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Lana POV

Dear Lana,

There will be nothing left of your perfect lips if you keep chewing them nervously while waiting for my reply. Usually, I am more punctual in my responses. I am sorry if I made you nervous thinking I would skip sending you an email tonight. To answer your question, yes, things have been intense. But they should be rigorous. They are training us all for alphaships or betaships, after all. I would do it over tenfold if it meant a better chance of being what you need me to be. 

I have to admit; I miss you far more than I ever imagined possible. Your sharp wit and your nervous lip biting always bring a smile to my face when I find myself stressed or unable to focus. I am thinking this will be the last message for a couple days as we enter the last week we are to be separated, so I feel it is only fair to formally ask you for a chance…

“Lana!” Someone hisses at me and I jump, slamming the laptop closed. My heart is in my throat as I move toward my dark balcony and peek out. “Lana!”

Kohen’s face appears, and I squeak, falling backward in surprise. Then a smile creases my lips as he pushes the balcony doors and saunters in. He grins down, his black locks dusted with light rain as the skies open up, thunder crashing and lightning lighting up the night sky.

“You are always tripping up over me.” He reaches out, taking my hand and pulling me close to his chest. 

“You aren’t supposed to be here.” I whisper, trying to bite back my smile and be stern. But it would be a lie to say I’m not thrilled to see him. He wraps his arms around my lower back, tugging me to him and my cheeks flush red. Kohen has always been bold and open about how he feels toward me.

“We are a week away from you finally getting to choose me, and I couldn’t miss you for another day.” He swoops down and I turn to see what he is doing as his lips press against mine. My heart thunders wildly in my chest, my eyes wide as Kohen slides his hand into my hair. He pulls back for a mere moment. 

“Well, I was going for your cheek, but if you want to kiss me, that’s just fine, too.”

Before I can even get a word in, Kohen sweeps the breath from my lungs, his kiss more powerful this time as he moans. My eyes fall closed, enjoying the closeness, excited by the idea that he actually means what he has said all along.

Kohen has always been a flirt. But he has never made a move like this. I open my mouth, granting him better access as the kiss deepens. He breaks the contact, moving down my neck, shivers erupting over my skin as he licks and kisses my exposed flesh. 

“Kohen,” I whisper, trying to call this to order. I am so swept up in the moment, but I also know that this is a lot for me to take in. Kohen is my best friend and until moments ago, I had never been kissed. And now… now I am going further than I ever have and he is kissing my skin, and it’s all so overwhelming. 

“Oh,” I gasp as his hand snakes under my shirt and cups my naked breast.

I can’t tell whether I am angry about not putting a bra on after showering or pleased. His thumbs do things to me I have never expected as my head falls back and he glides his lips to my throat. He moves, walking me one way as I follow his lead, my eyes closed, eating up every bit of warmth his touch brings to my skin as a breeze whips through the open door of my balcony, lightening lighting up the room.

I hear a click and I know he is locking my bedroom door before moving me the other way. He removes his lips and his hands for a moment and I look up at him, blinking in the now dark room, gasping for air. 

“I’m going to take this off now…” He whispers, stealing the ‘no’ from my lips as he yanks my shirt up, releasing my mouth for only a split second before consuming me again.

His own shirt somehow disappears and my breast press against his smooth taut muscles. I glance up at him, my body shaking from nerves and indecision. Is this what I truly want? Kohen seems to miss my hesitation and walks me back two more steps, then sits on the edge of my bed, pulling me into his lap, straddling him. 

He assaults my naked flesh with his lips and teeth, nipping and kissing as I try to control my hormones and thoughts that are so out of sync. Then me clasps his lips on me, kneading my other breast and all reasonable thought shoots out the window. 

“Tell me you want me, Lana.” He murmurs against my skin, his hot breath fanning over me, making me shudder. “Tell me, you choose me and not Maddox. I will die if I can’t have you.” He whispers. And my heart shatters.

Maddox. My other best friend… The silent one who I have always had a strange bond with in his pain over missing his mother and I mine. 

“Kohen, please…” I whisper, begging him to stop, as tears dot my eyes. The moment is gone, sobriety and the gravity of what is happening hits me hard. “I can’t promise you that.”

He stops and his head lifts. 

“You want Maddox, then?” He asks, hurt lacing his voice and guilt hammers at me. 

“No!” I rush out. “I mean… I dont know. Shit, Kohen. Why are you here? You aren’t supposed to be here,” I say as I try to crawl out of his lap. He squeezes my legs, holding me in place an anger in his eyes I’ve never seen before. This isn’t the Kohen I know. 

“Because you want me. Right now, in this moment. You want me to keep kissing you. You want me to do these things to you… admit it.”

I pause and sigh heavily. “Yes, it feels good, but this isn’t right. This isn’t okay. I don’t know what I want.” I push hard against him, popping up and grabbing my shirt, pulling it on. 

“You want me.” He insists, rushing over and cupping my face. “It was always meant to be you and me.”

“Of course I want you in my life, but I haven’t decided and I won’t until I have to. You should go Kohen.” I whisper, pulling his hands from my face. “You aren’t even supposed to be here.”

“Lana, do you even know where he stands?” he chuckles angrily, grabbing his shirt and pulling it back over his head. “I mean shit, he has never once told me how he feels about you. You are supposed to be choosing your mate between the two of us and you are denying me because you haven’t decided? I am the one who wants YOU! He is the one that wants the title that comes with having you.” He growls in anger.

“He is my best friend too, Kohen.” I scowl at him, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Well, has he told you it’s you he wants? Huh? Because when I ask him about it, he always says it doesn’t matter.” He scoffs. “You know why he says that? Because he doesn’t care about you. Not like that.”

“You and I both know he doesn’t voice his feelings well.” I say, trying to reason with him.

Kohen laughs flatly. “Right. Well, if you want to place yours and the future of this pack in the hands of someone who can’t communicate well, that’s up to you, I guess.”

I frown at him and furrow my brow before moving to my bathroom door and turning on the light. I stop and looking over my shoulder at him. 

“You should leave before you get in trouble for sneaking out.” I say, walking into the bathroom and closing the door behind me, pressing myself up against it, pulling in a ragged breath as tears dot my eyes.

I wait until I hear the balcony door closing, then I peek my head out into my illuminated room, spying my partially opened laptop on my bed and I gnaw on my lip, wanting so desperately to read the rest of the email Maddox sent me. 

Kohen is right that Maddox doesn’t share much. He internalizes and communication for him has always been hard, but what Kohen forgets is that it is Maddox’s trauma response. Before Maddox came to our pack, he was slated to be Alpha in his pack. A smaller pack than mine, but still a prominent one that was taken out by the rebels.

When my dad and his warriors arrived to answer Alpha Michael’s plea for aid, there was no one left aside from Alpha Michael, three warriors and a young Maddox covered in blood as he fought the remaining rebels off his mother’s dead body. 

The warriors who found them still talk about how feral Maddox was. The only person who could break through to him was my father and his own, who pulled him away from his dead mother as he sobbed. They say he screamed about how he failed her and begged for punishment for not being strong enough.

Kohen, however, has always been outgoing and fun. The less serious out of the two, but he brings out a side of Maddox that always seemed much more carefree and open. 

Two opposite people, the very best of friends and me in the middle, the glue that usually holds us together. Though it now feels like I am the reason, we will fall apart. Maybe it’s me being selfish, but I never wanted to be the Alpha. I don’t want the headache and responsibility of running a pack. I want to train and fight and be at the whim of the alpha. So when I told this to my dad he came up with a plan. 

I have two choices. Become the Alpha or choose one of my two best friends to become alpha and my mate. I have always harbored feelings for both boys. How could I not when I know them so well? Why Kohen and Maddox? The only stipulation to being an alpha is alpha blood. Maddox and Kohen are both of alpha bloodlines. 

So after talking with them, they both agreed to be sent to Alpha Elite training where their scores will help me choose which one will be better suited to lead. Which is easier for me because then I don’t have to face the consequences of choosing one and not the other. It might be a coward’s way, but at least I am not at fault for hurting someone.

But after tonight… I’m not sure that scores alone will be enough to help me choose. With the emails that Maddox has been sending me, finally opening up to me in a way he never has, almost like he is revealing to me a part of myself I never knew existed and Koehn showing up here tonight… I don’t know what the hell I am supposed to be doing.    

“What the hell…” I rub a hand over my face, then stare down at my computer as guilt washes over me.

Maddox comes to the forefront of my mind. I want to tell him all about what just happened. He IS one of my best friends. Kohen will probably tell him, though I’m not sure I want Maddox to hear about it from Kohen’s end. But that can wait for tomorrow. Right now, I need to take another shower and think harder about what the hell I am going to do.