RayneI wake up in a foreign place. It leaves me confused for a few minutes before I recall everything that happened. I'm at Iron. I sit up in bed and massage my neck for a few minutes before rolling out of bed. This room is one he had organized just for me, and it's perfectly comfortable. There are times when I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. I never had anything to expect or look forward to when I was working at MoonWater. I would scrub endlessly and wonder if anything good would ever happen to me. And something did. At least I met my father. I now know my history. I know what truly happened for me to end up where I was. A sort of closure, is what this is for me. Yet even as I say this, I know I'm a liar. I haven't quite forgotten Max and despite everything I've heard, I'm eager to know his side of the story. Why didn't he send me back? Why would he keep such a thing from me?When I shake my head to clear my thoughts, I realize that I've spent many minutes just staring at the wal
RayneDenise and I come to an understanding. I won’t tell my father that she’s Max’s mother. She has a plan to help him see things differently and I won’t intervene. If I have to be completely hoe at with myself, I’m actually glad that she’s trying to convince him to not kill Max. And anyway, it wouldn’t be possible for him to make a move against him now because milling Max would kill me automatically as our bond is still fresh. Fresher than ever, actually. It got quite strong when we slept together and so it’s going to take a bit longer to wear off. Until then, a lot could happen. I’m not sure I’ll ever one hundred percent understand why she didn’t tell me the truth before but since it’s in the past, I’ll let sleeping dogs lie. Being angry isn’t going to take anything back. It won’t change the past. So instead of being at war for something neither of us were fully in control of, I’ll just let things be. It’s good to have her back on my side. I’d forgotten how it felt like to be t
MaxIt has been two days since Rayne went missing.I don’t know what to do with this confusion and guilt. I can’t explain what happened. Why did she leave? Things were fine and then all of a sudden, I went to her bedroom and found it empty. It didn’t take long for me to find out that she left, that the guards posted at the gate let her leave because she threatened to have them whipped and punished. And that they were. I made sure that they paid for their careless mistake. I have all my warriors looking for her. Everyone else around thinks that it’s the bond I’m worried about. Losing track of her means that I can’t truly mate with Alaska. The starvation will happen a lot quicker but for this to work successfully, one of us has to die. And since they all think I planned on killing Rayne, they didn’t at all find my orders suspicious. But the reason why I sent everyone looking for her isn’t because I have any intention of killing her. It’s because I love her and I want her back. I can’
RayneThe brunch went better than expected and there wasn't a lot of attention on me, which was the part I liked the most. Victor sat at the end of the table with my father and his family, and I was sitting at the other end with Denise. They talked about MoonWater a lot and I felt uncomfortable when I heard them mention Max a few times. My father is really angry and sometimes when I look at Denise, I notice that she looks worried. I know she wants to convince him to spare Max, but it seems like he doesn't want to do that.He wants to bring down the whole of MoonWater. Reynold seems to share his sentiments. There seems to be some bad blood between his pack and Max’s. I wonder if his pack was also affect doing that Great War that ruined everything. It seems everyone hates Max and his pack. Well, it’s his father who did everything. He just inherited the role and is working with what he found. But is that me making excuses for him? It’s hard to say. Maybe you could’ve changed things if
RayneThe sun is starting to set and the sky is a beautiful pink color mixed with oranges. Sitting out here to watch the sun set is something I've been doing for the last five days. I can't believe it's been that long but at the same time, it hasn't been long enough. The horrors I experienced at MoonWater are still with me, and the more distance exists between me and that pack, the harder everything hits me. I don't know how I was surviving in that environment. It was so bad and I hate that it took this drastic change to happen in order for me to start realizing it. I try hard not to think too much about this but sometimes, it's hard. It's not easy to shake it all off and act like it never happened. I spend an unholy amount of time thinking about Max and whether he'll find me. I keep imagining him storming here and destroying everything my father worked so hard to build. It makes me want to get up and surrender myself to him. The longer I stay here, the more I realize just how har
Rayne I’m being dragged backward and no amount of digging my heels into the ground is going to stop this. He’s just too strong. With his hand over my mouth, I can barely make a sound. My screams are all muffled and I guess that the worst part is that I can’t breathe. I feel suffocated and breathless. And the more I try to scream, the worst it gets. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I have to take you home.”I want to scream at him that that isn’t my home. My home is right here. He’s stealing me away from the only place in the world where I’ve ever felt remotely comfortable in. Everyone who has ever genuinely cared about me lives in this place. My father. Denise. I disappear and they won’t even know what happened. They’ll probably imagine that I was stolen away. And then my father will want to start a war he won’t win. I don’t want him to lose everything anymore, not for my sake. I should have just gone inside the house. I should never have tried to go talk to the guard. This bastard.
RayneI don’t know why I feel this embarrassed. Going outside is out of the question for me, not only because I don’t want to be seen by any other MoonWater guard, but because I’m ashamed of how everyone will look at me. I didn’t play a single role in what happened. I know I was stupid for going to the guard and assuming that my title would make him scared enough to leave but if I’d known what he would have done, I would have gone into the house and alerted someone. I heard that the guard’s body has been disposed off. If I have to be completely honest, I don’t feel much guilt about his death. It doesn’t haunt me, the same way that the Second Beta’s death doesn’t haunt me. That reckless guard could have killed me. I’ve had nightmares for three days straight because of him. In my dream, I can’t breathe, and I end up dying a brutal death. I wake up breathless and with tears in my eyes. If it weren’t for Victor, I’d be dead. The security has been doubled around us so no one else gets
RayneTraveling with Victor is exactly what I thought it would be. As silent as a grave. Denise and I can only exchange a few looks. He's so vigilant and cautious that we don't speak for fear of distracting him. It seems that they're really afraid of being ambushed by MoonWater, which is why everything needs to be silent so he can hear any noise around us. I have to admit that I wanted to change my mind as soon as I stepped outside and saw him standing there rigidly. I don't know what it was that made my step falter. The intense look he gave me, maybe. The more I interact with him, the more I'm sure that I get under his skin somehow. Perhaps the only reason why he stands me is because of the good relationship between our packs. Or maybe. Maybe. He was sour because I never thanked him for saving me. Which was why I apologized just as he was loading my bag on the carriage. I thanked him kindly for helping me and he barely looked at my face. He just nodded curtly. Dismissively. Alth
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