KAYLA.I keep a lot of things to myself.It was the way I grew up—without really having anyone but my journal to talk to and when even that was gone, I was left with nothing. My mind was accustomed to hold these many secrets I burdened it with and my heart was no longer willing to open up to anyone after everything. I was barely living throughout my whole childhood, I was only surviving. And the closest thing I was to feeling anything at all was the pain from all the torture and the guilt from the fact that I killed my own mother and I remember hearing repeatedly in my head that I didn't deserve this life—I didn't deserve to live.Many people told me that so many times that it registered in my brain and haunted me in my nightmares and daydreams. I was suffocating and still, no one to talk to. Jumping off the cliff wasn't the hardest part, it was finally caving in to the voices in my head.It was walking all the way there and thinking killing myself was the only way out of this. I hat
KAYLA.“You should walk faster if we’re going to get somewhere before morning” Lucien threw a look over his shoulders back at me and I diverted my eyes from the pictures in my hands. We walked through Manila forest in the dead of the night and he was just a few meters ahead of me.Although, he paused in that second to snatch what was in my hands.“What are you looking at?” His eyes fell on the photographs before rolling them to the back of his head. “Give me that!” I fought back as he burst into a soft chuckle a second later. “I’m sorry but this one is just plain hilarious—“ He stretched out one of them and I got a hold of it.“This is an interesting angle too, I’ll give him that” I brushed his shoulders and his laughter died down. Lucien trailed behind and I could foresee how insufferable this journey was about to be with him here. Although I never saw more than a smirk across his lips, it was harder to believe that the sound of his chuckles were even more infuriating.“Where are we
KAYLA.“You know maybe he has his reasons” Lucien muttered, sitting by the edge of the cliff and looking over the forest. I paced behind him, before coming to a halt some distance away. “Take it from someone who knows how obnoxious and spontaneous Rafael can be sometimes” Lucien looked back and when our eyes met, I didn’t know why he was defending him.“It’s one thing to destroy my home but it’s another thing to not tell me about it. He’s had so long but these secrets keep piling up. I don’t think they’ll ever stop, Lucien—“ There was a crack in my voice. “I deserved to know. I deserved to know there was nothing left for me. You know giving up everything was the hardest thing I had to do but I comforted myself by thinking at least I still had my home, my little garden that when everything is over, I could return to” I whispered to him even though I didn’t expect Lucien to understand.But there was a sense of thoughtfulness behind his eyes while tears streamed from mine. A short silen
RAFAEL.Immediately my door swung open, I jolted up from my bed. Already on alert, I faced Gerald who was backed by a few of our guards and he had a horrid expression across his face. I could sense something bad had happened and since I'd told him not to contact me except it was about Kayla, I could tell now that something had happened to her."What is it?" I jumped out of bed and Gerald bowed his head in subjection and remorse. "Gerald!" I growled his name before he spoke."It's Kayla" Although I already knew, my heart still stomped in my chest. "What happened to her—where is she?" I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and Gerald cowered his head. "She's gone" He muttered. An arch came between my brows as I freed him.I brushed his shoulders and pounced my way out of the room, making it down the stairwell and to the dungeon. "I went to check in on her this morning and when I got there, I found the gates open and the cell was empty" Gerald trailed behind me and I couldn't explain
KAYLA.I was suddenly jolted back to consciousness when something rammed into the side of my head. It sent an unwavering sliver of pain from my temples to all around my body. I pried my eyes open to the darkness around me and there I was, head to the ground and crouched in a fetal position.All I could remember was a hand grasping me from behind and a bag over my head—I had to stop ending up this way. My face hurt from the bruises across it and it was then I muttered.“Lucien!” I called his name, remembering he was the first to be wounded but as I looked around, he wasn’t the one here. It was yet another masked man with a rifle in his hands. It was the muzzle that he’d rammed into my head to wake me up and he scented strongly of alcohol.Grasping me by my clothes, he threw me against the wall and my heart pounded in fear. I had no idea where I was or who this was and what he even wanted to do with me.“You’ve rested enough” He leaned forward but only to confirm the handcuffs were stil
RAFAEL.The sound of the trotting horses came to a halt by the edge of the cliff and both Gerald and I alighted. Lucien was a close third, stopping at a distance from us. It was better that way as I couldn’t even bear to look at him without the urge of sticking my fist in his face. On this side of the forest, it was just the three of us while the many scores of security guards trailed the other side of town. It had already been hours into the search for Kayla and still, she was nowhere to be found. My heart stomped as I looked around the perimeter to pick up even if it was just a scent but nothing.“Kayla!” I yelled over the skies returned an echo.“You realize she won’t be able to hear you right?” Lucien scoffed from behind and at the sound of his grating voice, my hands folded into a tight fist. “Lucien” Gerald tried to caution him but he loosely shrugged his shoulders.“What? I’m the only one being realistic here, I mean if she was close, we would have been able to pick up her sce
APRIL.“We must find a way to kill the child” Veronica paced around the room and from where I was seated by the windows, I threw a look back at her. “And what are you thinking?” I asked.“Thanine” She pressed her lips together and I batted my lashes to make sure I heard correctly. “Isn’t that too drastic—I mean it could harm Kayla as well” I said and this wasn’t me sticking up for her. It was just that Thanine was a poison used against us during the first war.Not the war with the Lycans but an ancient pack called Marseilles. I was too young to remember anything but Rose had told us of the time we were fooled into a truce declaration. The night that followed was a great feast to celebrate the end of the war.But the Marseilles had other plans.They’d slipped Thanine into our drinks and many of our pack members lost their lives that night. It was centuries ago and now, Thanine was banned across the lands which was the reason I hadn’t heard of it in a very long time until now. “We can
RAFAEL.“Help!” The guard leaned closer, placing Gerald’s phone in his hands next to the floor while I ached to even move an inch. There was evil in his eyes and terror in the voices rang screamed over the phone.“Help, we’re being attacked!” I recognized Sebastien’s voice first but as loud as they shouted, there was nothing I could do. “What…” I tried to speak before falling unto my back and then I faced the ceilings through eyes that grew hazy by the second. “The…the air” Gerald gasped for breath through his choking lips and his hands clutched his chest. “There’s something in the air” Lucien added and when I looked over to him, he was the first to be knocked unconscious. I breathed both heavily and painfully as I succumbed to the blackout and when he reached for the phone to end the call, all I could echo was—“Attack”However, that wasn’t the last thing I heard, it was her voice. “Rafael!”“Rafael!” Kayla screamed. “What are you doing to him?!”When I opened my eyes, it seemed as