MaxI keep staring at the servant girl while something inside of me rumbles. Despite how different she looks, I didn't once doubt that it was her. The mate bond is probably the cause of this. Her hair is somewhat shorter than before but it has clearly been meddled with because it's shinier. Cleaner, maybe. And the dress she's wearing is better than what she had on before. I don't wish to have these thoughts but I can't seem to force them out of my mind while we're staring at each other. Blush creeps up her cheeks but she maintains eye contact. Her eyes are a different shade of blue. I never noticed how blue they were before. The guard shifts beside her and I break eye contact, suddenly remembering where I am. I walk away without looking and from the corner of my eye I see her disappear inside the room. To my dismay, my face feels hotter and tighter than usual, which is ridiculous considering my position and the circumstances involved. I make my way downstairs and try to push what h
Rayne"Is there something you want to tell me?" Denise asks while I take my dress off and hang it in the closet. It's the only dress I have at the moment and I don't want to risk ruining it. "No, of course not," I say. I decided I won't tell her about the woman at the marketplace. Now that she's gone I see no use in telling her. It's not like we'll be able to catch her and question her, and who would even believe me if she denied? I realized too late that the only person who saw her call me that day was the Second Beta. And he was dead. Still, just because I have no way to prove my innocence doesn't mean I'm not sad about it. And Denise being Denise has noticed it. She notices every change of mood. I don't know how to keep my emotions hidden from her. I need to try better. "Rayne," she says, arching a delicate brow. "You can't possibly think that you can fool me into believing that there isn't anything wrong. You came back sad from the market. Did Veronica say something? Somethi
Rayne"Max, Albert," Veronica says when they've stopped in front of us. "How good is it that we're all here?"I don't look up so I don't see how their faces are. I bet they're as sour as they should be. Right now, I hate Veronica for doing this. For putting me in this position. She knows her brother hates me yet she’s acting like we’re all the greatest of friends. Or worse yet. Like I’m his legitimate Luna. “I have a little late lunch organized for myself and Rayne,” she says kindly, turning to smile at me with warmth in her eyes. “Why don’t you join us? I’m sure we’re going to have a splendid time.”“Yes, why don’t we?” Albert said, turning to look at me with a curious look in his eyes. I look away from him too because this is all too much. I shouldn’t be here. She didn’t even tell me anything about lunch. The Alpha gives her a hard look and brushes past the two of us. His arm touches my shoulder as he walks past and my skin becomes covered in goosebumps. I ignore the urge to ru
Max I'm still angry about having crossed Veronica and the servant's path out in the garden. I love my sister but there are times when I hate her more than anyone else in the world. What's her problem? Why does she insist on doing such out of character things?What's she doing walking around the palace with the girl?It'll send the wrong message across. Doesn't she know that? How can she not know? Alaska will be here in a few days and I don't want there to be rumors about the servant girl being amongst our group. Alaska won't like the sound of that. Veronica is crossing all the lines and I—The glass in my hand shatters, interrupting my train of thought. I curse and let the shards fall on the table. I'm bleeding heavily in a matter of seconds, and I'm more annoyed than ever. I look around my room for something to tie around my hand. I find a clean shirt in my closet. It'll do. However, despite my annoyance, there's something else there lingering just beneath the surface. A sort of…fl
Rayne I flex my hand as soon as I wake up in the morning.It’s oddly sore. Maybe I slept on it for too long. I brush the thought off and go into the bathroom to freshen up. I feel exhausted and barely remember what happened yesterday. My head hurts a little but it’s nothing I can’t handle. The pain is very much bearable. I’m never ever doing that again. When I step out, Denise is there waiting for me. I’m surprised to see her because I just recalled Veronica telling me that someone else would replace her because she had other things to do related to Alaska’s arrival. “Denise?”“Your breakfast is ready,” she says with a wide smile but I can tell she’s up to something. “You’re not supposed to be here,” I say. “I can be wherever I want. It makes no sense for me to not support you when you’ll need more support now more than ever.”“But Veronica—”“Don’t worry about her,” she waves me off. “I’m not worried so why should you be? I’m more worried about the drinking you did yesterday th
RayneThe Alpha looks a little dazed. It’s almost like he doesn’t see me at all. I stay close to the tree. I would look away and act like I didn’t see him if it wasn’t considered rude and disrespectful. He’s still my Alpha and I need to show him all the respect possible. A few moments pass and he’s starting to look as uncertain as I feel. Honestly, I don’t know why he hasn’t walked away in the opposite direction yet. It’s strange for him to be standing there and watching me. Where’s Denise anyway?I’m the first to look away. He stands there for a bit and then walks away. I’m relieved when he’s gone. I don’t usually know how to act around him. Two minutes later, Denise is back with the tea. We sit right under the tree with the soft grass beneath us and have some tea. “You seem shaken up,” she tells me. “Did something happen while I was away?”I shake my head. I see no point in sharing with her that the Alpha was here and that we only looked at each other. Oddly enough, I didn’t fee
MaxI stare at the girl and ask myself what I was thinking by calling her here. After Albert confessed that a copy of Alaska’s dress had been made, I knew I had made a mistake by judging the girl so harshly. She had no blame in this and I treated her badly and with hatred. I’m not a perfect man, but as an Alpha, I always strive to be fair. I was unfair to her and I want to try to repair that. It isn’t fair for me to treat her so poorly, especially since she will die at the end of this. Only her death will free me from this affair and make mating to Alaska possible. While she continues to live after the bond is weakened, I can’t move on. I’ll be stuck with her even then. Only death can solve this. The least I can do is try to be…fair to her, considering she’ll have to die in order for me to be happy. “For starters,” I begin, “I want to apologize for my behavior toward you. It wasn’t right.”She looks at me with wide eyes and I feel something stir in my gut. Something akin to…curio
RayneI'm still confused by my encounter with the Alpha. This is the last thing I was expecting. Him showing sympathy to me is so strange that I catch myself wondering if this is a part of some plan of his. Just the other day, he didn't want to look at my face. Now, he's apologizing. Apologizing. It's out of this world. I pace my bedroom floor. It's late at night and Denise won't be here until morning. I need to share this with her. I have to know what she thinks about this. Knowing her, I think she'll be happy about it, but maybe she'll have some solid advice for me. I don't think I should trust his good intentions. Why should I?So much thinking and pacing has tired me out. I lie in bed and focus on taking long and deep breaths. Eventually, my eyes feel a lot heavier and I fall asleep. In the morning, I’m awoken by Denise’s entrance. She really doesn’t care about the rules. I sit up and rub the sleep from my eyes and she puts the tray down and says, “I heard about what happened
Rayne Reaching MoonWater fills me with excitement and dread. The last time I was here, we were still in the middle of the war. It was Max’s idea for me to leave and go to Iron until things cooled down. I agreed because frankly, I was tired of the bloodshed. I felt I had nothing left to do but go away, and so that’s what I did. I haven’t been back since. Max and I have been communicating with each other but not as often. Our communication is mostly nonverbal. I can’t hear his words in my head or even send a message across; it’s more of a swapping of emotions. This has gotten stronger over the weeks, and now that I’m here, closer to him, I feel the bond’s strength. I exit the carriage and near the gate. I inform the guards of who I am but they don’t ask me to wait for them to call someone. They open the gates for me instantly. I walk through them, leaving the carriage behind. Everything looks as I remember, pre-war. This has to be a good sign. I continue walking until I reach the f
RayneThe war with GrayLeaf only ended with their Alpha’s death. It was Max himself who killed him. There was no way around it. He never believed it was Veronica’s doing, and when he found Albert dead, he assumed Max was the culprit. There were many casualties. My father lost men he trusted. AmberMane lost some of their own, the biggest loss being Victor. I have to admit that I thought they would hate and blame me for his death because I most certainly blamed myself, but nothing between us changed apart from the loss we now shared. I didn’t know Victor as well as I could’ve, but he’d been a friend to me, and he had helped me make myself stronger. I wish things had gone differently. I wish he didn’t have to die. Things took a long time to settle down after the war. GrayLeaf collapsed completely. The remaining members of their pack became rogues. I offered to help them but Max said it wasn’t the right choice to make. A lot of the people who remained were widows and children of the f
RayneI watch her slowly shift back to human form, hissing in pain. The arrow went straight through her shoulder. She tries to touch it but groans in pain when she touches it. I’m afraid that she’ll break it in half and slide it out but that doesn’t happen. I near her and nock another arrow. I point it straight at her face this time. “If you dare to move, I’ll shoot you.”Her eyes meet mine. Her lips are starting to get pale. “You’re going to hit me anyway, so why should I bother? You didn’t follow me all the way here to talk to me.”“You’re right, I didn’t,” I reply coldly. She shifts and cries out. I’m tempted to hit her again. Her pain is comforting to me. I want to tell her that now she knows how it feels, yet the pain she’s experiencing now can’t be compared to mine. That pain left scars that will never go away. Because of her selfishness, I’ve lost parts of myself that are irretrievable. “What are you waiting for, then?” she asks breathlessly as she tries to sit against the
Rayne Lambert changed plans halfway to GrayLeaf. He said he had a better idea. Rather than attack GrayLeaf and cause an unnecessarily high death toll, we could simply try to frame Veronica instead. He said he would speak to Albert and convince him to be in a certain place, at a certain time, where he would then confront Veronica. Naturally, this would still make him lose his place amongst his pack, but he said he never cared much for the pack anyway. He always wanted to be a rogue, where he could live life in his own terms and not have to follow strict rules all the time. I have to say that at some point, I wanted to be a rogue, too. I wanted nothing but freedom whenever I thought about my life. There are times when I forget I was even a slave, but there are others when it's all I can think about. I see myself on my knees in the middle of the grand hall, scrubbing until my fingers bleed. I'd wonder what it felt like to be free. Now that I know what it is, I realize that it comes
Max It doesn’t take long after Veronica leaves for someone to come for me. I don’t ask questions as they untie my hands and then tell me to walk. Humiliation burns inside of me but I keep it down and walk. I walk through the relatively empty dungeon all the way up the short stairs I used on my way down here. There are currently three guards behind me. Any thoughts of trying to run flee from my mind. It would be a reckless decision to make and would undoubtedly bring me more humiliation. The only thing assuring me that I won’t be killed today is Veronica’s alleged plan. She wants me to mate with her, after all, so how could she let them kill me? It all depends, of course. I try not to think too much about it as I walk outside. I take a deep breath of fresh air and instantly feel better. The air down there is stale. It felt like I was slowly being smothered to death. We’re walking toward the mansion. My guess is that there is going to be a discussion of some kind where I will once
MaxThe pain on my side has diminished considerably but the humiliation I feel is burning right through me and I can't overlook it. I'm locked in a dark cell. Thankfully, I'm alone, so nobody else has to see me being brought down to this level. So many things are going on all at once. I've been extracted from my pack, which is now vulnerable. GrayLeaf can attack at any time and we'll fall, just as they wanted it to. I don't understand for the life of me how Veronica can do this to our pack. Does she really want to see GrayLeaf winning? If so, why? And if not, then what's going through her head? I can't understand her. I realize that I never knew her at all. Helplessness plagues me. I'm here tied to a chair and unable to do a damned thing to stop her and her schemes. What's worse is that she could possibly get us all killed. Playing this game with GrayLeaf is dangerous. Does she even know what she's doing?I don’t know what to call this behavior of hers. Childishness isn’t a good
RayneThe plan we come up with is simple yet effective. I go with Iron and AmberMane to MoonWater and take over. As the Luna, it’s my right to do so. Word will spread to GrayLeaf, undoubtedly, but by then, we’ll be ready. Lambert thinks that we have to attack them first and we have to do it hard. We tell them that we only have two requests to end this war.The first request is that we want them to release Max. The second is we want Veronica. At that point, we’ll tell them everything they’ve done. Lambert will confess everything he did and they’ll probably exile him from the pack, but he says he doesn’t care about that. “Why?” my father asked him. “Why do you want to be exiled from your pack?”“I don’t have anything to do there,” was his answer. “I hate those bastards more than you do. If they hadn’t insisted on marrying her off to an Alpha, she would be alive by now.”I wanted to ask him where he would go but I figured it was too intrusive. It didn’t matter, anyway. What mattered wa
Rayne I look back at him. He’s running his fingers through his hair in despair. I’ve already pieced this together. I know why he’s here demanding this truth from me. Why he’s given me this letter to read. It makes perfect sense. The only reason why I’m not saying anything is because my own heart is shattering. I’ve doubted Max. I thought he was a scoundrel and now I have proof that he isn’t. Veronica did it all. The man gets on his knees, his back facing me. A few beats pass and then he says, “I loved her. You don’t understand how much I loved her. You can’t begin to imagine.”I lick my lips and say, “Sure I can. You literally sabotaged her mating day. You put me there just to prevent her from mating with Max.”He glares at me over his shoulder. I glare right back. I’m trying to keep an eye on him while sorting through the mess in my head simultaneously. It isn’t easy. I’m just thinking about Max and how Veronica ruined us. Tore us apart. I can’t take my attention from him entire
RayneI still haven’t decided if we’re going to go to war against GrayLeaf. I want to. I can’t say that I don’t. They’ve done enough to hurt me and I would be thinking solely of revenge if I chose to fight. The time I spent in that prison was something I’d only wish upon my worst enemy. I have lost too much because of them. I want to fight. I want to bring them to my knees. At the same time, I have no idea if it’s the right move. A leader has to think of everyone else, not just themselves. I would hate it if my father, Darla, or even Victor got hurt because of this thirst for revenge of mine. It’s not fair to them. Besides, fighting means we have to join arms with MoonWater, because otherwise we don’t stand a chance. Do I really want to get that close to Max?I’m going to have to be the one to talk to him, which is why my father said the choice is up to me. He’d probably do it if I asked, or insisted, but that’s a coward’s move. I have to be the one to do it, not him or anyone else