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 Denise picks out my outfit for me. It consists of a black long skirt and matching top, which is beaded and covers my chest nicely. After what the Alpha told me about trying to seduce him, I don't want to take any chances and by the looks of it, neither does she. I like how I look, but my appearance isn't what I'm concerned about. Despite everything Denise says, I can't help but feel like he has second intentions. Why would he want to make things right all of a sudden? How am I supposed to believe he just changed his mind overnight?I don’t care what she says. I have to be alert. I will be. I brush my hair and then stare at my reflection in the mirror one more time before nodding in encouragement and making my way outside. Denise has left some time ago. She asked me to wait for her to return so she could walk with me but I can do this. I have to do this by myself, not just for me but for her as well. The Alpha ordered her to stay away from me and she didn’t listen. Fine. But
MaxAlbert enters my room and I turn around to face him. He's drunk, as usual. He had his fill after the girl left the table, and didn't stop since. He frowns when he sees my expression and says, "Come now, Max. Isn't anyone allowed to have fun around here?""You call that fun?" "Why can't it be fun?""You kissed her," I say through my teeth. "Against her will. You can that fun? It was fun for you but it most certainly wasn't fun for her. I don't tolerate that kind of behavior, Albert. Let this be the last time I warn you.""Who says it wasn't fun for her?" he asks, challenging me. "Are you saying that because you genuinely think she wasn't enjoying yourself or because of your own selfish reasons?"I frown. "Selfish reasons?""You never told us that you invited her for dinner," he says, taking multiple steps to close the distance between us. He's belligerent now, which isn't surprising. He's always been this way. "Why is that?""Because I didn't," I say. "I never invited her for din
RayneI keep going down the stairs after I'm sure the Alpha—Max—has disappeared. I didn't mean to come across him but I'm relieved that I got the chance to apologize for tonight. I can't believe that Denise did that to me. She lied me on purpose just because she has it in her head that the two of us need to be close together at all times. She can't seem to understand that he wants nothing to do with me and that he can't wait for the bond between us to be starved so he can be with Alaska. It's the reason why we argued today. It was out first argument and I had a hard time containing my anger. I asked her to stop and leave me alone. Although she meant well, she was only embarrassing me. She argued back saying that I needed to be less passive and fight for what I really wanted. I asked her if she was only saying that because I had the title of 'Luna' and that maybe, just maybe, she was hoping she could get something out of it. This seemed to offend her and she left the room wordlessl
RayneMax and I stare at each other for some time, an understanding of some kind passing between the two of us. I'm the first to look away. Albert is giving a guard an order about having someone clean up the mess I made and thankfully didn't see the way our eyes locked just now. I don't know how to feel concerning this; it makes sense that he felt the scalding tea burning my chest. I've been feeling all his emotions. I wonder if he ever felt some of mine. What does this even mean?"I can't apologize enough for this," Albert says. He genuinely sounds and looks apologetic. "Are you sure you don't have to see a nurse?""I'm sure," I tell him. "I'm fine. I promise." The burning has passed yet the skin remains bright red. I have no doubt that this too will pass and I'll be as good as new. Besides, I have more important things to concern myself with. "I hope the noise didn't disturb you, Max," he says, turning to his friend. "I didn't see Rayne here coming."Max offers him a tight-lippe
Max I all but barricade myself in my room, eager to be away from the servant girl and everyone else. I can't explain what happened in that room. My instincts and feelings got the best of me and I momentarily lost sense of who I was. I wasn't well acquainted with the version of myself that kissed her. I don't know what I was thinking. Rage is building in my core. The worst of it is that I only have myself to blame for what happened. I was the one who lost control. I gave in to the voice in my head that told me to get closer to her. I should have ignored the feeling and left, but I was tempted. Now, I don't know what to do with myself. I'm enraged that I've made such a careless mistake. The worst part is how I feel right before it; like kissing her was essential. Like I'd die if I didn't claim her. The wretched bond for the best of me. Generally speaking, I know of the effects of a bond but everything about this is surreal. It doesn't happen. Bonds aren't meant to be this intense.
RayneI can’t say that things have gotten any better. With Denise gone, I’m totally lost. I’ve been informed by a maid that I’ll be moving to the new room in a day. So, tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll say goodbye to this room and move to the lower quarters of the House. I can’t say I’ll miss this room especially. It’s beautiful, there’s no denying it, but I’m just grateful for having a room to myself. Any room, be it luxurious or normal. Privacy is something I never had. I always shared a room. The only thing I didn’t share were clothes. I haven’t left the room for fear of coming across Max. I can’t get what happened out of my head. It was so random and…strange. I can’t seem to stop thinking about him and how much I wanted him to touch me. It makes my cheeks grow hot with shame. I never thought I’d want him to touch me. I never looked at him that way before. I didn’t know what desire was until he kissed me. I try to search in deep inside me for an answer on how he feels. I want to know wh
Rayne I wake up in the morning with an odd feeling in my gut. It’s the day I’ll have to move from this bedroom, which means that Alaska will be coming soon. I shouldn’t feel this down thinking about it but it’s not something I can control. I can lie to myself, but I can’t control the way I feel about this. Without Denise, things are much harder. At least I had someone to talk to before. Now, things have changed. I have no one to talk to and I’m alone most of the time. I know Veronica extended her help but this issue is what’s bugging me most, and I can’t tell her about her brother. I can’t. I don’t know if she suspects something but I won’t be the one to tell her. Her brother can tell her if he wants. I have breakfast and then pace my bedroom floor. I’m anxious. My things will be moved later on in the day so for now, I have nothing to do and I don’t feel like staying in here and thinking about what happened. It’s all making me sick with anxiety and never-ending guilt and shame.
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