Ricardo I'm fidgety. I'm surrounded by my close friends who are laughing and drinking around me, but I feel a profound sense of longing and I know exactly why. Ianthe is not by my side. I shove the hand she was holding earlier in my pocket because it's still burning. Maybe I shouldn't have let her go with Heleni. But there was no imminent threat to her safety and I know her guards would lay down their own lives to protect hers. And she needs friends, I know she can't be by my side all the time. "You've been letting your wingman ravage the ladies all on his own."Dean claps me on the shoulder and puts a beer in my hand. "I heard a lady has something to do with it." I raise my eyebrows. "Oh really, you're in the business of gossiping now?" He smirks. "No, but I've been feeling sorry for poor Harry man, the guy is becoming desperate." I take a swig of my beer, relishing the cold liquid going down my throat. "I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed." "Do you know about Genevieve
Ianthe I'm in trouble. I'm in deep, deep trouble. I haphazardly throw the clothes that Heleni threw out of my suitcase back into it. I need to leave before this pack finds out who I am and what I did. My heart is beating a mile a minute as I try to think what I'm going to do. How am I going to get out of here? I can't even call Sebastian because I've never been allowed to have a cellphone in the fear that I might get tracked. I do have a credit card though, so if I can just get out of this town that I've come to love so much and get to a bus stop or something. The woods are surrounded by the pack's army, but they can't smell me, if I can just slip by unnoticed. "You're being insane." Natalia says in a bored tone. "Ricardo is not some boy who can't handle a white wolf." "You don't know that!" I'm panicking. I'm a dead girl. I let my parents down. All the years they protected me, I went and screwed my life over all on my own. I should've never allowed him to hold my hand, that
Ricardo Dean keeps on kicking me under the table. Why I let these fuckers in this morning, I don't know. They demanded to be fed and I had to let poor Rina come in when I previously told her she didn't have to come in on weekends anymore. "She's even more stunning in the daylight." He mindlinks me and he's right. I don't even feel jealousy at that statement because she is exquisite. When she first came downstairs, her eyes were swollen and she looked pale, but right now she's laughing heartily at something Jazz said and I can see our future so clearly, spending time with friends and sharing our life together. All my closest friends and their mates are at my dining table, along with Harry and Heleni who are throwing obscene remarks at each other. I can see that Colt is not amused by the exchange at all, but Caitlyn is keeping him in control. This feels right, and ever since the attack, I breathe a sigh of relief. Everything will be alright. Karl is healing well and he will soon be
Ianthe My mate has been revealed to me and I don't know what to do. It makes sense that I would be mated to an alpha as I come from a bloodline of alphas, and I'm excited and scared at the same time. Excited because Ricardo is more than I could ever have imagined. He's handsome, powerful, sexy and caring, even if he doesn't show that side of him to anybody else. Keeping my mouth shut has been a problem for me. I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want to tell him that everything happened for a reason so we should be together. Our family's connection isn't mere circumstance and things had to fall apart for our union to come to fruition. And Natalia has been growing even more impatient with me. We have continued to go on our morning runs with the Alpha and she wants to get marked, but I know it's not supposed to happen yet. I have to be eighteen for the mating ceremony, and though I find it complete torture trying to keep my hands off the glistening muscles of Ricardo when we wor
Ianthe "Do you think this is a type of dress a man would like Mark?" I hold up a fire-engine red dress in front of me. Mark frowns and clears his throat. "I don't think that's an appropriate question to ask me, miss." I shrug. I have gotten used to having him and Randall around, so I don't share his sentiment. "But if you had a girlfriend, would you like it if she would wore a dress like this? Wait, do you have a girlfriend?" He's not marked, but that has never stopped anyone from dating before. "I don't have a girlfriend, I'm hoping to meet my mate at the Moon Festival." He gives me a friendly smile. "I think it's a nice dress miss." "I think so to." I'd already made up my mind to buy the dress for Heleni's party tomorrow night, which apparently will only be her family and close friends. I have an uneasy feeling that Gianni would be there, there's something about him that rubs me the wrong way. He's going to be a part of my family soon, so I'm going to have to tolerate him. He
Ricardo Harry shivers next me and I glare at him from the corner of my eye. He's been acting weird ever since we arrived at Colt's parents' house for Heleni's eighteenth birthday celebration. "Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you? " I mindlink him. He loosens the tie at his collar and wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Are you ill or something?" "I don't know, man, I've been feeling weird all day." "Yeah, maybe that's what you get when you break bro-code and sleep with the enemy." Okay, I might still feel slightly upset about that, but I have to get over it with everything else going on. I just can't fathom how he could make such a stupid mistake. "Are you ever going to forgive me for that?" He shakes his head. "I know it was stupid, I just felt very lonely that night and she was there, so...." "Let that be your last mistake. I can't deal with shit like that anymore. We need to be solid." "Yes Alpha." I hardly ever use my position of power with my frie
Ricardo "Fuck no!" Colt shouts, breaking the magic everyone was momentarily entranced in. Heleni snaps out of her haze and turns right around on the stairs and flees, probably back to her room. "Oh no." Ianthe sighs, and much to my dismay, lets go of my hand and runs behind Heleni, followed by Caitlyn and Mrs. Harrison. Poor Harry is still standing there, dumbfounded, his eyes still on the spot his mate just disappeared from. I take pity on him and take him by the elbow to lead him outside, followed by a furious Colt. "You are not my sister's mate!" He shouts at Harry in rage. "No disrespect Colt," I say calmly. "But that is not your decision to make. It's nobody's but the Moon Goddess and there's nothing anyone can do about it." The mating bond is the most sacred bond and even though Colt is mad about it, he knows he has to respect that. "I found my mate." Harry says dumbly, rubbing at the spot where his heart is. "Oh my Goddess." I slap him on the back and chuckles. "Congra
Ricardo It's starting to get harder and harder being around Ianthe. She has suddenly developed this boldness that is officially driving me insane. Spring has sprung, and along with it the weather has become significantly warmer, the woods sporting beautiful wild flowers now. Her wolf loves the flowers, instead of running she prefers to lie down between them looking good enough to eat. Daemon is going to lose his mind soon, so instead I make him leave her there and run his frustration out. I've never benched so many weights in my life before. She's also started wearing these damn dresses, each one shorter than the last and Goddess knows, I can't take it anymore. My office door suddenly bursts open and Harry enters looking disheveled, his tie loose around his neck. "I can't take it anymore!" He walks straight to the liquor cabinet and instead of pouring him a glass as usual, he swigs straight from the bottle. "And what is it that you can't take?" I sigh, getting up and joining h
IANTHE I find Heleni standing in front of the lake, her arms crossed protectively over her chest and tears glistening in her eyes. I lay my hand on her back in a soothing manner. "Are you okay?" She shakes her head and sniffs. "I can't believe Harry thought I killed Genevieve." I take in a deep breath. "He found you standing over her body. You have to admit it looked suspicious." She turns her face fully to me, and I see the gut-wrenching hurt in her eyes. "We're supposed to be mated in two days. How can I get mated to someone who doesn't even trust what I say?" I frown, feeling the reluctance coming off her waves. "What are you saying, Heleni? " There have been times when wolves rejected their mates, but I have always been a firm believer that what the Moon Goddess decided, we shouldn't ignore or break. She looks at me with heartbreak in her eyes and the muscles around my heart clench in despair. "I don't think I can be mated to someone who doesn't trust me." She whispers.
IANTHE I watch as Ricardo tries to calm down his uncle who seems to be having a nervous breakdown. I can't blame the guy. Life has been pretty shitty for him lately. Instead of his son graduating, he's in the hospital looking like a shadow of his former self. I know stuff in this pack hasn't been happening because of me. Whatever is transpiring here has been happening way before I came here, yet I still feel guilty. Gosh, we lost Randall today. A searing pain goes through my heart at the thought of him losing his life because he was trying to keep me safe. I know it was his job, but it doesn't make the loss any easier to bear. How many more will lay down their lives for mine? I'm so busy wallowing in self-pity that I don't even notice Heleni until she touches my arm. "Hey, are you okay?" She's wearing a worried expression on her face. "Harry told me about what happened." I nod. "I'm okay, what about you? You haven't been around much." There's a flash of guilt in her e
RICARDO "This is gonna be a shit storm." Harry rubs his eyes. "I'm getting mated in two days, I swear I'm going to wear wrinkles on the most important day of my life." I stare up at the ceiling of my office, hoping that somehow the Moon Goddess would just make things a tad bit easier for me and send me the answers that I need. "Why didn't you just restrain the fucker or something." Harry rambles on. "That way he could've confessed to the pack himself what he's been doing all these years. He was respected, no way the pack is just going to accept our explanantion." I get up from my chair and run both of my hands through my hair. What I wouldn't give for a vacation right about now. Preferably somewhere tropical, isolated, just Ianthe and me. "I'm the alpha of this pack, aren't I?" I turn towards my best friend who is pacing the length of my office, "If they're going to believe someone, it should be me." "You better hope so, we don't know how many followers he had." And that's my b
RICARDO My blood is boiling in my veins and I rip my shirt off to breathe a bit easier. All I see is red as I look down at Gus's lifeless, naked body on my kitchen floor, his head that I ripped straight off staring at me. I completely lost it when I saw him up against Ianthe, naked and grabbing her like he had a right to. Nobody touches her but me. She's looking at me like I've gone crazy, and maybe I have. This is not the way I intended to deal with Gus. I had a plan, we were gonna get all the information we could out of Genevieve, find out how her family is involved and why. Now I have a dead man lying by my feet and a mate that's looking at me like I might kill her next. There's a banging on the front door and next thing I know Harry and Colt are in the kitchen, looking from me, to the headless Gus, and then to Ianthe. "What the hell happened!" Harry shouts, frantically pointing at Gus. "I thought we had a plan." "Oh my Goddess." Ianthe sobs, her hand going to her throat. "I
IANTHE I'm restless. I've watched too many movies where I didn't even know what was going on. I've tried reading up on investing, but to be honest it doesn't even interest me anymore. I'm used to being alone and bored, but now I know what it's like to have friends and company and most importantly, having someone to call my own. Only that someone has done his best to avoid me. I still sleep in his bed every single night, waiting like a dutiful wife, but lately he's been spending all his time in his home office or he's out somewhere with Harry and Colt. I'm craving his attention, even if it's just him holding me to his hard body at night. Maybe he's having an affair. But does it even qualify as an affair if we're not mated yet? I turn eighteen in two weeks. I'm both nervous and excited. What if something happens and we don't end up being mated? My life has surely not been easy, I lose important people all the time. What if I lose him? But what if I don't? What if we
RICARDO "No offense, but you need to get laid." Harry is looking at me like I've grown two heads after I told him that I thought he might be in on whatever is transpiring in the pack. He's been my best friend forever, I was stupid to even think he would ever betray me like that. "I feel like my intuition has not been the best." I run my hand through my hair, tugging the strands in frustration. Harry hums. "Maybe that's why the Moon Goddess sent Ianthe when she did, to help you with that." He might be right. Her being here might be intentional. Her being here is also the cause of the worst blue balls I've ever experienced before. I sigh as I drop into the chair behind my desk. "I didn't think being Alpha would be this exciting after my dad's reign." Harry smirks. "Yeah, but boring is no fun now, is it? Try to get some rest, I'll see you in a few hours at the jail." Yes, it's time we get to the bottom of Genevieve's involvement at least. I still have a cousin in a hospi
RICARDO Daemon is scratching at my collarbone to get out and get loose. He wants to be let free to terrorize the very town that we laid our lives on the line for. All we ever did was keep this town safe, protected from unwanted terrors. Now the very town I fought so hard for is stabbing me in the back. I don't know who I can trust anymore. If Ianthe says something is up with Gus, then something is up with Gus. And I went and jeopordized it all when I told the council she was a White Wolf. How stupid could I be? I thought we all had the same endgame in mind. I guess I was wrong. The joke's on me. I smell Harry way before I see him. "Care to tell me why I had to run all the way to the other side of the town?" There's a slight complaint in his voice, but next thing he knows, my hand is around his neck, and I'm jacking him up a tree. His hand grabs mine, but I'm way stronger than him, even more so now that I have Ianthe. There's a question and a slight sign of fear as my hand tight
RICARDO I sit up in bed and look at the woman lying next to me. She's not being herself, I sensed something was off ever since we returned from the funeral. I had to have a meeting with Harry and Colt to discuss the new developments, so she went to bed by herself like she does most nights. Tonight has been different though. She didn't immediately cuddle up to me as soon as I laid down, and she's usually peaceful when she sleeps. Tonight she's been tossing and turning. I know her well enough to know that something is bothering her. Consciously or unconsciously. "Hey." I shake her shoulder gently and she opens her eyes immediately, turning towards me. "What's wrong?" She frowns, her voice a little bit rough from sleep. "I should ask you that, you've been tossing and turning the whole night." She throws an arm over her eyes, shielding that exquisite face from me. "I'm sorry, did I wake you? You must be tired after everything." I'm tired, yes, from all the shit that has been goin
IANTHE My hand is gripped tightly in Ricardo's as we make our way to the funeral of The Wisher. "Are you sure it's a good idea that I come?" I ask for what must be the seventh time. His thumb strokes languidly over the back of my hand, those greys looking like they're melting as he takes in my face. "I want you by my side." His sure voice sends tingles down my spine. I know as soon as we get out of the car, his hand will no longer hold mine in the public. My birthday has never been so slow to arrive as it does this year. There's something different to Ricardo today. I know he went out early this morning, at first I thought he went to take Daemon out for his daily run, but when he returned he smelled like a woman's perfume. I found it odd, but I didn't feel jealous. I instinctively know he only has eyes for me. Now he seems lighter somehow, the lines between his eyebrows that were permanently scowling smoothed out. I can't believe I almost lost him just yesterday. I'm still tha