[Apple] Within minutes of meeting the two beautiful young women who run the establishment, I had a part-time gig working the night shift at a catering company along with Hazel, who also works with them on major gigs. We have a big job tonight, and I’m promised that the tips are excellent. When they heard I had waitressing experience, they decided to assign me to work as an assistant bartender. “Oh, you are so lucky!” Hazel squeed with envy. “Bartenders get the biggest tips!” While the pay isn’t as good as Rental Luna, it will help me pay the bills and save a bit to eventually pay Alpha Sterling back for his generosity. With a new spring in my step, I feel hope for the first time in a long time. Hazel is like the sister I always wish I had. I’ve only known her for a couple of days, but I can already feel myself bonding to her as our friendship grows deeper. Until meeting her, I didn’t realize you could learn to care for someone so quickly. “So this is the biology department,”
[Sylvester][EARLIER TODAY]My eyes stalk her as she enters her apartment. The street smells of piss and shit, angry witches, and tired humans. It is a vile pit of a neighborhood near the waterfront in an area ripe for redevelopment. "We need to drag her back to the packhouse," Rufus insists. "This place isn't good enough for our Luna." "She isn't our Luna," I remind him. "Even if she chooses to sign the contract." "She is too our Luna," he snaps back, "Even if you refuse to recognize it. She is ours," he growls. "Mine." Rufus refuses to listen to reason. It doesn't matter how many times I say that she's too young, too weak, and far too human, he is insistent that I am wrong. But I can't have a human mate. No matter how good she smells.I take one last look at her apartment window, her gaze pulling my attention upwards. She is frowning, her brow furrowed.Sighing, I turn towards the harbor and begin my slow march back to the office. She'll come around, I'm certain. The offer I'm
[Apple] The only warning we receive is the flash of his glowing blue eyes. Faster than I’ve ever seen any man run, Sylvester Sterling crosses the distance from the shadows to our apartment stoop as a gracefully dynamic force, grabbing Hawthorne by the collar and slamming him into the wall near the door. “She is MINE!” he growls, his eyes glowing brightly enough to cast my friend’s face in harsh relief, deepening the shadows and highlighting the fear in Thorne’s eyes. “Alpha, stop!” I shout but it’s no use. Whoever is in charge, it isn’t Sylvester Sterling, even if he is dressed like him. “He’s my friend.”“He is an interloper,” his fangs elongate as he tilts his head to the side. “An invader. An enemy. You are MY Luna. MINE. He may not touch what is mine.”"Sylvester, look at me." The wolf turns his head towards me and his eyes slowly begin to dim. "Please listen. We are just friends. This isn't what you think it is..."“MINE.” The word is spoken with so much force that I can alm
[Sylvester]As she takes his hand and they walk up the stairs together, my stomach sinks and my heart feels like it has stopped. As I move towards the car, my leaden legs resist moving away from the place where I held her in my arms, the smell of our mixed scents calming me, relaxing something deep within. “We need to go get her,” Rufus insists. “She needs us.” “Maybe she doesn’t need us” I push back, “Maybe we are the ones who need her.”My phone rings. It’s the council. I don’t want to answer it, but I know that if I don’t they’ll make trouble for me one way or the other. Their message for me is brief, curt, and on the nose. They have a solution to all my problems. I just need to present myself IMMEDIATELY to receive their justice. Well damn. Calling Rudy, I asked him to pick me up and to bring the file he prepared earlier today. "We need to convince them that Apple is our best option," I explain.Rudy sends a car and the ride is silent as I make my way back to Sterling Inc. I'm
[Apple]I couldn't sleep thinking about the look of dejection on the werewolf's face. Why should I care how he feels. He means nothing to me. He's just a potential employer with an overactive possessive streak. When I finally crawl out of bed the next morning, Hazel is already awake and is in an overly happy mood. “I taste change in the air,” Hazel announces as she enters the kitchen and pours herself a cup of coffee. “Can you feel it?”Oddly enough I can. As the Autumn winds blow through our open window they feel electric, alive with possibilities. Today is my first full day of classes. Classes I wouldn't have been able to attend if it wasn't for the Alpha's generosity. As Hazel walked me from class to class, making sure that I "wouldn't get lost," we discussed the night before. "Werewolves can be funny, sometimes, about the people they chose to protect," she explains. "I know it might not seem like it, but I think the alpha might care about you."How can the alpha have any type
[Apple]The Alpha is looking at me like something sweet to eat and I find it very unnerving. As he approaches, I take an involuntary step backward and his eyes go from smoldering to sad in a blink. "You're hurt," his tone is soft, almost gentle. The deep bass of his voice rumbles through me, soothing my frazzled nerves."Why are you here?" I question him. "I was invited," he says nonchalantly as if the answer should be obvious. "No, I mean in this bathroom." I point towards the door. "It's a women's bathroom."He shrugs. "You are hurt. Besides, it's just you and me. I made sure to lock the door."I gulp. I'm locked in a bathroom, bleeding, with no way to escape.He takes another step forward and my back hits the wall my heart beating rapidly. He could do whatever he wanted to me and nobody would know. I'm so insignificant, he could get rid of the body and it wouldn't matter."You shouldn't be here," I glare at his smug expression and his fancy suit. "Your date is probably wondering
[Sylvester]"Alexis," I close the door behind me, shielding Apple from view. "Why are you hiding in the women's bathroom," she raises her eyebrow before leaning in closely. "And why do you smell like someone else's blood?""I don't need to explain myself to you," I push myself into her space using my Alpha energy to make her take a step back. "I am Alpha. You aren't even my Luna." "Yet," she challenges me, meeting me eye to eye. "But I know you need me, Sylvester. My uncle brought me back because you're so desperate." She flashes a little fang as she licks her lips, pressing her chest against mine. "I don't know why you are fighting me. I know you want me, Sylvester. We work so well together. Just think of what we could do if we just combined our strengths." My heart thumps in remembered pain. I loved her once, and once, her please would have been enough to make me want her again.Once.But now, it just reminds me of everything I lost. Growling, I push her away from me. "Know your
[Apple]Alpha Sylvester turns me away from the lights of the party down a quiet street. The moon is rising to the east, full and bright, over the hillside dotted with expensive homes. In the quiet of the moonrise, he goes over his situation, telling me his dilemma. The council is forcing him to get married. Having a Rental Luna is no longer good enough. He wants to change the offer, to change the original contract.Alpha Sterling needs a fiance."So are you asking me to be your girlfriend?" I question him, not quite understanding what it is he is asking for. "Your pretend fiance.""Yes," he confirms. "There would still be the contract between us. I need it to be on record that you were my Rental Luna, to confirm our backstory but..." I'm still confused. "Why me? Wouldn't a real wolf be a better option in this case?"He shakes his head. "I want you for the same reason I wanted you to begin with. You aren't demanding anything of me, you don't want to be my wife or my mate. This is jus
[Sylvester] My body is sore, but somehow I manage to stand on shaking legs. "No need," I assure him. "I'm fine." Rudy's eyes widen with shock and uncertainty. "Alpha?" His deep timber vibrates with fear and wonder, "How are you doing this?" With each step I take forward, my footsteps become more sure as I feel my spinal cord fully knit itself back together, the muscles in my back recovering as I move. "I was trapped in that place with the remaining elder alphas." My smile is more of a grimace as I remember how one by one they took the knee, only to be slaughtered by Clancy and Calyx. "All of them." "Does that mean...?" His voice is a whisper as the truth of my words dawn on him. "Please, Rudy, don't bow," I request with the edge of an order as I turn away and head towards a large crystaline lake. I can't bear to see his reverence or watch him bow before me as his king- a title I now loathe to have after seeing all the death such power can create. Because it isn't just the alphas
[Sylvester]Of all the wolves in the world to find me, I should have known it would be him.Rudolph Ian Forrester. Best damn beta in the world."Alpha, thank the Goddess you're okay," he looks down at my bruised and cut form with the biggest gore-covered smile on his face as he reached down to help me up.When I explain that I can't stand because the dead assholes "drugged me like a fucking elephant," he shrugs, picks scoops me up like I weigh nothing, and lays me down in the back of the van. Propping me up against a seat, he opens the door so I can watch him work while recovering from the effects of the drugs.Rudy is efficient as he partially transforms to dig a hole several feet wide and several feet deep. The entire time he does this, he rattles on about how crazy it's been out here since I disappeared from the courtroom, chasing down a red wolf, which I now realize was all part of Clancy's plan. How long had he planned this? Did he somehow set me up to be tried for treason? There
[Sylvester]When taking that first sip of alpha blood while trapped in that underground prison, I hadn’t realized how quickly my ability to heal would increase. It was almost instant, allowing me to turn around and see exactly who hit me in the back of my head. Calyx. The sly young wolf has an even more twisted grin as he holds a bloody, broken chair. I don’t think he was expecting me to still be standing. Swiping him with the speed of an alpha powered by other alphas, I moved more rapidly than I knew was possible. One moment I was standing still, the next, my clawed hand was around his neck, his face slashed to ribbons as I pinned him against a wall.“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” This idiot thought he could hurt me. To be fair, just a moment earlier, being hit with a metal chair from behind would have at least stunned me. Gargling on his own blood he laughs. “Distracting you.” “What?” I don't have enough time to process what is going on when a needle pierces my neck
[Sylvester]My lip curls as his foul scent fills my nostrils, invading my mind. The smell of him confirms what my eyes can plainly see. Even tattered and bruised and covered in filth, there is no mistaking the proud wolf hunched before me, trapped in a cage like a mutt. It’s Clancy--Alexis’s uncle and Beta-Emeritus from Silver Crescent Pack. Of all the wolves who died in that building as the rogues broke through, he may be the one who least deserved to live. And of all the people I’d want to be by my side when the end of the world comes knocking, Clancy isn’t one of them. If I’m honest with myself, I’d admit that I enjoyed watching what I thought was his demise. If I hadn’t been so distracted by my need to get out of there, I’d have noticed he survived and done something about it then. He shouldn’t have ever left that courthouse, not after all the sins he’s committed. Of all the people to be stuck with as I watch the world burn, he is the last wolf I’d choose.“How are you still
[Sylvester]This young pup isn’t a wolf, he’s a rat. What kind of wolf sells his own kind out to humans for experimentation? What kind of wolf laughs about how his father was used as a test subject for the current version of hellsbane.And how can this bastard be the true son of Lysander Moon with a soul so twisted and tainted?“Lysander Moon is my father,” he announced, gasping as I started to squeeze the life from his scrawny neck. “Prove it, you lying piece of shit,” I howled, slamming him into a wall. "Lysander wouldn’t have betrayed his mate. He was too loyal.”He smirks even as the blood leaves his face. “Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you think. But I am his son. You know I am. You can see it, can’t you? You can see my father in my eyes.”Either this pup is lying, or he’s telling the truth, in the end it doesn’t matter. I need him to help me find a way out of this nightmare.More importantly, if he knows about Lysander, and my foster father is still alive, this little pri
[Apple]Carefully removing the items from their hiding spot, my fingers touch the leather spine of my mother's book, a book that I've never seen before but seems more familiar than the back of my hand. My mind is a confusion of memories that seem like someone else's dreams, moments long forgotten and trapped deep within. Finding this book and mirror, feeling their weight in my hands, is a key unlocking a door in my mind behind which a wealth of memories have been stored. Memories of my mother and I.The room spins and then fades as I am pulled into these memories as an observer, watching everything as if from above, seeing the scenes playing out like a movie of my own forgotten life. I am standing in a small wooden house surrounded by trees. It is so cold outside that the windows are frosted, their edges rimmed with snow. Along the panes, small fingers had traced warm patterns--pentacles and symbols of protection, that my numb fingertips remember making earlier that morning as I prac
[Apple]Tansy was so shocked by my sudden appearance in the middle of the road, glowing like a beacon, completely naked with claws outstretched, that shortly after she recognized me, her lips said my name, her eyes rolled back, and she fell to the ground in a jumbled heap of skintight clothing and too much makeup. Even her shoes, three-inch spiked heels in a gaudy shade of yellow, screamed village tramp. Moon Goddess above, how did I ever miss that she was screwing Zion this whole time? Based on the half-dozen male scents wafting from her body, barely masked by her pea flower perfume, she’s probably screwing half the town. Lifting her legs, I dragged her to the back of the van. Finding her keys, I open it up to find it empty except for two stained mattresses that are strapped together, and 5 sets of silver shackles. Even though she didn’t have any prisoners right now, it is clear that this hexed van was designed to transport witches. Perfect. That means I can bring it inside without
[Apple]I’m not sure how long I ran, crazed, mad, unable to remember who I am, or why I’m even running in the first place. All I know is that on the outer edges of things, I can feel him.Sylvester. My mate. His agony burns through me like quicksilver, propelling me forward, keeping my eyes wide and my claws clenched as I race through trees along the river.Shivering, I fall to the ground, released from my wolf form for the first time in Goddess knows how long. It takes me a moment to remember how to use my arms and legs, but when I finally stop screaming in pain, I manage to roll over, hoisting myself up onto my elbows, before dragging myself to the water to take my first, tortured sip. The cool river water tastes faintly of algae as I lap it up, forgetting for a moment that I have lips and no fangs. I have a human form again, one I had almost forgotten about. “Just breathe,” my voice is raspy as the first words break the silence of my thoughts. “Remember how to breathe.” My naked
[Hazel]Everything burns. Even the air burns as I try to breathe, a task that feels impossible in a room made of silver. The walls are silver, the floors and bars are silver, even the beds and toilet are made of a duly burnished silver that burns every time my bare skin touches it, leaving the faint smell of charred flesh every time I forget and let myself get burned.I knew that witches were feared, even hated, but this cell they’ve placed us all in is a unique type of torture, one that you can’t escape even when your body gives out, and you have no choice but to sleep. Knowing that it must have caused these hateful humans a small fortune to construct this nightmare is only a small consolation.This is where I awakened after those men snagged me in the park--a cold cell no bigger than Grandmother Araminta’s shop, holding almost 40 female witches. Hanging from the walls are hammocks in rows that stretch up above us, as if they think we can just fly up there on brooms to go to sleep. It