Ollie “What?” I look between my father and my uncle with confusion as they smile smugly as if they had known exactly what it was that I was going to say. “Was this some kind of damn test?” I ask them, annoyed. “Nope, not at all. Everything we have said is true and happening.” Alec says. I wag a finger between the two of them, “then what was all that about?” “That was just about you living up to expectations.” I look at my father, waiting for him to continue and he eventually does. “I know how much being alpha means to you and how much you are trying to prove yourself to us. You want everyone to see that you are ready. I get that, I really do, but here is the thing. We already know that you will do a great job. No one is doubting you. Your uncle Alec, your mother, grandfather, and great uncles have all discussed it. Everyone knows that you have a good head on your shoulder and that you will kick ass as the alpha of the pack. No one doubts that for a second-” “Then why-” “Olive
Zach My family gets weirder and weirder every dang time that I see them, I swear, but they are my people and I love them. Most of the time. “Come on, Zach. Let's get out of here.” “What?” I turn my head to face my cousin Katie, who is standing beside me. I am confused by her words, as in I am unsure if she is actually directing them toward me. Yet she is looking right at me and she slung her arm over my shoulder, so I am like ninety-four percent certain that she is actually addressing me. “The gang is heading out to the lake to spend the day soaking up the sun and having some fun-” “Good God, you sound like a spokesperson for a discount cruise line that got their campaign slogan from their ten-year-old daughter.” Oliver butts in with a tone full of complete disdain. Katie turns to glare at her twin brother, giving him definite evil eyes before she turns back to face me. “Come on, cuz! You never hang out with us. It will be so much more fun if you come with me.” “I am okay...
Natalie “Oh my gawd, look at him!” I roll my eyes because I already know the words that are coming next because Katie says them every time that she sees him. When the 'he is so hot!' does finally come, I sigh. “Mmhmm, yeah,.” I say noncommittally, without even sparing him a glance. “You're not even looking at him! Come on, Nat! Look at him! He looks so good today!” Katie says, tugging on my arm to get my attention. “I am sure that he looks the same as he does every other dang day!” I grumble, but she keeps pleading with me until I finally turn and seek him out. I see Noah standing by my brother Alec, my brother-in-law Andras and Zach. I look at all of them and take in a mental inventory of their looks. Alec is tall and broad, well-muscled and handsome. He looks so much like my Dad that it is creepy but he is still handsome. Zach looks exactly like him but his hair is a little longer so that it curls up on his head and his facial hair is more of a stubble, whereas Alec's is a bi
Trevor “Come on! You can not be serious! This is a joke, right?” “I am completely serious.” “No. This can not be happening! I do not accept it.” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “You don't accept it? What do you mean that you don't accept it? It doesn't work like that!” “But-” “Trevor. Dude. Accept it.” Zach tells me and I shake my head stubbornly. I am not ready to accept the truth. “No.” “I am seriously going to punch you in the face. The proof is right there, staring you in the face.” Zach waves the paper in front of my face and I can't help but chuckle. “She is married now. Officially off the market.” “Fine. I will accept it but I don't have to like it!” I say petulantly with a mock frowning face and this time it is Zack that laughs. “I never knew that celebrity marriages were such a hot topic with you. If I had known, I never would have mentioned it.” He tells me with laughter still present in his voice. “Not all celebrities. Just her.” I give one last glance
Natalie “Mate?!” “Yep.” “Your mate?” “That's what I said.” I nod again. “Really?” “I am not going to keep saying yes. Trevor is my mate.” I say, for the first time saying the words aloud to someone. “Wow.. Trevor.” Kat says, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against my headboard. “I did not see that one coming.” “Yeah, me either,” I tell her a bit snarkily. She is acting like she is so surprised by the news. I am the one that is destined to live her life with a human. I have spent the last three days since I found out going over and over it in my head, but I still just can not wrap my mind around it. “Have you talked to him? Like, about it? The mate thing..” Katie asks me, lowering her voice and I shake my head in response. No, I have not. “But I guess that I am going to try to tonight. Earlier today at lunch, he asked if we could talk. He wants me to go for a walk with him..” “A walk?” Katie asks and once again I nod. She is parroting everything I say t
Natalie Three large wolves step out of the woods and I immediately catch their scent on the breeze. “Rogues.” Night has fallen as Trevor and I sat talking, so I have only the rising moon to light my vision. But I see well enough to notice the blood on the brown wolf's fur. So does Trevor. “Nat-” He angles his body slightly in front of me and throws an arm over my legs, clearly in protective mode. “Blood.” “I see it,” I tell him. I want to hug him or kiss him, for the sweet protective instincts that he is displaying. He is a true gentleman and I love it. But I think that he forgot one thing.. He's a human. I'm a werewolf. If anything I will be protecting him. The brown wolf with the blood-soaked fur steps forward and growls menacingly, the sound rumbling deep in his throat and sending a chill up my spine. I am not usually one to cuss too much but I can not help the expletive that slips from my lips. “Fuck.” Suddenly the three wolves spring into action, bounding across the gra
Natalie I wake up disoriented and sore, but with no obvious wounds. I am assuming that I was out long enough for my wolf healing to take care of the injuries. Lifting my head, I look down to find my mother asleep on my legs.I don't want to wake her up because she looks so peaceful, but on the other hand, if she has been waiting days for me to wake up then I don't want to draw it out and make her wait. I need to put her mind at ease that I am okay.“Mom.”My voice cracks and my dry throat aches as I say the words, but with her supernatural hearing, she hears me and jumps to her feet. “Natalie Leann! God, you had me scared to death!” She throws her arms around me, squeezing me tightly to her. “Are you okay?” She asks me when she pulls away.“I'm okay, Mom. I'm just a little sore.” I tell her. I want to ask how many days I was out, but I don't. Nor do I ask about shifting back to human, because if she tells me that I shifted in front of a bunch of people, like my dad or brothers, then I
Katie After the girls have told the men in my family everything that they know, I take them into the kitchen to where my mother awaits with loads of food at the ready. They sit down at the table and look at the food as if they had never seen anything like it before. My mom made them fried chicken, salted ham, buttermilk biscuits, scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese, buttered toast, hashbrown potatoes, and pepper gravy. She pours tall glasses of various drinks, such as chocolate milk, white milk, water, and orange juice for them to grab what they want. She even pours a few mugs of coffee. “Here you go, ladies,” Mom says as she passes out plates and forks to them. “Please help yourselves to whatever you want. Just dig in.” “Thank you.” The one with the curly brown hair says to my mother. “Oh honey, it's no trouble. Just make yourselves at home.” Mama gives them a friendly smile and two out of four girls return it. The curly brown-haired one and the one with long blonde hair. Th
Two years later...Ollie I look at my wife and mate as she sits by my side. We are sitting at the head of the table in our dining hall as everyone gathers around. As alpha and luna of the pack, Sienna and I are hosting a feast for the pack, our family, and our friends to show off the birth of our son, Malcolm Oliver Vale. Named after Sienna's father and after me. He is two weeks old and he is so beautiful. Just like me, he has one eye blue and one eye silver, rather than green like mine, but he has his mother's white hair. He is the perfect mixture of his mother and me. We are over the moon with joy and love for him. Sienna has spent the last two years growing into her power. When her howl killed the rogues that day, it terrified her. But much like her screams being a weapon, her howl is as well. Now that she has been turned into a vampire as well, she is a tribrid. She is so incredibly powerful and I am in awe of her. Zachary spent months researching the mark on her fur when she
Katie “You are going to make one hell of a luna!” Blaize shouts at me as he swings me up into his arms and kisses me soundly as the last rogue falls. The fifteen or so rogues left run off with their tails tucked between their legs. I do not figure that we will see them again. “Where is Jaxon?” I am frantically looking around for him but I do not see him anywhere. Dread fills me as I scream at the top of my lungs. “Jaxon!” “Don't shout, baby. I'm right here.” I turn to see him hobbling towards me, with bloody gashes all over his body. But it is the tired grin he flashes me that gets my attention and melts my insides. I jump from Blaize's arms into his. He stumbles backward with an 'oof' but stays on his feet, even when I kiss him with as much passion as Blaize just kissed me. “Do not ever scare me like that again” I shout at him when I pull back. “I won't, baby,” he promises, before he looks at Blaize. “You okay?” “Yeah. You?” Blaize asks him, checking him over. They embrace o
Ollie I never made it out of our territory. Dad and Grandpa went to get Katie and help Blaize's pack, with the help of a few family members. Haylee's husband, Austin, my great uncle Mason and Lucy's husband, Camden, as well as one or two pack members. Dad did not want to take too many people and let our guard down, so we are prepared for everything. All of our pack members have gathered in the packhouse dining hall. All the children have been taken to the basement of the packhouse, where Grace, Nat, Trevor, and Malia watch them. They will protect them, should the need arise. I didn't go with Dad because I had this odd feeling that I shouldn't. It was like my gut was telling me not to go. I hope nothing happens, but I really am expecting it to. So now is just a game of wait and see. We don't have to wait long though. We have barely been settled in the packhouse for twenty minutes when I get the call from the guards. Rogues have crossed the territory boundary and are on our land.
Deacon “Rogues!” The sounds of people screaming fills my ears and my heart sinks. What had started as a simple drive over to the Shadow Falls pack to reject my male mate turned into dinner, a night of passion that I am still not sure how I feel about, and now a rogue attack. Byrne is out of the bed in seconds and out the door in less than another second. “Byrne!” He does not listen to me, never slowing his steps. I pull on my pants and snap them at my waist before I run down the stairs. When I step outside of the house, I see men shoving off beasts that are attacking them. I see wolf on wolf, snarling and snapping at each other. But it is the blood everywhere, the screaming children, and the decapitated bodies that stop me in my tracks. I have never seen such carnage before. I have actually never seen any carnage before. In all my years, we have never had any sort of attack on our pack until the attack on Nat and Trev a few weeks ago. We have all lived a very sheltered life and n
Katie I open my eyes and immediately yawn. How is it that I am more tired waking up than I was before I fell asleep? But then again I had only been out for maybe two hours. Since I couldn't sleep through the raging storm last night, the guys woke up with me and decided to pass the time. The conversation got super deep and I learned a lot about both of them while simultaneously oversharing about myself. It got weird at times but it was great learning about Blaize and Jaxon. I really feel like I know them now, so I am not quite so self-conscious around them. Although I am a little nervous about facing them this morning, after what we did last night. About two this morning, we had exhausted the conversation and a silence had fallen. In that silence, I had snuggled into Jaxon, who had been holding me against his side. His hands wrapped around my waist, just beneath my chest and with every inhale my breasts brushed his arm. So I, of course, slowed my breathing. I was far too aware
Zach Something wakes me up from a sound sleep and I sit up quickly. I don't hear anything or see anything out of place so I am about to go back to bed when a huge clap of thunder roars and lightning flashes outside. It lights up my room just enough for me to make out the eyeballs peeking out at me from behind the footboard of my bed. She must have tried to wake me up and when I sat up so quickly, I scared her so she hid. I feel really bad about that. Opening my arms out wide, I ask her. “Is everything okay, Jezzie?” Shaking her head with her tiny lip quivering as tears threaten, she comes over and climbs up on the bed until she is in my lap. She pulls the blanket over her and snuggles into my chest. “It's scary tonight.” “Because of the storm?” I ask her, even though I already know the answer. I even know why. Her parents were attacked by rogues on a night like this and Sienna's father ushered them out through the storm. When a big clap of thunder had boomed, Malia dropped to the
Nat I can not find Trevor anywhere. The dinner is almost over and people are trickling out, but I have not seen him in well over an hour. I have asked a couple of people, including his father if they have seen him. “I think the last time that I saw him, he was heading outside for some fresh air. But if I do see him, I will tell him to come find you, Natalie.” He says, giving my arm a platonic pat before he walks off to join the crowd. I head towards the exit, hoping that I will find him outside. And I do. But he is not alone. Grace is with him. When Trevor found out that she is a human too, the two of them really bonded over how left out they feel. They hang out all of the time and they spend most of the days together. In the last few days, I have hardly gotten to see him, because I was busy with Bron helping Katie, and then busy with Bron cooking all of this food. My sister needed me and I wanted to help her. I invited him to tag along with me, but he declined. I try not to
Katie It is Friday night and I am sitting in the pack dining hall with my family, friends, and almost all of the pack. With everything going on and all the new alpha's rolling in, plus the attack on Nat and Trevor, the pack was getting restless with unease. Dad figured that they deserved some answers. Hence this dinner. They spent the week waiting for me to cool down because apparently, I was actually in heat. Like a dog. I was panting and whining.. it got weird. For four days I was locked in that room with a stranger, where we stayed naked and in bed together, but we didn't have sex. Even in the heat of it all, when I wanted him inside of me more than I wanted to breathe, I knew I would regret it later, so I asked him to wait and he respected that. He was content to hold my bare body to his. And to kiss me. A lot. We would kiss for hours until we got so fired up that we had to stop. We did a little bit of talking, but not much has been discovered about each other, which is why
Katie I finally found my mate (I think) and I have to admit that I am low-key terrified of him. He just threw Noah across the room and then growled 'mine' at everyone. Luckily my uncle Jack, Grandpa, and Dad know what to do. My grandpa Jeremy tells everyone to leave the room. Noah first. For some reason, the man holding on to me watches him with a predatory look in his eyes. As everyone follows suit, leaving just my grandpa, uncle Jack and Dad, the man in front of me begins to relax. “Katie.” My dad says softly to me and I think that he is calling me over to him, so I try to get out of the man's arms to move towards him, but my mate holds me closer, as his body begins to shift to his wolf form. Hair begins to grow on his arms and his eyes deepen into an even more luminous shade of gold. They glow like fire. “Stop, Katie,” My dad commands and I freeze. “We have to stop talking to her.” Uncle Jack says and I panic. “No!” I tell them, but Dad holds up a hand to silence me. “I r