What do you think is an appropriate punishment for the traitors?
VIOLETDarkness surrounded me when awareness came to me. There was a sense of wrongness all around me, chilling me to the bone. The darkness bore down, suffocating and oppressive in nature. I attempted to move but was restrained by something. There was a pounding in my chest as I tried to control my rising panic because it’d do nothing good or beneficial.“Listen to that racing heart,” a very distinct voice murmured into my ear. “Can’t move? Where is all of that strength? Perhaps you’re nothing more than a weak wannabe, pretending to be something that you aren’t,” he taunted me.I felt Reika stirring within me, her steady presence providing me with a sense of calm. It reminded me that I wasn’t alone.“Think what you wish, but we both know the truth,” I replied calmly, my lips turning up into a smirk. “Between the two of us, you’re the one that relies on others for your strength while I rely on nobody because I fight my own battles.”I wasn’t all that surprised when he lost his cool an
VIOLETHis arms wrapped around me, causing me to lose the battle with my tears. My face was buried against his chest. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I cried. Enzo just held me to him, providing whatever strength that he could.I had no idea how long I cried, but my eyes eventually ran dry. Enzo tilted my chin up so that he could wipe my tears away. There was such gentleness in his eyes, but there was also fierce protectiveness. He didn’t know what caused me to cry, but I had no doubt that he would wish to destroy its origin. That’d be an absolute certainty with it being Alpha Bradley.“Do you want to talk about it, Amore Mio?” he asked me softly.Something that I’ve appreciated about my mate was the fact that he had always let me decide if I wanted to share something and didn’t push me if I were to say no. He respected my choices. I was a lucky bitch to be mated to him.I took a deep breath and opened up my mind so that he could see the memory, doubting that I’d be able to verbalize
VIOLET“Here you go,” I told the table as I set their order down.I didn’t miss the way that the guy’s eyes drank me in, and I found myself once again cursing Greg for choosing these uniforms. I had absolutely no idea why we had to have skintight uniforms that put our assets on display. It was degrading, especially when the customers were constantly undressing us with their eyes.The woman sitting next to him shot me a death glare because of the idiot’s shameless display. It wasn’t my fault that he couldn’t control his gaze. Sure, blame me for his bullshit.“Thank you,” he said, flashing me a grin.There was something in his gaze that unsettled and irritated me, but I had to push that aside. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the luxury of telling customers to fuck off no matter how much I wished to do just that.“You’re welcome. Enjoy your meals,” I said before turning on my heels and leaving.I hated this job. The hours, dealing with ridiculous bullshit from customers, and the lack of resp
VIOLETThe phone stopped ringing, and a text message came through. It was our signal to tell me that whatever she needed to say was important.I pulled it out and cursed when I read her message. ‘He’s drunk again and pounding on my bedroom door…’Fuck. I texted her back that I was on my way home and took off running. Thankfully, the diner wasn’t that far from our house. It was also a good thing that I was a fast runner. I was panting by the time that I ran up the porch steps, but at least I made it.He was still pounding on Daphne’s door. God, I knew that she had to be terrified right now. Daphne was a brave person but felt emotions deeply. It infuriated me that he was scaring her. That girl didn’t fucking need to deal with his shit.I would love nothing more than to run away with her, but I knew that he would stop at nothing to get us back simply because he refused to let anyone else have control in life. No fucking idea why he kept us around because he hated us with a damn passion.W
VIOLETSomething woke me up. It took a minute to orient myself and remember what had happened earlier.Daphne had stopped crying after thirty minutes and had been embarrassed about breaking down, but I was able to put her at ease. She didn’t want to stay in her room, so I took her over to my room after making sure she had something to eat.My sister had clung to me even in her sleep. Her whimpers hurt to hear because it showed her distress even in the land of dreams.I gently extricated myself from her hold and pushed my pillow into her arms, hoping that it’d be enough to keep her asleep because she definitely needed it after the night that she had.I heard the front door shut and footsteps that were clearly from more than just Ron.My heart was hammering away in my chest as I opened my door and slipped into the hallway. Something was compelling me to find out what was going on. My gut twisted just like it always did when something bad was going to happen. I had learned long ago to alw
ENZOI was on my way home from work when my Bluetooth alerted me to an incoming call. Part of me wanted to ignore the call, but I hit the button to accept it instead.Was it too much for me to wish that the outside world didn’t exist for the rest of tonight? All I wanted to do was grab a shower and drop onto my bed, finding sleep after another exhausting day. It was a little after 10 at night.“You need to get your ass over here. I’m sending you my location,” my brother, Niccolò, said the moment that the call connected.The urgency in his voice gave me pause because Niccolò was rarely like this unless something serious happened.His location came through to me. I wasted no time in clicking it on the display so that it would pull up the map to get me there. It looked like I was fifteen miles away so not that far.“Tell me everything,” I demanded.I knew that he hated it when I demanded shit, but I didn’t care right now. This was the time for me to know what I would be walking into.“I w
ENZO“You know her?”He moved in for a closer look and lifted her arm up, looking for something. He sucked in a sharp breath when he saw a deep bruise on her arm.“I met her today. The altercation that I mentioned earlier happened when we stopped at a diner for lunch. No idea what in the fuck had happened, but her boss was already holding her arm tightly, as can be seen for it to bruise that deeply, and had his other hand poised to strike her. I intervened and promised that I’d break his wrist if he tried striking her. He ran away like a pussy. She thanked me and told me her name.”The growl this time wasn’t from Titan but me. Niccolò looked at me in surprise at my reaction. Yeah, get in line because I was just as surprised. He just cleared his throat and continued.“This morning, I had gotten the feeling that something big was going to happen today. That’s why I had the guys with me today. I think that I was led to that diner for more than just protecting her from her boss but because
VIOLETThe accident, glass being crunched as someone walked over it, and the voice saying to take care of them were the last things that I remembered before everything went dark.My body felt like it had been through hell, but I supposed that it had given everything that happened in such a short period of time.I attempted to take stock of everything that I could before I opened my eyes, uncertain about what would be waiting for me.My body was laying on something soft, surprising me because the assholes hadn’t seemed to care about my comfort when they manhandled me. It would appear to be a bed that I was laying on if the silkiness of its sheets was any indication. At least they were good quality. That right there was a plus.Why would they care about placing me on a bed? I got the impression that they were elitest bastards that thrived off of the pain that they inflicted on those they deemed to be unworthy.I was focusing on their glaring lack of personalities that could be at least s
VIOLETHis arms wrapped around me, causing me to lose the battle with my tears. My face was buried against his chest. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I cried. Enzo just held me to him, providing whatever strength that he could.I had no idea how long I cried, but my eyes eventually ran dry. Enzo tilted my chin up so that he could wipe my tears away. There was such gentleness in his eyes, but there was also fierce protectiveness. He didn’t know what caused me to cry, but I had no doubt that he would wish to destroy its origin. That’d be an absolute certainty with it being Alpha Bradley.“Do you want to talk about it, Amore Mio?” he asked me softly.Something that I’ve appreciated about my mate was the fact that he had always let me decide if I wanted to share something and didn’t push me if I were to say no. He respected my choices. I was a lucky bitch to be mated to him.I took a deep breath and opened up my mind so that he could see the memory, doubting that I’d be able to verbalize
VIOLETDarkness surrounded me when awareness came to me. There was a sense of wrongness all around me, chilling me to the bone. The darkness bore down, suffocating and oppressive in nature. I attempted to move but was restrained by something. There was a pounding in my chest as I tried to control my rising panic because it’d do nothing good or beneficial.“Listen to that racing heart,” a very distinct voice murmured into my ear. “Can’t move? Where is all of that strength? Perhaps you’re nothing more than a weak wannabe, pretending to be something that you aren’t,” he taunted me.I felt Reika stirring within me, her steady presence providing me with a sense of calm. It reminded me that I wasn’t alone.“Think what you wish, but we both know the truth,” I replied calmly, my lips turning up into a smirk. “Between the two of us, you’re the one that relies on others for your strength while I rely on nobody because I fight my own battles.”I wasn’t all that surprised when he lost his cool an
ENZOMy instincts were on high alert as we walked into the auditorium where the Sentinels were waiting for us. Titan and I were preparing for anything because we refused to allow anything else to happen to her. I felt like a fucking failure with how many times she had been harmed since she came into our lives. Circumstances weren’t always in our control, but that did nothing to change the guilt that Titan and I both felt. Hopefully, we’d be able to leave after this because we could feel her fatigue setting in – both physical and emotional in nature. Today didn’t go the way that we’d hoped for it to go, but there was no chance of getting a redo.The large auditorium was already filled with more bodies than I could even guestimate but at least in the thousands. There was no doubt in my mind that there were those loyal to Alpha Bradley, which had me nervous as fuck because they had no qualms in opening fire on us.The remaining Council members had us wait off-stage but said that they’d
VIOLETI was past the point of fed-up with these damn Council Alphas. They were more worried about public image than anything else at the moment. Yes, they needed to get ahead of Alpha Bradley, but that did not mean they should disregard the more important issue right now.THEY STILL DID NOT KNOW WHICH SENTINELS WERE LOYAL TO THEM.I had hoped that they would not need to have their damn hands held as they traversed the minefield that they currently found themselves in, but my hope was futile. How in the living hell did they ever get anything important done?Reika finally had enough just like I had. A loud snarl ripped through the air. All bickering finally stopped, and the sweet sound of silence hung in the air like a thick blanket.“Can we focus on the most important part right now?” I deadpanned, somehow keeping the irritation out of my voice.The Alphas exchanged a glance before looking back at me. I didn’t need to feel their emotions to know that they were irritated with my disturb
ENZOMy heart was in my throat as my mate rushed out of the room to go after the fucker. I didn’t get any time to consider all of the ways that it could go wrong because there were at least thirty Sentinels with their guns aimed at us all.“I SAID TO STAND DOWN!” one of the Alphas shouted out.Was he that fucking stupid to realize that it was going to fail a second time if it’d so gloriously failed the first time? I still didn’t understand how they’d be so unaware of how fucked this situation had gotten. How had they not realized that two of their own had turned their backs on the Council’s cause and had a force of Sentinels under Alpha Bradley’s leadership instead of their own?“They’re loyal to Alpha Bradly instead of you all. It’s not going to do shit. Give me permission to get my people in here unless you all want to see how far their loyalty to the fucker goes,” I insisted.As if to prove my point, someone fired their gun at Alpha Amir. He dove out of the way just in time. He shou
VIOLET“You've gotten faster.”My head whipped around and saw Daph right behind me. What in the fuck was she doing out here? The plan had been for Lilac to teleport her home if anything went down. This was definitely not taking her home. “What are you doing here? Daph, this wasn't the plan,” I said sternly. My lovely sister just rolled her eyes as she sped up so that we were side by side. She'd been putting in a lot of effort in training over the past two weeks and did phenomenal, but that was during training. This was definitely not training.“I don't have full access to my magic yet, but Mom's been teaching me. Our Pi Day victim has worked with my physical training. I'm not weak or useless. Face it, Vi, we all have a stake in seeing this bastard caught.”Damnit. She was right. He'd hurt her too. I knew that her nightmares had calmed down quite a bit, but they were still happening. Reika often pulled me into her nightmares, allowing our presence to calm her down and provide her comf
ENZOToday would end up being the biggest test of my control.We’d worked our asses off to prepare for today, but nothing would’ve prepared me for being in Alpha Bradley’s presence. He’d pay for his sins if it was the very last thing that I made sure of.I still couldn’t wrap my head around how someone could be so fucked up. I’d never be able to forget the things that the survivors detailed that he’d done to them. They had been extremely candid, wanting nothing more than for him to be thrown into a river of lava.It took a little while for the survivors to relax at our house. I knew that the physical comfort level was not all that great, but it was the best that we could currently do. However, they were just thankful to be safe and away from the hell that they’d been living in.We’d gotten a couple of our therapists to come out to the house. I’d been a little surprised at how quickly the survivors took it upon themselves to begin a support that very same night. They’d found understandi
VIOLETNerves were running through me at record speed, building up to an inevitable crescendo.Today was the day that we’d be confronting the Council. So much could go wrong. The unknowns had been weighing heavily upon me. My incredible mate was there to hold me when I did eventually broke down. He never once made me feel weak for my tears but simply helped me to carry the burden while providing me the strength to continue on, reminding me that I wasn’t alone.Mom had helped me master the art of glamouring. It was difficult to hold it at first until Reika and I figured out a way for her power to boost my glamours. Once we got that down, our glamours were solid even if others tried to distract me.Aunt Kaia had sat down with me and sincerely apologized to me, sharing how she was ashamed of what she’d done. While I was still hurt by it all, I couldn’t hold onto that. We weren’t promised tomorrow, so I womaned up and forgave her. Lilac, Niccolò, and Enzo were still a little wary, wanting
VIOLETMom always paused like that when whatever came after would hit harder. That had my insides twisting a bit. I still hadn't thought up a good plan on how to get in front of them. Hopefully, her vision ended up providing a generic overview. She explained every last detail of her vision, not leaving anything out. There was, indeed, enough information to go off of to develop a plan of attack. It was the time frame that hit the hardest. We only had two weeks to get everything in order and face Alpha Bradley. We either succeeded or failed. There was no other outcome. We needed to develop an airtight argument because we'd be needing the Council to essentially turn on two of its members. The Werewolf Council was the highest form of authority in the land. I took a steadying breath and pushed aside my worries. This would work because there was no other option for us. We sat there and discussed the best course of action. It was decided that we'd divide and conquer. Some of us would go d