I wonder how mother copes with this, as she is an omega; but then again, they are mates, so she is in tune with him.“Mary has not been in the best of moods,” he starts as he sits back, fingers drumming on the mahogany surface. “You haven’t been talking to her.”“I have been busy with school, but I intend to rectify that as soon as possible.” Lies. I have no intention of facing my mother
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