When Amira finally comes to, she awakes to see she has been placed in Isaac’s room to rest, cuddled up in the very bed she has spent countless nights in before. The memories of the party just before she fainted come rushing back to her, and she suddenly feels sick to her stomach. She runs to the ensuite bathroom and pukes up the little contents of the drinks she has had so far tonight. Once her stomach is empty, she slumps to the ground and begins to sob, replaying Isaac’s words in her head. “I think I’ve found my mate.” This has always been a possibility she has known about, but that doesn’t make it sting any less finding out she isn’t Isaac’s mate, and it is another girl, one much prettier than her and of his kind rather than a useless human. Not only that, but she is also the daughter of an Alpha, the perfect Luna to rule alongside her own Alpha mate. What can a human-like Amira do for someone like Isaac if they were to get married? She isn’t his true mate, and she isn’t ev
Not being able to take the constant stares and whispers from those around her, Isaac disappearing shortly after to speak with his father in private, Amira retreats to his bedroom for the night, having no other way home and no cabs coming to this area of the city due to pack territory. Though she knows the city of Morrowfalls like the back of her hand, she isn’t an idiot to know bad people exist everywhere, and it’s never safe to wander around in the middle of the night in a city full of all sorts of creatures. She is also hoping this is where Isaac will return once the party is over, with the small shred of hope she still has. A short while after the door of his room opens and he thankfully walks in alone, looking frustrated after the talk with his father but also shocked to see her there. “Why did you leave the party so early?” he asks. She scoffs. “What did you expect me to do? Another girl told me straight to my face that you’re going to leave me for her and I need to be unders
Amira wakes up to see the sun high in the sky, realizing she has slept a lot longer than she planned. Feeling the bed next to her, the covers are empty which means Isaac is probably in the middle of his pack meeting at the moment and she has the time to herself before he can drive her home. The memories of last night come flooding back to her and she wonders if Eris and her family are still here, realizing her father must at least be here for the pack meeting, but there is no reason for her and her mother to have stayed. Only one way to find out, she thinks and tosses the covers off to get ready. Getting dressed in one of the outfits she has stashed in Isaac’s dresser, having been together so long they have drawers at each other’s place dedicated to their things, she makes her way to the kitchen in hopes that the staff there isn’t going to treat her any differently. Not yet, at least. On her way to the kitchen, she passes by the living room and sees the door open partway, the m
Amira struggles to swallow her spit and chokes herself up, Calix having to back up to give her some space while she gasps for air. “I’m so sorry, but there has to be a mistake. That can’t be right,” she says through choked breaths, still struggling to take a full deep breath. In one fell swoop, Calix grabs her arm and helps her to stand up properly, then grabs the side of her face and presses his lips to hers in a sudden kiss. She manages to take a sharp but deep breath from the shock, to which Calix pulls away and stares at her with what looks like genuine concern. Her lungs feel as if they have expanded slightly, and she can breathe a lot easier. “What the hell was that?” she cries, wiping her mouth. “You couldn’t breathe, so I gave you oxygen. What else was I to do?” She pats her chest and realizes what his intentions were, her face flushing a deep red when she also realizes her blunder. He wasn’t trying to kiss her, and the reason her lungs felt larger was because of the
“I’m perfectly capable of walking to the bus stop, I appreciate the offer but no thanks.” Amira tries to walk around the car, but Calix moves in her away, startling her. “Just get in the car, Amira, before I lose my temper,” he growls. He parks the car and gets out to come around to her side and open the door. She half expects him to shove her inside the car like a poor kidnapping attempt, but instead, he stands there and impatiently gestures for her to get in the car. Her legs decide to move on their own and she walks to the passenger door, too tired to argue any further with anyone at this point and just craves her bed the most right now. “Why are you so angry?” she asks once he is back in the car. He throws the car into drive and takes off down the driveway, the pack house quickly getting smaller in the rearview mirror. “No man should ever have a woman walk home after the shit he’s put you through,” he gr
Amira lays flat on her bed, going over yet another eventful day in her life while she tries to ignore the buzzing of her phone from the endless calls and texts, the same name popping up on her screen. Isaac hasn’t stopped trying to speak with her since she ran off, she wonders why he didn’t just run after her then. That just further proves that deep down, he never truly cared about her the way she does for him and was more interested in the business and financial opportunities Amira’s parents provided him, giving them a vast majority of the production projects that have helped their pack flourish recently. Although they are a pack of werewolves and govern as such, they are also members of society and make their wealth through traditional business with others. The Lund family has made most of their wealth working in the manufacturing business, creating buildings and constructing equipment and supplies for different businesses. Amira’s family, with her parents
Amira sits at the very back of the class and tries to pick someone tall or large to sit behind to obscure her view of the classroom front. She feels this is the only way she will be able to focus at all during this class, with Calix standing front and center everywhere she looks. Despite trying to avoid his gaze, she can still feel the heat of it on her forehead as she burns a hole into her textbook. The heat from his smouldering gaze is enough to cause warmth to pool through her stomach, even from the distance she is at. She is so focused on not paying attention to him that she doesn’t realize until he wraps up a class that he is the very person she is supposed to pay attention to, or at least what he is saying. But she hasn’t heard a word by the end of it and is left wondering if she can even participate in this class. She was already regretting taking it before, this is the final reason for her to drop it before it’s too late. Amira waits unti
Finally, Amira has a day off in her school schedule at the end of the week, when she doesn’t have any classes and thanks to it being the first week, she hasn’t received any homework or assignments. Meaning, that she has all the time in the world to work at her father’s office to earn some spending money and get a footing in the place before she gets her official position. Her father still has yet to tell her what that position is, but for now, she works as his assistant, similar to the assistant he already has but this gives Helena an extra day off while still being paid, so she can tend to her 6-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son and have a surprise day off with them. Amira’s father pays her very well for her job, giving her the ability to afford a full-time nanny, but no mother wants their child to be raised by a stranger. Amira does get paid for the day, but not nearly as much as Helena does, which prevents her father from having to expend too much extr
Calix wakes up to someone lightly rubbing his arm with something warm and damp, the smell of sanitizer and alcohol coating the air. Slowly coming to his senses, he suddenly jerks his hand toward the person next to him and grabs their hand, hearing a familiar shriek. He opens his eyes to see Amira crouching on the floor with gauze and bandages all around her. “You must have been really out of it, you didn’t even sense me walking in.” She grins. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you resting?” He panics and stands up, but everything in the room begins spinning and he sits right back down. “You overdid it during your fight and now that you’ve given yourself the proper time to relax, your body is going to feel all of that damage. I already asked one of the pack doctors to come by after you wake up, it’s almost morning anyway.” She finishes dressing one of the bandages on his arm. “Take off your shirt,” she says.
“She is here, Alpha,” Malachi speaks through the closed office door. “Bring her in.” The door opens and Amira’s mother steps through, her face rigid and body tense. “Please, have a seat. I just have a few questions, and I hope you will answer me honestly,” he says. “Or what? You’ll threaten me by using my daughter?” He chuckles, finishing up the reports on his desk, before looking up at her. “I can understand where your hatred toward our kind comes from, but you owe it to your daughter to tell her the truth. You knew this day would come, the responsibility is on you and no one else to handle this. If you would rather turn a blind eye, then I insist you tell me the truth and allow me to have her.” “Have her? She isn’t an object you can claim, she is my only child, and she deserves to live a peaceful and happy life. I made the choices of my past out of love for my family and the unsuspecting baby I had i
Calix tries multiple times to call out to Amira once more through a mind link, but it only seems to work one time, whatever she does she doesn’t do again. His mind is silent as he awaits the final flow, wondering what she is thinking at this moment if she is crying and fighting to get free, or if she thankfully can’t see the scene unfolding before her. Knowing how psychotic Evander is, he will have her watching until the end. He just hopes she doesn’t feel the pain of the mate bond breaking and his death, and he has given Omega Dunya and her team enough time to flank the people holding Amira hostage. He doesn’t trust Evander to kill her as soon as he kills Calix, but he has to do something to buy time. Neither Malachi nor Isaac have returned with their team, and the fact that Amira is still within Evander’s clutches means they failed to save her. Calix knows they at least found her, or they would have sent word somehow by now, but there has been nothing since t
Amira has no sense of time at this point, but she assumes at least a day has passed since she has gone missing and wonders if she is close enough for Calix to even sense her. There have been times where she believes she feels his presence slightly but isn’t sure if she is giving herself false hope that he will come and rescue her soon. “Still alive in here?” Evander calls out before entering the room. “The time has come, my dear sister.” “Don’t call me that, it’s weird, and what are you talking about?” “Does it bother you to think about being related to the likes of me?” “Do you have to ask? Of course, it does.” She sneers. His face darkens and he pulls out a knife, instantly making her regret her choice of words. “It’s time for the Alpha Challenge, a one-on-one duel to the death. I’ll need you front and center to lead your mate to his death and give him a front row seat to your own. I’m looking forward to quite t
It has been an entire 24 hours since Amira has disappeared from her hospital room, with her parents working with the authorities to find her, and Calix working with his pack. He has rented an apartment not far from the city outskirts, the closest he can get to feel the faintest hint of the mate bond, so he knows she is at least okay and no longer suffering pain. He is on his way back to the pack territory, crossing over the large bridge that cuts across the swamp surrounding his territory, when a silver car like a bullet comes out of nowhere and tries to run him off the road. He crashes into the side of the bridge instead, the entire corner of his car on the passenger side denting into the rocks. Calix stumbles out of the car, his right leg getting slightly crushed from the impact and the deployment of the airbags knocking the wind out of him a little. He sees a pair of shoes that look vaguely familiar walking toward him before he is lifted by the shirt and a f
Amira is forcefully woken up from her deep sleep by a searing hot pain in her neck as someone presses down into her wound through the bandage. Her eyes flash open and she cries out, trying to sit up with her wrists are tied to the bed, keeping her from sitting up completely. “You’re finally awake.” She stiffens at the familiar sounding voice, afraid to turn around and confirm his face, but Evander does her the honour and walks around with the same stupid grin he always has, except this time it looks a little more maniacal than before. “What in the hell are you doing? Where am I?” He scoffs. “Can you really say you’re that surprised to find out this much about me? It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you’ve been uncomfortable with me from the start, it’s called intuition, and you clearly have a good one but ignore it. If you hadn’t, you might have saved yourself a lot of trouble in life.” “What do you know
It has been two days since Amira was hospitalized and for once Calix is able to feel a fleeting feeling of relief when the mate bond between them finally falls into place. But that relief was quickly taken away when the flood of pain she is suffering despite being unconscious hit him. He could feel every emotion and ounce of pain she experienced while her body healed and adjusted to the mate mark settling into her system. He is amazed she survived in the condition she is currently in, making it all the more agonizing knowing he will never see her again. Regardless of what her mother says, he can’t deny any longer that he is the one who has brought her all this unnecessary suffering. Myla would have never attacked her if he had dealt with her properly the first time, instead of trusting in their childhood bond and leaving her with a firm warning. It was clear who the culprit was after Calix came to his senses. Myla must have snuck back into the pack
**WARNING - This chapter contains sexual content not suitable for readers under 18. Reader discretion is advised.** ~*~*~*~ Calix has no memory of how he gets to Amira’s place until he is crawling through her bedroom window, his mind and vision completely distorted by the drug by now. He sees Amira speaking but can’t hear her voice, everything ringing around him and the only thought on his mind is to attack her. He listens to his impulse and grabs her by the back of the neck to pull her in for a deep, hungry kiss. He pushes her back against the bed despite her shoving against him, trying to ask through muffled gasps what has gotten into him. “Myla…” he manages to mutter. “Drugged…” Oh god, what the hell happened at the dinner? “You’ve been drugged?” Calix nods his head but attacks her lips again, pushing her down flat on the bed. For a split second, she allows herself to give in to him, her anticipation for this mome
Over the week of Amira’s freedom, she feels she has been transported back to her high school days of sneaking around the school and hooking up. Except she doesn’t remember any of those things involving the teachers, yet here she was stealing kisses after class and the occasional closet hook-up to energize the batteries with her college professor, always leaving her wanting much more. It’s been hard for Amira to come home and keep up the act that she is still upset over not seeing Calix when her cheeks are usually still flushed by the time her parents pick her up. After what feels like a surreal dream of a week, the long-awaited dinner with Evander has come, but rather than sitting alongside him probably eating delicious food, she is sitting at home under the watchful eyes of her parents and the boredom of her bedroom. This leaves her with nothing more to do than work on her weekly assignments and think back on her eventful week with Calix. She pop