VALENS"Why do you keep sneaking glances at me?" I asked when I noticed from the corner of my eyes that my mate had once again glanced furtively up at me. "I am not sneaking glances at you," she defended but there was no missing the guilt in her tone or how she coloured. I closed my laptop and moved it to the side of my desk to give her my full attention. "What do you want to say?" I asked, leaning back into my seat."Can we go out for lunch?" She asked. I knew that wasn't what she wanted to say so I refused to play along. "Are you bored?" She shook her head. "It's okay if you don't want to be here," I reminded her for the tenth time. The new house was too big. She wouldn't admit it because she wanted a big house and a lot of space in the first place, but she was lonely in that house. I was going to ask Octavia to move in with us and the women who would train her but it kept slipping my mind. "I want to be close to you," she protested. "It's fun watching you work." "What's fun i
Valens wasn't a talker, I knew that. I knew before I mentioned it that he would be averse to the idea of seeing a therapist as he would have to open up. What I hadn't expected was for him to try to bury me with work all of a sudden to get me off his tail. "This contains the history of our kind from the first king to the third. We went through a period when we had no monarch," the Royal Historian said, picking up a book. "This book covers the history of wolves in the days when we didn't have a stable rulership." The book she produced next was the biggest I ever saw in my life. "Am I really to read all these?" I asked, rubbing my neck. I knew there would be work to be done but these books would take months to read."No, you will get to read them but for the work we have to do now, I have a summary." She produced what looked like a long novel. "This is something my predecessor wrote. It is a bit more concise with only six volumes." She handed it to me. I took the book with reverence.
"What happened to her?" I asked Valens when I successfully got Celeste settled in. She was having a bath now so I went to grab her some clothes. She'd refused to speak when I asked her what was wrong. She'd cried the more I asked her if anything had happened. The only coherent words I got out of her were 'I don't want him!' I assumed it had something to do with Jabari but still couldn't figure out how my mate fit into the mix. "Did you know she is Jabari's mate?" He asked in response to my question, raising his head from his computer. "Yeah, Jabari told me," I replied. He scowled. "And you couldn't tell me?" Why did it sound like he was accusing me?"Why? It didn't even occur to me that Jabari hadn't told you." I shrugged, pulling out a nightdress for my friend. It was bright, a sunflower yellow that I hoped would brighten her up a bit. "He told me today. He was nervous about seeing her so I offered to go along with him." He sighed, pinching his nose. "You should have seen the wa
Celeste fell asleep close to midnight with me hugging her. I was dozing off when a text lit up my phone screen, startling me. I opened it to see a message from Valens. 'When are you coming to bed?' It read. I yawned as I typed out a reply. 'I'm not. I don't want her sleeping alone tonight' His reply came in a flash. 'What do you mean you are not? What about me?' 'What about you?' I stretched as Celeste turned. 'You want me sleeping alone?' Another text followed that. 'Come to bed.''I can't. She's going to wake up soon and I don't want her crying alone in a strange room.' 'How am I supposed to sleep?' I blinked at the text. Then a smile stretched my lips. 'You close your eyes, babe. And dream of me.' 'Ok.' I laughed a little at that reply. 'Goodnight.' 'Are you upset?' I asked, holding back a giggle. 'No.' 'Oh my goodness, you're mad at me.' I added a bunch of emojis to the text, hit send, and readjusted myself in bed. Celeste turned again, her breath hitching as if she wa
My friend came out of her room sometime before lunch. I'd eaten her breakfast at that point and had to prepare something else. "Good morning," she said, yawning. Her eyes were tired and puffy, her colour dull. She'd taken a bath and changed into the clothes she came in with. "Morning." I put my teacup down, inviting her to sit beside me. "How are you doing?" I asked. She shrugged. "I'm sorry I broke down yesterday," she said with a tired smile. "I overreacted but I'm fine now. I didn't complete my shift yesterday. I have to leave now so that I'm not late again." She shook her head. "You're volunteering. Why are you working so many hours as a volunteer?" She looked away. "What aren't you telling me?" "I – Do you know how far my reputation has sunk in the pack?" I watched her expression as she said that. I could only imagine what she was suffering at this point. She'd gone from the daughter of respected betas to the only good egg in her family. Her parents abandoned the pack and h
VALENS"Did you know she is a witch?" Avalon von Stein asked, her legs crossed before her. "Yes," I answered, flipping through a file Jabari just sent my way. My Beta wasn't functioning at full capacity at this point which put more workload on me. It was a good thing my Luna was picking up more and more work these days. There was no way I could do all this alone. "How do you feel about that?" The historian asked, making me pause. "She's my Luna," I said offhandedly. In truth, the thought of having a mate with magic was hard to digest. Her sudden magical abilities left me wondering and a lot of times, I would admit it made me recoil. I did not like magic and she must have noticed because she had fewer magical accidents around me. I imagined she was getting used to her new abilities or she was hiding them from me. I didn't want her to hide any part of herself from me. Never again. "Does it bother you?" She asked. I shook my head, unwilling to say more than that. Jabari mostly hand
AYSELCeleste and Jabari were not doing well. I didn't need to get his number for her because she already had it but she still refused to text him. He texted her one day, exactly a week after Valens brought her home. She called me after that, crying her eyes out. I realised things were worse than I first thought. She was getting increasingly afraid of him with each day that passed. She made up numerous scenarios in her head and in every one of them, Jabari was the villain out to get her.I'd asked Valens if she could move in with us. I knew being alone in her family house could not be good for her. He agreed but the girl refused so I was going to move her myself. "Why are you doing this? I'm fine, really." She protested, unpacking the bag I just packed. "You are not fine. You've lost too much weight and I know you aren't eating. There's no one to cook for you." I started packing the bag again. "My therapist thinks I am improving," she lied. "After five days? During which you've be
"You could have woken me before leaving, you know," I grumbled as a way of greeting once I got into Valens' office. "Oh." I coloured when five heads turned to look at me, one of them with a particularly spiteful glare. "We are in the middle of a meeting," the man with the harsh glare said, his expression turning more unpleasant with each second that passed with me standing at the door like a dimwit. "Right," I said with a smile, fighting the burst of magic that came with the anger I felt at his dismissive tone. There were speculations about my magic since the display I had in the dungeons with Zavier. The guards were more discreet than I gave them credit. No one knew for certain that I had magic and Valens cautioned me against outing myself to the world. He didn't want the reminder of what my hands could do and I understood why. "Did you sleep well?" My mate asked as I was about closing the door to his office. I could feel the anger radiating off the other man. He was a distant r