FIVE YEARS AGO.I remember hearing the voices come from behind the door as I walked towards my father’s chamber with his plate of food in my hands. I was shaking, dreading the moment I would stand before him because I knew what was coming. I knew Rose had laid her hands on my journal and now she was going to report me to father and I was scared that I wouldn’t live past that day. I wrote down my innermost thoughts in that book and some of them were the horrible ways that they treated me that I wanted to tell my mother.My heart stopped once the door flung open and there was a lone tear that escaped my eyes. Archer hovered with anger, landing me a slap across my face without any hesitation.Stars dwindled in my eyes as the plate crashed to the floor and then he took me by my hands and slammed me into the wall. “I read it all” He gritted through his teeth, far from pleased as I whimpered in his grasp.“I’m sorry” I apologized.“You realize you’re so ungrateful. You know that?” My fathe
KAYLA."Have you lost your mind?" Rafael fastened his grip around my wrists and held me back from walking out of the doors. “I know him, Rafael. From years ago and besides he’s already seen us. There’s no way we can run” I muttered beneath my breath.“I’m not allowing you go out. You won’t put yourself in such danger, not while I’m here” He shook his head as I wriggled out of his hands, an arch came between my brows.Everyone else stared from behind as Aiden inched closer towards the door.“Let me handle this” Rafael added and there are was a glimmer of fierceness in his eyes. I held him back from walking towards Aiden and he turned to me. “Don’t hurt him. He’s harmless” I whispered and Rafael pushed a hard lump down his throat.I knew it had been five years since I last saw Aiden and he was the only one armed with a silver arrow but I trusted him. Rafael on the hand, I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to gut out his throat if he did as much as look in my direction. My eyes met Aiden again
KAYLA.Immediately I walked into the room, my eyes met Rafael’s as he sat up against his bed. The air between us was thick with tension and once I closed the door behind, there was a brisk silence.I could hear his heart pound in his chest and the shallow breathes that preceded his first word. “Kayla” He called my name with a smirk across his lips and I walked to sit right beside him on the bed.When I was closer, I saw the bleeding wound carved into his back by the arrow. He was sweating profusely, an aftermath of the wolfsbane antidote and my eyes melted with tears. I reached to touch his exposed skin but Rafael backed away.“I’m fine.” He muttered.“Hope they didn’t get to you?” He asked instead and I shook my head with a hard lump slipping down my throat. “Rafael you don’t look fine” I continued and he wiped across his forehead.“It would heal soon.” “It should have by now. You’re an Alpha and the healing process doesn’t take this long” I said and he gritted his teeth, holding ba
KAYLA.The forest hummed with life as soon as I heaved in a deep breath through my lips and my entire subconscious was summoned to where I stood. The smell of burning wood hit me before I even realized where I was.But the tall shivering trees and the hawks that crowed very loosely beneath the dark skies made it obvious I was standing in Manila forest. I had no memory how I got here and the first thing I did was pinch myself so I could wake up from this dream.The forest was eerily silent, sending an echo of the creaking twig beneath my feet as I took my first step. My heart pounded in my chest as I looked around.“It’s a dream” I wearily whispered to myself but it did so little to comfort me. The moon broke through the leaves, lighting up a dirt path ahead of me and since there was no way back, I didn’t have a choice but to follow.My hands separated the leaves in front of me as I kept on walking through the deserted cursed forest with no direction whatsoever. Until suddenly, I coul
KAYLA.My father’s room was as silent as a graveyard.He laid unconscious across the bed with his hands connected to the fluids that pumped through his body. I made my way into the room as quietly as I could, settling down on the chair beside him.Archer seemed so peaceful while he was asleep, but he also looked just as miserable. I wouldn’t wish being striped off one’s Alpha title to become next to nothing upon my enemy but this man wasn’t my enemy.He was my father.And that was the only reason I still felt connected to him, our bloodline was the only reason I felt sympathy for Archer. He once treated me like trash and a slave, and I could just as easily do the same but I could not bring myself to.He was still my dad and he was all I had left.He was the only link that I had to my mother so when I feared he’d died, my heart sank so low into my chest. I watched him asleep for the next few hours and reminisced on what could’ve been. I didn’t think Archer had an idea that we’d reloc
RAFAEL.She didn't mean it.There was no way in hell that Kayla meant the words that came out of her lips. I stood there, trying to comprehend the last few minutes and it was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do—the hardest pill I had to swallow."Kayla" I called her name as soon as she said it but when as I took a step towards her, she fled down the hills in her wine dress. I heard the echos of her sobs come from a distance and it was obvious that she was crying. It was obvious that it was just as hard for her as it was for me.But I couldn't bring myself to understand why everything had changed so suddenly. Maybe it was my fault, I'd let Veronica stay so much longer that she began to have her doubts. But Kayla needed to understand that everything I did was for her.That keeping Veronica around was so she'd stay too.There was no way I would let anyone or anything harm her. As a hard lump barged down the back of my throat, my eyes jerked out a few tears and I slipped my hands into my
VERONICA.From the moment Rafael walked in through those doors, I could sense how on edge he was. He reeked of gasoline and had dirt fill the lines of his face. My eyes met Gerald's when he came to a halt and that alone told me something was wrong.“Veronica can I talk to you?" Rafael briskly walked forward and grasped my arms to follow him up the stairs. "Sure—" Caught my surprise, I stuttered, having no other choice but to follow him.His grip around my wrist was tight and his whole countenance was deeply rooted in the fact that he held something back. "What is it?" I asked him, hiding my anxiety in my shrill voice. Rafael walked into our room and closed the door behind him.He then freed me before his hands fell to his hips."Rafael" I called, when for the first few seconds, all I heard were the sounds of his deep breathes. "You wanted to talk to me?" I continued and when I tried to inch closer, he sharply turned around. "You should sit down" He urged and it was like a blow hit m
KAYLA.As I sat by the windows with tear-filled eyes, watching the gloomy dark clouds fill the skies, I realized the reason it hurt this much was because rejecting Rafael was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my entire life.My body felt limp and I had cried so much until the tears could no longer fall from my eyes—they just stayed in there. It was as if I lost a heavy piece of myself and my wolf, Isla was already facing the repercussions of it. I hurt her the most unimaginable way.People like me rarely ever got a second chance mate not only because I was an ordinary omega but because this decision was solely mine. No one but me could understand the pain of being alone, and from the moment I met Rafael, everything changed and it scared me for a fact.Because I started to question not only when it will end but how I will end up. I would return to same old Kayla, alone and hurt, broken. That was a lot more pain that I couldn’t subject myself to. So rejecting Rafael was an out, it