When I opened my eyes the light was already streaming into my room through the curtains. I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling so refreshed and revitalised. Heck, I can’t remember the last time I woke up after the sun had come up. I glanced over at my phone on my bedside table. It may have been later than I usually wake up but I still had some time before school started. I had never bothered to set an alarm before. I could always count on my nightmares to wake me up before dawn anyway but last night there was no nightmare. If they really were gone and this wasn’t a one off freak event then I might have to start thinking about that kind of thing. I dragged myself out of bed, showered and got ready for the day ahead. Once I was dressed it became clear that I only had enough time to make myself breakfast or apply my makeup, not both. I guess I was going to have to go into school looking a mess because there is no way I could get through the day without coffee. It just wouldn’
It was a good thing that I am ahead in all my classes because I couldn’t focus on anything all morning. My brain was split between too many different things and none of them were algebra or what I wanted to do for my English project. I was too busy trying to work out what the code could be, worrying that my mate might be around any corner and worrying about training tonight. It is a shock that I didn’t end up walking into a wall or something with how many different directions my mind was going in. I knew that if I was going to meet my mate at school it would most likely be at lunchtime. So when lunchtime arrived I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved for the break or worried about meeting my mate. I walked to the dining hall as quickly as I could, only stopping when I reached the entrance. I looked around the room, expecting to lock eyes with my mate but nothing happened. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was the first person of our group to arrive in the dining hall so I sat down at
Once school was over I didn’t have a whole lot of time until training was due to start. Just enough time for me to go home, make a quick snack then change into my work out clothes. Black leggings, pink sports bra and black strappy t-shirt. It wasn’t exactly the height of fashion but it hugged my curves in all the right places, even I had to admit that I looked hot. I guess it wouldn’t be too bad to meet my mate wearing something like this. I pulled on my trainers and ran out of the house before I could overthink things and get myself worked up. I thought that I was arriving to the training session early but it looked as though my training group were an eager bunch. I was one of the last ones to arrive. Most of them had already arranged themselves into pairs and were practising sparring with each other. “I was worried that you weren’t going to show up.” Felix said. He was smirking at me, this jerk actually believes that he is going to beat me. I would enjoy kicking his ass and wipin
Elijah mostly smelt of the first after a heavy rain to me but there was also a faint smell of roses. I didn’t think anything of it at first but as I was talking it reminded me of my mom. She always used to wear a perfume that smelled of roses. Now even all these years later I still found the smell of roses comforting. I had been trying to work out the code based on the smells that I liked now, that was why I was struggling. It made sense that the code would be something I liked while my parents were still alive. This had to be the answer, it seemed so obvious now. I ran all the way from the hall to my house and straight up to my room. Ryker, Christian and Kerry watched me running up the stairs with interest but they didn’t make an attempt to stop me. I could only imagine what they must be thinking. Once I was in my room I closed the door and sat down on the floor in my closet. I worked out the numeric code which would correspond to the word rose. I typed it into the keypad and tur
I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. I had solved the puzzle of the safe and my nightmares had stopped. Now the only problems I had were finding these keys and working out what to do about Elijah. The second of these problems was probably going to be the most painful. After all my talk about not accepting my mate I guess it serves me right to be paired with someone who didn’t want me. Nicely played moon goddess. The thought of my imminent rejection weighed on my mind but I wasn’t going to let anyone else see my pain. I showered and got changed for school. As an act of defiance I wore a black lace dress rather than my more usual t-shirt and jeans. The dress came just above my knees. It was tight until it reached my waist where it flared out. It was a bit too dressy for school so I paired it with my converse trainers and my leather jacket to dress it down a little. At least this way I would look good while I was getting painfully rejected. Maybe if I was lucky I could sto
If I headed straight to school I would be there far too early so I decided to take a bit of a detour on my way. I walked through the town centre, most of the shops were still closed at this time of the morning but the local coffee shop would be open. That was at least one thing I could rely on, even if the rest of my life had been turned upside down. The street was a hive of activity as people were getting their shops ready to open in a few hours time. There were delivery vans parked in the streets and people rushing around to offload the stock. I ducked down one of the side streets to keep out of everyone's way. I weaved through the side streets until I reached the edge of town and the coffee shop I was heading for. It was a lovely family owned coffee shop. Some people might call it hipster in style with its fake rustic aesthetic and quirky elements throughout the shop. I don’t normally like this kind of place but as they do the best coffee in town by far I just ignore how pretenti
I normally walked around school with my head down but even that didn’t stop me from noticing that there was something different. At first I thought it was all in my head, Then I remembered the woman at the coffee shop and I started to pay a little more attention. Over the last few years I had grown used to the other students calling me a rogue and generally making fun of me. I had a small group of friends but other than that I was ignored by most of the school. The only other people who didn’t ignore me were Felix’s crowd. They knew that Felix had a problem with me and they wanted to show their support by bullying me. Today however, everything was different. Every lesson I went to that morning the other students would glance in my direction and whisper when I walked in the room. People were stopping me in the corridor just to talk to me. Some people even lowered their heads to me as I passed them. Apparently everyone in the pack knew I would be their luna soon. When I walked into
Christian drove me to the alpha’s mansion just before 6pm. I had packed pretty lightly. I had only brought an overnight bag and a couple of suitcases with me, I could pick up the rest of my stuff later if this whole thing worked out. There was no point lugging all of my stuff over her if I was going to get rejected before the night was over. I was truly shocked by how much stuff I had managed to stuff into my room in only a few years. When we had moved from the cottage we all had so few belongings that they had easily fit into the back of Christian’s car but now I could easily fill that car on my own. The alpha’s mansion was absolutely massive. I had always avoided this side of town but I had imagined that the alpha’s mansion would be similar to how I remember my parents’ mansion. I was wrong. This place made my parents’ house look like nothing more than a large house. This mansion was the kind of place that you would expect to see in some period drama about wealthy families in En
Sometimes I look at the way my life turned out and it is hard to believe that it is real. It has been over nine years since I accepted Elijah as my mate and in that time he has given me more love and happiness than I ever dreamed possible. We decided not to start our own family right away, instead taking a few years to focus on each other. But now that we had started having children we couldn’t seem to stop. Over the last four years we have added two sons and one daughter to our growing family. Elijah was an amazing father. He loved spending time with the children, so much so that our parents were constantly complaining that they didn’t get to see their grandchildren often enough. Today would be an exception to that rule, because today was our oldest son’s fourth birthday party and we were going to need all the help we could get. Elijah had dropped the kids off with his parents early this morning then joined me to prepare the venue for the party. I had also managed to rope in a f
The last four days have been amazing but also incredibly tiring. Diana craved sex almost constantly, only resting for a couple of hours at a time before waking me up so I could take her again. That cycle continued until late last night when her heat finally broke and we were both able to get some rest. That rest was a lot shorter than either of us would have liked. Diana’s mom knocked on our door shortly after dawn the following morning. She told us that we needed to get washed and dressed so we could get back to our pack for the celebration they were throwing in our honour. I wasn’t too happy with the idea of a party in our honour while Diana was so exhausted, but cancelling it would have been an unpopular move. I couldn’t even be unhappy at Mark for organising it, he was only trying to do his best to raise the morale within our pack after what had been a difficult couple of weeks. He knew as much as I did that the best way of doing that was spending time together as a pack, Dian
My skin felt as though it was on fire and the only Elijah’s touch made it feel a little better. It made me want to rip all my clothes off and beg him to take me. I didn’t even care that we were in the middle of a staircase where anyone could walk past and see us. I let out a frustrated whine. “We are nearly here honey, just hold on a few seconds longer.” Elijah sounded as though he was struggling just as much as I was. He practically dragged me up the remaining stairs and into the bedroom we had shared together for the last few days. He didn’t wait for me to undress, as soon as the door was closed behind us he shredded my clothes with his claws and pushed me against the door. By the time my back made contact with the wooden door he was already kissing my neck. He held me in place with one hand while using his other hand to shred his own clothes and throw them to the floor. Now that we were both naked he let go of me and took a moment to admire my body. “Beautiful.”“Are you going t
Diana had prepared for some kind of epic battle but things didn’t really work out that way. With Arthur’s powers neutralised most of the people in the pack gave up without a fight. They seemed to be disorientated more than anything else so Mark and the others gathered them all in more of the larger reception rooms so we could address them. I needed to explain to them what had happened to them. It was disorientating when you woke up after being controlled by someone but I had only ever been controlled for a few minutes. There was no way of knowing how long these people have been controlled for, it could have been weeks, years or even decades. There is one thing I knew for certain though, they were going to need help to integrate back into society. I was planning to offer them a place in our pack, at least until they had pieced enough of their life back together enough to know what they wanted to do. “What happened to Arthur?” Mark asked once everyone was assembled. “I bound his wri
I tried not to react as confusion washed over Arthur’s face even though internally I was squealing with excitement. Our plan was actually working and this whole ordeal was close to being over, I could barely believe it. We had hoped that putting silver in the water would be enough to weaken Arthur’s control but I never really believed that the result would be so profound. When he walked out of the room I was sure that I could sense his panic, but I didn’t have time to gloat over it. I closed my eyes and drew upon my powers to check on the progress of our forces. They were about an hour from the border of Arthur’s territory but those were only the forces that I could reach. As long as there had been nothing to change the plans in our absence, there would be a force of vampires arriving in just a few minutes' time. I was getting ready to open a mindlink to Mark when Elijah pulled me out of my seat and started dragging me towards the door. “Wait a moment, what are you doing?” I asked.
My wolf is growling and trying desperately to push his way to the front of my mind. He knows that as much as this might look like a civilised breakfast, it is more akin to dining with the devil himself. At any moment he could suddenly turn on us and with his powers, there would be very little I could do to save those around me. I was particularly worried about the young girl. She didn’t look much older than four or five but, even so, I couldn’t sense any trace of a wolf in her. She was completely out of place here and so much more vulnrable than any of the rest of us. Yet she seemed to be unaware of the threat which Arthur posed as she used her pieces of apple to build a house-shaped structure on her plate. Arthur coughed to grab my attention.“I guess you are probably wondering who she is. She is my daughter and her name is Cora.” The smile he gave me as he spoke was the first genuine smile I had seen from him. As Arthur didn’t have a mate that could only mean one of two things, t
My nerves were on edge from the moment Arthur left us alone the previous evening. Elijah held me and kissed me for a while before falling asleep with me in his arms. I on the other hand couldn’t get to sleep, I laid there staring at the ceiling for hours until the sun started streaming through the curtains. That was when I decided that it was useless trying to sleep when my mind was so preocuped. So I decided to do something more productive with my time. Being careful not to wake Elijah, I slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom. Once I had locked the door and I was sure there was nobody coming to distract me, I sat down on the floor and prepared myself for what I had to do. The first time I had tried to take over the minds of another werewolf it hadn’t been easy. It had taken many hours to make me feel anything close to normal again but it was early in the morning. Arthur would still be asleep so his control was likely weak in many places. It didn’t take me long to find one
I felt sick. Arthur’s men had me tied to the bed with ropes infused with silver. I wasn’t strong enough to free myself from the ropes so I had no other option than to watch as Arthur sunk his teeth into my mate's neck. She screamed out in pain and started thrashing her arms and legs wildly against the men who were holding her in place. Arthur and his men let go of Diana then took a couple of steps back before she could punch any of them in the face. She let out a frustrated growl before checking the wound on her neck with her hand. I could already tell that the wound wasn’t acting like a normal mark would. There was more blood and it wasn’t healing almost instantly in the same way as a mate’s mark normally would. There was a smug smile on Arthur’s face when he stepped away from her but as the seconds ticked on, his smile started to falter. At the same time Diana’s smile grew wider. The bite on her neck was already healing and there was no sign of a mark being left behind. “Well, I
I had been expecting Arthur to come for me again straight after the little distraction we staged, but he didn’t. Instead he left me alone for the rest of the day and the next morning as well. That had me concerned. I was worried that he had realised there was something else going on, or that he had somehow worked out what I did. One moment he was talking about spending the whole day with me, the next he left me alone and ignored me for twenty-four hours. Something about that didn’t seem to add up. To make things worse, I didn’t feel any different after the spell that I cast with Elijah and I was worried that it had failed. I had followed the instructions to the letter but maybe I had missed something. Maybe there was another step to the spell that was mentioned in a different part of the book. There was so much about all of this that I didn’t understand yet. I wish there was a way I could ask my mom about it without Arthur finding out what we were talking about. Who knows, that mig