ELARIAN The tingling sensation on my neck was both a mixture of pain and pleasure, but that pleasure was instantly replaced by excruciating pain when he slammed those words right in my face.“What…what do you mean by that?” I looked up at him in utter confusion, but he wouldn’t even meet my eyes. He was intentionally avoiding my gaze.This was what I had been so scared of from the start. I knew at one point or another, he would act up like this, and he was doing just that now. My legs were trembling underneath me, unable to hold me up anymore, but I struggled to stand.“Look me in the eyes, Aeros, and repeat those words again,” I demanded, but he still wouldn’t do that. He attempted to walk out on me, but I didn’t intend to let him off the hook that easily.I quickly stepped in front of him and planted my feet down in a very confronting manner. He glared at me with contempt. I had no idea what I had done to deserve such a reaction from him; he had just marked me, and one would have t
ELARIAN Blair led me over to one of the long benches in the park, where she stopped in front of a funny-looking man dressed in flashy clothes. He had all sorts of paintings on his face, along with some other men present or walking around the park.“Hey Blair, who do you have here?” he asked with a cheerful smile. He had dark hair and eyes that held such depth to them that you could find yourself staring into them for a long time.“Are you interested in joining the carnival?” He looked up at me with a twinkle in his eyes, and I raised a brow in response.“Carnival?”“Yeah…look around you; there’s a carnival going on at the moment.” He stopped talking and stared at me for a while. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before. Are you by any chance new to the area?”“Yes, she is. I just found her over there,” Blair turned around to point at the spot where we had met, “and she seemed to be in need of a place to crash for a few days.”“Well…she’s in luck. I ne
AEROS “What the hell do you mean by you dropped her off at the border!” I yelled as I slammed my fist on the table.The timid-looking maid in front of me trembled in fear, nervously shuffling on her feet with her head down and her hands behind her back.“I am so sorry, Alpha Aeros, but she insisted I leave her there. I had no choice but to—”“Leave her in the wild for the rogues to feed on?” I roared, cutting her off rudely. I took a deep breath when I realized all my yelling wouldn’t get me anywhere. Calm and collected, I eased back into my seat and pinned her with a stare.“Your orders were to take her somewhere safe, an accommodation, or anything else she would be comfortable with, not a danger zone like the border. That was what the money was for, you know.” I snapped back with an angry look on my face.“She outrightly rejected the money, Alpha Aeros. In fact, she looked like she was offended by it.”I sighed deeply again and massaged my brows.Elarian had never been the type to
ELARIAN I was stunned at how things had changed so rapidly. The napkin I used to hide my mark from the public was gone, and Blair was staring at me with a look in her eyes that hadn’t been there a while ago. It was as if she could see right through me and suddenly knew that everything she thought she knew about me was a lie.“What’s your real name?” she asked with a strict tone that left me staring at her in disbelief, unable to recover quickly from the incident.“And what could have possibly made that mark on your neck?” She took a step closer, and that sudden movement snapped me out of my trance so quickly that I immediately stepped away from her and wrapped the napkin back around my neck.“It’s nothing,” I responded with a dismissive tone, but she clearly wasn’t willing to settle for an excuse like that.Although it was clear she still had a lot on her mind, she stayed quiet for a few seconds, maintaining eye contact. When she finally looked away, her eyes slowly dropped from mine
ELARIAN “What did he mean by that!” a voice yelled inside my head, making the pain intensify. The light throbbing in my head worsened, and I was forced to make a sound—a low grunt that didn’t slip past the doctor’s notice. His attention turned to me almost immediately, and Blair followed his gaze. Even though my vision was still blurry and my entire body felt like it had just been hit by a truck, I could still make out their expressions.As soon as my eyes took in my surroundings properly, I realized Tom was the owner of the familiar voice I had heard—he was the doctor.“Oh… you’re awake,” Blair said, smiling down at me as she gently stroked my hand, as if the doctor hadn’t just told her that I was pregnant.“I was so scared back there. Thought you had an attack or something, but it turns out you’re just pregnant,” she added, and the excited tone at the end of her voice didn’t slip past my notice.“What!”“I know, right? I was shocked too, but we have enough time to find out the baby
AEROS “How much longer do we have to wait?” I asked Jonathan as I paced the length of the open field where we were told to wait for the nerdy-looking rogue leader who had gone on a mission to retrieve Elarian from the human world.“I don’t know,” Jonathan replied, a worried expression on his face. He had a faraway look in his eyes as he stared at the horizon, searching for any sign of their approach, but there was nothing to see.“Their message said they would be here before our arrival, and if they weren’t, they’d arrive shortly after,” he added.I noticed how on edge Jonathan was, likely contemplating the possibility of an attack from the rogues. He slowly turned around to glance at the strategic location of the guards he had brought along.“Relax. They can’t do anything to us, not while I’m here with you. They might be rogues, but they know better than to attempt to cross paths with us,” I said, tapping his shoulder reassuringly.“I can tell you’re also worried, you know.”“I’m no
ELARIAN I kept running deep into the woods with no idea where I was headed. I didn’t stop to breathe, nor did I stop to pull the thorns poking at me through the holes in my dress because I was desperate to get away from them.I overheard one of the men talking about using me to get to Aeros, which didn’t make sense because they had claimed to have saved me on his orders. That was when I realized they weren’t on my side and decided to escape.Security wasn’t tight, and the house was too old and rickety to hold someone hostage without proper surveillance, so I easily slipped past the guards and made a run for it.I didn’t know how long I had been running, but it was beginning to get dark. My legs ached, and my entire body felt like it had been run over by a truck. I wished for nothing more than to crawl up somewhere and sleep, so I finally stopped to catch my breath. After making sure no one was after me, I cleared a spot under a tree and sat down.I questioned myself: Was it really a
ELARIAN Was I ready to do this? I asked myself that question over and over again as I paced the length of the hallway, occasionally stopping in front of the room where Vienna was. She was in there with the woman who assured me she could help me get rid of the pregnancy without complications.My heart pounded so fast it felt like it might rip out of my chest at any moment.Suddenly, the door creaked open, and Vienna poked her head out, "Come on in, she’s ready for you now."She held the door wide open, and I walked in, struggling to keep myself together. When I heard her turn the lock behind me, I spun around sharply."Just for privacy," she reassured me, noticing the concerned and petrified look on my face.An unexpectedly young woman sat on a couch-like bed at the far end of the room. On the small table beside her were six tablets and a sparkling glass of water."The pills should be enough to get the job done, but if the father is an Alpha, you might need more than a few pills to ge
ELARIAN Blair.That was definitely Blair, though her hair was no longer golden as it had been when I met her in the human world. The wolf who had taken me from the hospital that day had told me she had sold me out to the humans, and I knew it was because of the mark she had seen on my neck.But Blair had been human when I met her in the human world, so why was she here? And how had her hair become a deep shade of black?“Blair? How are you here?” I asked, and Aeros stepped forward.“I told you she suddenly turned up after we lost a prisoner with Jonathan. I have no idea how it happened either, but it just happened,” he explained as my eyes darted from him to Blair.I wasn’t sure he had any clue what he was talking about.“Is this your Blair?” I asked, raising a brow, my face stunned. I could have sworn she was the woman I had met when I first arrived in the human world, so how could she be his Blair?“I thought she was dead too, but when she showed up… the whole thing just became a t
ELARIAN “A lot has happened in your absence, Luna Elarian.” The healer’s words echoed in the back of my mind, and the sadness in her eyes as she said them lingered in my thoughts.“You have to stay in bed. Both you and the baby need as much rest as possible. Plus, Alpha Aeros clearly instructed that we keep you here until he returns,” Elyse’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts and made me aware of my surroundings.“But you just said Jonathan has been… I need to go to him,” I said as I tried to push myself up from the bed. A sharp pain shot through my head, making me scream out loud and collapse back.“Your body is still too weak. It will take time to regain your strength,” Elyse pointed out, stepping forward. “I know you want to be with your husband right now, but for the sake of your baby, Luna Elarian, you need to stay right here,” she added firmly.I sighed heavily and eased back into the bed in defeat. Elyse and the healer excused themselves to check on Aeros after a maid rushed
ELARIAN“Thank the goddess, Elarian. You have no idea how worried I was. You have no idea how scared I was. I thought I had lost you, and when the healer said you were…” His words trailed off as if there was something on the tip of his tongue he couldn’t bring himself to say.“Alpha Aeros, we agreed to let her get enough rest. And please, get something for her to eat. It must have been one hell of an ordeal,” the woman I hadn’t noticed was in the room said. I turned to see a much younger woman standing beside the healer, hovering over me.“Of course,” Aeros mumbled grudgingly as he reluctantly pulled himself away from me and headed outside. For some reason, I was extremely weak, too weak to even speak or move, and the young woman beside me noticed that. She leaned forward and urged me to relax into the bed.“You must be really weak. Please just stay back and wait for him. Within a few hours, you should feel much better,” she said calmly. I stared at her for a few seconds before glanci
ELARIAN “Give me back my baby!” I yelled at the top of my lungs as I crumbled to the floor, tears streaming down my cheeks and leaving me almost out of breath. Blood stains covered my dress, my hair was a tangled mess, my knees were bleeding from all the kneeling, and my feet were sore all over.This was torture. I had been like this for hours, and the pain shot through my body like I had been pricked by a million knives.I had no idea where I was or what was happening, but I was certain it wasn’t reality because one minute, I had a baby, and the next, I was walking around pregnant and bleeding. I was forced to endure a miscarriage, then labor, and finally, the ordeal of watching my child get ripped apart by a blind wolf.Something didn’t feel right. Aeros’ scent hung thicker than ever around me, but he was nowhere near close to me. I tried to wake myself up, hoping that it was all just a nightmare, but no matter how hard I tried, nothing worked.“Please…” I sobbed, “just give me bac
AUTHOR'S POVKaiden swam for what felt like hours on end before he washed up on the banks of a river in an unfamiliar territory. He assumed it was because he had been locked away for so long that he couldn’t recognize anything or anywhere. However, he also knew that Jonathan and Aeros would start sending out search parties if they didn’t find his body, so he needed to find a safe place to hide for a while.Blair. He had seen Blair, and her name kept echoing in his head as he walked away, but he paid no attention to it. He got as far away as he could, and it wasn’t until he saw someone that he finally collapsed from the cold, darkness engulfing him.Meanwhile, Blair was unsure of what to do. Aeros had managed to catch the maid she had used, and even though she was scary enough to keep the maid’s mouth sealed, she knew it was only a matter of time before Aeros found a way to make her confess.She couldn’t risk that, nor could she risk him waking Elarian up.“The new healer just arrived,
AEROS “I…I am sorry, I didn’t mean to…I uhm…” I stammered, unsure of what to say or how to react to the sudden image of Blair crying profusely in front of me.“Everything, every single thing I did was for you, Aeros. But if you choose to be blind to all that because of a woman you barely even know, then…then maybe, just maybe Jonathan was worth it. Maybe he was worth being the man that made me cheat on you. Maybe he was worth the—”“Blair!”“What?! Am I disturbing her? Is that what you’re going to say to me next? What if she doesn’t come back, Aeros? Have you ever thought of that? What if she doesn’t wake up and you’re trapped out here with nowhere else to turn? She is going to leave you eventually, and then you will realize that it has always just been me,” she said, her eyes holding mine.“Blair, you and I, we’re done. Elarian means a whole lot to—”“No, Aeros,” she replied sharply, cutting me off. “You don’t get to decide who matters and who doesn’t. I am the woman you will foreve
AEROS My throat ached with each word that made it past my lips. I didn’t want to believe that he would do something like that, yet at the same time, if he really did it to her, then I couldn’t just let him walk free.He almost killed my child and Elarian.“I don’t know why he did that,” I continued and paused to catch my breath because it was getting even more difficult for me to speak. The words were just too heavy for me to say to her, but I had no choice.“The maid insisted he was the one till the last minute, and no matter how unbelievable it sounds, it looks like it just might be true. Maybe Xavier was right, Elarian. Maybe you were safer with him and not with me. Blair died with me, and if anything were to happen to you, then I would…I would…” The words trailed off as a sharp pain shot through me, leaving me gasping for air.“Aeros.” Blair’s voice called out behind me, and I turned around sharply to find her standing by the door. I had no idea when she had walked in.I still fo
ELARIAN The sound of a baby crying was the first thing that filled my ears as I jumped up from where I lay. The air was thick with a scent that made my nose twitch, and when my eyes finally adjusted to the pitch-black darkness around me, I noticed the baby at the foot of the bed I was lying on.I touched my stomach, and the baby bump that had been there was suddenly gone. My brows furrowed; I had no idea I had given birth, nor did I recall the ordeal of childbirth.How was the baby here then?The baby suddenly stopped crying, and when I tried to move closer, I noticed my legs wouldn’t budge from where they were placed on the bed. I tried to lift them over and over again, but it was as if they were glued to it.Suddenly, the door opened, and a shadow slipped in. I looked on in horror as the shadow slowly morphed into what I assumed was a young woman, and she approached the baby slowly.I willed myself to speak, but my lips wouldn’t move either. This had to be a nightmare because I bar
Author’s POVJonathan wasn’t sure if he understood what Blair was saying. How could it be possible that she had been pregnant during that incident between them?He had expected her to say a lot of things, but never in his lifetime would he have imagined this. And he certainly didn’t expect Aeros to walk in on their conversation.Jonathan had only wanted to clear the air with Blair because he was afraid she might say something to Aeros first. So, he had pretended he was going to check on her and headed to her room. The guard stationed outside stepped aside the moment he saw him. When Blair insisted they go somewhere more private to talk, claiming she was worried someone might overhear them. Jonathan led her to the only place he was sure no one would visit.Little did he know that Aeros was just around the corner.“W-What did you just say?” Aeros stammered, taking a step forward. His eyes locked onto Jonathan’s but flicked occasionally to Blair, who stood beside him, her wide eyes betra