Keiran’s POV“I… I don’t know…”I looked down at Madeline’s pale face and struggling body as she spoke in a hoarse and breathless voice.She was hurting, and I wanted to let go, but the anger within me was too overwhelming to stop. What I heard from her was enough for me to lose control, as it touched something that had been long buried – three years.Suddenly, upon hearing it from where I passed through her room when I was patrolling, that name started to echo in my mind.“Keidun… Keidun… Keidun…” The name being spoken so many times, countless times, with different emotions by someone I could never forget in this lifetime.No one knew about that name… at least no one besides my pack, and no one dared to say that name except for one person. The person who died a long time ago.The woman I love the most and I buried myself three years ago.Right after I let Adeline lose, I ran back to where she was buried, right on the top of the cliff where she always loved to go. It was overlooking t
Madeline’s POVAll day long, Keiran was acting weird, and the questions within me were getting even stronger. When our eyes met after what I heard from the warriors, he entered the academy, and I didn’t see him again.Since I was on patrol now, I changed clothes as soon as we were dismissed from the academy and sprinted to the forest, letting the evening air crips brush through my skin while my fingertips glided to the rough tree trunks I passed by.It was a lovely night. After the stressful night I had yesterday and the day I had today with Helena over my shoulder and Keiran’s stress, I started to feel relaxed.When I looked down at my wrist watch, I realised that there was only half an hour left before the border patrol started. I slapped my forehead for being out of it and turned to meet Leo and the others.However, as I passed through the bushes, I caught sight of something behind… or more like someone.My eyes narrowed, and I moved carefully, trying not to scare off whoever it wa
Madeline’s POVMy hands trembled beside me as I took long strides in the hallway, rushing towards who knew where. I let the pull of the bond follow my mate’s intoxicating scent, which made my wolf and me go crazy.It’s my 18th birthday. I expected to find my fated mate soon, but not this soon. It turned out he had always been around me.I should have been happy, ecstatic even… but I couldn’t help but feel the threatening tears in the corner of my eyes as I felt exactly who it was and where this hallway was leading me.With heavy breathing, I halted in front of a massive wooden door with engravement on it, feeling rejected even before I could see his face.With my hands holding the cold knob of my twin sister’s bedroom door, I heard muffled voices inside. Mixed with my sister, Amanda, was the voice of that man I thought I’d be with even before the mate bond told me he was my fated mate.“You need to reject her, Felix! She’s nothing compared to me. You know that.”My heart stopped cold
Madeline’s POVWhen I turned around, I gasped and was frozen to my place as I watched the massive brown wolf shift back into its human form, and Felix’s figure emerged before me, his clothes torn into pieces and his face tense.“Madeline…” he called out in between breaths.He tried to reach for my hand, but I stepped back in anger. “Get away from me!”“I’m not here to hurt you,” he sounded desperate as he extended his hand to hold my arm, but I snapped it away.Hearing that, I scoffed in disdain, looking at him in utter disbelief. “Oh really? Because you sure didn’t seem to have a problem with that when you promised Amanda, you’ll reject me tomorrow!”Guilt glinted in his eyes. Looking around in worry, he gritted his teeth, frustratedly saying, “I… I didn't know… they’d try to–”“She’s over there!” His words were cut off by a loud, furious voice, followed by several pairs of footsteps rushing in my direction.My breathing hitched.Looking at Felix with disbelief, I asked, “You lured t
Madeline’s POVFelix's hold on my wrist tightened as he nodded toward the cliff. “There’s a ledge. If we do it now, we can jump a few feet and climb down before they see us.”I threw a glare at him almost instantly, hissing, “If this kills me, I’m haunting you!”He managed a weak smile, eyes glinting with the same uncertainty as mine. Nonetheless, he confidently said, “Deal.”Taking my hand, we both jumped. But since the ground below was smooth and on the slope, it didn’t go as we planned. Instead, we slid down and tumbled through leaves and dirt, covering our clothes.Some small stones and twigs even caused bruises and cuts on our clothes and skin. It only happened for a while as I was slammed into a rock, giving us a full stop.But before I could register the pain it caused to my dislocated shoulder, Felix pulled me up, and we stumbled to our feet. “Come on! They’re still coming,” he groaned.And just as he said, I saw shadows following behind us. Some even shifted to make their ju
Madeline’s POV“I’ll ask you again, who are you?” I flinched from the sharpness of his words.Forcing calmness, I looked straight into his blazing eyes. “I told you… Adeline Hansford.”He let out a low growl, threatening, “And I believe I told you not to lie!”Clutching my injured shoulder, I bit my lip, staying on my ground. “I’m not lying. I swear.”He let out a cold smirk. “That’s funny because you know what I heard?”A chill ran down my spine. Was the news about me, a princess, already spread? That couldn’t be that fast. Could it?He crouched beside me, face leaning down. Tilting his head, he continued, “Because I heard someone went rogue and fled from the palace. And now, I find a suspicious little trespasser like you.”Relief rushed into me after learning he didn’t know about my real identity. Knowing that I could never be a Rogue because of my royal blood, a Lycan basically owns the entire werewolf kingdom, so I kept calm.Looking up, I dared him with a shaky voice, “Take a whi
Madeline’s POVNervously, I raised my hand and used my index fingertip to try to push the knife a little further from my neck and forced a terrible smile, “I said thanks… Thank you for letting me stay.”“Stay in this dangerous place where the word ruthless probably was born…” I added silently.Completely unimpressed, he put down the knife and threw it on the hidden sheath on his combat boots. “Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen what Demonmaw is really like.”With that, he turned and faced the two guards who sneaked earlier and was now immediately shut off with his mere stare. “See that she’s fed and has somewhere to rest.”Sitting properly, letting my legs on the ground, I quietly said, “I can take care of myself.”Instantly, a cold smile formed on his lips. “That’s funny when it’s coming from someone I just dragged out of the dirt.”My brows furrowed, and without thinking, I glared at him, forgetting every fear as it was covered with annoyance. “Well, I didn’t ask for your help and
Keiran’s POVThe moment I took a whiff, her scent hit me, letting it fill my senses as I loomed over her. I knew she wasn’t a rogue, just as she claimed.This made sense because Rogues wouldn’t be stumbling in my land unless they had a death wish.Her scent didn’t carry the wild bitterness and chaos most Rogues had, but it seemed a little bit off… No… in fact, a little bit familiar.It’s subtle, but it almost had a mix of the scent of chestnut and mint. I couldn’t point a finger at whether it was indeed the same scent I had been looking for three years, though because it was faint and a bit different.“Adeline… Adeline Hansford.”I kept my eyes on her. If she was lying, which I was damn sure she was, I’d find out soon enough. But the real question was why she was lying.I’d seen countless wolves hide before. Most of them were cowards running from debts, deserters feeling their Alpha’s wrath, and so many more, but they never ran to hide in the most dangerous pack, my pack.And even if
Madeline’s POVAll day long, Keiran was acting weird, and the questions within me were getting even stronger. When our eyes met after what I heard from the warriors, he entered the academy, and I didn’t see him again.Since I was on patrol now, I changed clothes as soon as we were dismissed from the academy and sprinted to the forest, letting the evening air crips brush through my skin while my fingertips glided to the rough tree trunks I passed by.It was a lovely night. After the stressful night I had yesterday and the day I had today with Helena over my shoulder and Keiran’s stress, I started to feel relaxed.When I looked down at my wrist watch, I realised that there was only half an hour left before the border patrol started. I slapped my forehead for being out of it and turned to meet Leo and the others.However, as I passed through the bushes, I caught sight of something behind… or more like someone.My eyes narrowed, and I moved carefully, trying not to scare off whoever it wa
Keiran’s POV“I… I don’t know…”I looked down at Madeline’s pale face and struggling body as she spoke in a hoarse and breathless voice.She was hurting, and I wanted to let go, but the anger within me was too overwhelming to stop. What I heard from her was enough for me to lose control, as it touched something that had been long buried – three years.Suddenly, upon hearing it from where I passed through her room when I was patrolling, that name started to echo in my mind.“Keidun… Keidun… Keidun…” The name being spoken so many times, countless times, with different emotions by someone I could never forget in this lifetime.No one knew about that name… at least no one besides my pack, and no one dared to say that name except for one person. The person who died a long time ago.The woman I love the most and I buried myself three years ago.Right after I let Adeline lose, I ran back to where she was buried, right on the top of the cliff where she always loved to go. It was overlooking t
Madeline’s POVObviously, after Keiran’s painful visit to me last night, I wasn’t able to gain another sleep and went to the academy the next morning looking like a damn panda with an eye bag and black eye around my eyes.To wonder why that simple thing wasn’t healed by my wolf abilities… Well, it turned out it wasn’t even a wound to heal, so Andy couldn’t care less to use extra of her power and time to do something about it.Credit to my first shift, which everyone was talking about, as my shift was unusual because it never hurt that much for the others and not to mention the crescent moon on my wolf’s head, the rumor about me being a spy subsided a bit and was covered up by my shifting.And the best advantage that I got… was that I didn’t have to train today and only had to watch because my body underwent an an immense shift.So, as cruel as Helena in training could be and this pack was, they still have a little bit of humanity left in them.Sitting at the edge of the training field
Madeline’s POVMy entire body ached like hell as I lay sprawled on my small bed. Right after that suffocating experience from being back to that place, Andy and I decided to go back and she help me shift back to my human form.All of my muscles were buzzing from the aftershock of my first shift. Nonetheless, I couldn’t stop the smile spreading on my lips from the happiness.All night long, Andy had been giddy and sassy, ten times happier than I, but she finally went quiet and retreated to the back of my mind, allowing me a moment of peace.But despite that, I still felt sleepless as my thoughts spun wildly back at that name Francine uttered… “Keidun.”That name echoed in my head as if a broken cassette was repeatedly being played in my mind.It’s still on my mind, but I guess my body finally felt the same exhaustion I was feeling, and my eyelids finally grew heavier until darkness consumed me into a deep slumber.I was in my own oblivion when I suddenly felt suffocated, and my eyes sn
Madeline’s POV“Come on! We haven’t been training for the past couple of weeks for nothing! Is that all you got?”Helena shouted in between her kicks and deadly punches. If I had thought she was ruthless before, today would have been different. Just when I thought she had nothing more, she went on and pushed me even further.Her moments were of a speed of light, and her strikes were harder than it was in the days before. Her every strike landed on me as my reflexes were suddenly too slow compared to hers. I couldn’t avoid her attacks, and it’s making me grit in both pain and determination.My muscles screamed in protest, my skin bruised with pain, and the exhaustion I had fallen onto for the past few days was starting to catch up with me.“No comebacks today, Adeline? What, cut your tongue?” she joked, making others snicker.Grinding my teeth, I glared at her and growled.Instead of being annoyed, she nodded in approval. “That’s it. Get mad, show what you really got.”I widened the ga
Madeline’s POVI wasn’t really aware of what kind of investigation or move Keiran was doing behind the scenes. All I knew was that the tension around me had been building for days, and so he had better hurry up and deal with Jason. Ever since Jonas started spreading rumors about me, I had felt the stares and heard the barely concealed whispers that followed me everywhere I went.Slowly, as it was keen on what I experienced in the kingdom with my own pack, I was getting used to it.But today, it reached a breaking point.I had just finished training, and my body was aching from another brutal sparring session with Helena, when I felt something different. The air was heavy with tension, and there was an unmistakable weight of eyes looking around me, and the hushed quiet fell.But as the old saying goes, sometimes it’s just the silence before the storm, and they were right. Because a few yards away from the academy, right at the corner before the barracks I was staying in, I saw a couple
Madeline’s POVBefore Jonas and I got into a deeper conversation, Ted came in and started the training, dispersing everyone into their designated group to spar, leaving me once again in Helena’s kind hands.Unbothered by the pain in my body, I went straight to Keiran’s office right after the training. As usual, I didn’t bother knocking.I simply pushed the doors open and marched straight in front of his desk, where he was flipping through home reports. Sighing, he remarked dryly, “If you’re going to continue barging in, at least try to make it entertaining.”Letting his side remark aside, I sharply hissed at him, informing him, “There’s a spy in your pack.”That seemingly got his attention as he closed the folder down and put it down, but when he leaned back to look at me and clasped his hands together, I could see that he remained uninterested and merely patronising me.Raising a bow, he asked boringly, “Is that so?”I tried to stop myself from cursing out some sarcastic remark and h
Madeline’s POVI stood frozen in the middle of the forest with my pulse pounding against my temple as I stared into the abyss, all while the strange warrior’s words echoed in my head.“Damn it!” I muttered once I recovered from shock, clenching my fist before I kicked a pebble, almost making it fly a hundred miles away.Suddenly, a twig behind me snapped, alerting me. I whirled around with a hammering heart and was ready to strike, but found that it was just one of the patrol warriors in my team, Leo.He raised his hand and approached me with a wary look. “Woah, easy.”Surveying me with his eyes, he frowned. “Are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”“How long have you been there?” I asked, silently wondering if he saw that guy with the same warrior pin as he was wearing.Leo raised an eyebrow, looking sceptical. “What do you mean?”Seeing as he was clueless, I decided to keep my mouth shut first until I knew more. Hence, I merely exhaled sharply and shook my head. “Never min
Madeline’s POVI stared at Keiran in disbelief as I clenched my fist, feeling frustration bubbling inside of me.Clenching my jaws, I pursed my lips before I held my head high and firmly uttered with conviction, “I will.”His brows raised in surprise. A hint of amusement even glinted in his eyes. “Oh yeah? And how exactly?”“I want to join the next patrol near the border,” I uttered without hesitation.Even first year trainees were considered as warrior as soon as they finished 30 hours of training with same class and at least a day with senior and all of us already reached that level, but only the chosen ones from the freshman level were allowed to join the patrol, unlike seniors like Helena who were almost considered as full pledge warriors already.He sat up straight, studying me closely with a frown before shaking his head. “You’re not ready. Not yet. You don’t even have your wolf yet.”Aggregated, I strode toward his desk and intensely looked at him. “I can handle myself. And thi