AtwoodAfter my incident with Ruby the night before, I decide to spend my Sunday working in my study. However, with my condition worsening as rapidly as it has been, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to focus on my work.Edith suddenly prancing into my study doesn’t make focusing any easier. She’s been practically stuck to me like glue since she got here, and it’s only gotten worse since I pulled Ruby out of school that day. I suspect that my mother has something to do with this, but I’ve been polite nonetheless.“Good morning, Lycan Atwood,” Edith says with a little curtsy. She wears a short pink dress with ruffles around the neck, thigh high white socks, and a pair of heels. She looks like a silly pinup girl.“Morning, Edith,” I say coldly, averting my gaze back to my work as I try to make myself appear too busy to socialize.Edith walks around my desk to the window behind me. When I turn around to see what she’s doing, she’s sitting on the windowsill with her legs crossed, looki
RubyI might be planning another escape, and I may have pushed Atwood away when he kissed me, but I still have feelings for him -- feelings that could not be replicated with Cayden despite our kiss in the forest. Seeing Atwood with Edith again only solidified those feelings.The feeling of anger that I’ve become all too familiar with bubbles up inside of me. It makes me want to tear the room apart again, but I manage to quell that urge and instead let my pain come out through the form of tears.I curl up on the bed, clutching a pillow to my chest and sobbing into it uncontrollably.I must drift off at some point, because when I wake up, it’s dark in the room. I sit up and groggily rub my eyes, reaching for my phone. It’s eleven o’clock at night. How did I sleep for six hours like that?Unsurprisingly, I’m starving. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand, crossing to the window to look out at the waxing moon for a moment. The moon is nearly full, its bright light casting a
Ruby Before I have time to run back to the castle, I shift back into my human form against my will. I assume that it will take some time to learn how to control when I shift, but there are more important things to deal with right now. I run as fast as I can through the forest and back toward the castle, where all is quiet still. However, I can now see a light on in Atwood’s study. Did he sense that I shifted? There’s no time to sneak around the guards, so I run right past them. They all look confused, and one tries to stop me. “Princess, is that you?” the guard calls out. “What are you doing out here?” I don’t stop despite his calls, but instead shout “Bear!” over my shoulder as I run, which causes the nearby guards to fly into a frenzy. There is only one thing on my mind: getting to Atwood and telling him about the Bear. My wolf seems to want to get closer to him as well, which makes me worried that she might mark him before I have a chance to stop her, but I’ll deal with that l
RubyIt’s been several days since I shifted in the forest and killed the Bear, and with each passing day I’m becoming more familiar with my wolf and my abilities. However, the longer I go without letting my wolf mark Atwood, the more temperamental she becomes.I start having dreams about marking Atwood. My mind becomes fuzzy, and my head is full of nothing but the thought of marking him. It feels as though I can barely focus on anything else.Will it be like this when I run away? I can only hope that distance will make my wolf less inclined to mark him. Maybe she’ll fancy Cayden instead and I can just forget about all of this.One morning, I wake up before my tutoring session with Robert. I’m groggy from a bad night of sleep due to the dreams about Atwood, but nonetheless push myself to climb out of bed and into the shower.I turn on the water as hot as it will go so that the bathroom becomes steamy, then climb in and let the hot water run over my body. I stand there for a few minutes
AtwoodThe past few days have been a blur. Ever since Ruby found and killed the Bear in the forest, my men and I have been scrambling to make preparations. The Bear’s presence on our castle grounds only means one thing: they’re getting braver.I’m impressed with Ruby’s ability to kill the Bear the first night she shifted, however. This must mean that her wolf is extremely powerful, far more so than any other hybrid that I’ve encountered. What makes her so powerful, though, still baffles me.The morning after she killed the Bear, Noah and I were still patrolling the forest. We must have scoured every inch of that place by the time the sun came up, but we both knew that our work wasn’t done yet. Just because there were no more Bears on the castle grounds at that moment didn’t mean that there weren’t more Bears nearby. I found it odd that a single Bear would venture onto the castle grounds alone. Was it a distraction? A spy? A scout?Our suspicions that it was a distraction were confirme
RubyThe image of Edith holding Atwood on the floor of his study gives me so much pain that I’m unable to sleep all night. I spend the night tossing and turning, and by morning my lips are all chewed up from nervously biting them.I wish I could just not care about Atwood so that these things don’t pain me as much. I want to be able to run away with Cayden and not think about Atwood anymore, but now I’m not so sure if it’s even possible.If only I had someone to talk to.The sun is still rising when I get out of bed and shower to make myself feel better. My body is sore from the sleepless night of tossing and turning, but the warm water helps.“What should I do?” I ask my wolf as the hot water runs over my body.“I say to hell with the curse,” she replies instantly. “Let me mark Atwood. He’ll never look at another woman again once I mark him.”I shake my head with a sigh.Clearly, my wolf is too preoccupied with the thought of marking Atwood to be a good voice of reason.Nancy would k
RubyAs I get ready for my lesson with Robert, the image of Atwood looking so weak doesn’t leave my mind. Why is he so weak? Is it something to do with the curse? My wolf doesn’t seem to have any answers either; she only knows that there is some kind of sickness in him, but she doesn’t know what it is exactly or why it’s plaguing him so.Perhaps whatever this sickness is would explain his cruel behavior and sickly appearance. Even though I still plan to escape on my birthday, it makes me curious nonetheless.I change out of my damp clothes from earlier and into something warm and comfortable: a tight-fitting shirt, a black cardigan, and a pair of warm trousers. As I dress, the snow picks up again outside. The sky darkens and the wind howls against the sides of the castle. Under other circumstances I would be thrilled to be warm and cozy inside during this type of weather, having always enjoyed snowstorms, but now I’m just afraid that Bears will show up.Robert is already in the librar
AtwoodBeing near Ruby helps to ease the symptoms of my condition. I wish I could just be around her for a few more minutes; it seems as though she enjoys my touch at first, but it fades quickly when she becomes tense again and steps away from me.I drop my hand, which was just cupping her soft, pale cheek, back to my side with a frown.Inside of me, my wolf rages. He smells her wolf. For the past several days, ever since she shifted in the woods and killed that Bear, all my wolf does is whine about wanting to be marked. I can feel him growing restless too from my condition. Before long, he’ll take over and go feral, destroying any shred of humanity that I have left. I can’t let it get to that point.Ruby backs away from me cautiously, looking up at me with her round red eyes. I love their color, the way her hips and breasts have grown, the way her hair is down past her shoulders now. She looks like a woman, no longer a little girl. The thought of taking her right here in the corridor