I come to a halt when I see what's happening in the garden. I already knew Asheron was talking to Georgie, but seeing what they're actually doing makes me reconsider everything. We said no one could kiss her, but those two are eating each other’s faces and only seconds away from fucking right there in the garden, in front of the fish pond. And it makes me wonder... how many times has this happened over the past few days, and I didn't know? What if Georgie has been kissing him this whole time? What if she already made her choice and she’s just keeping me around to spare my heart?I usually give them their space and don't intrude on their private moments because I trusted Asheron to keep his word. How stupid of me. But I must admit, they look good together. It makes complete sense. I mean... they really were made for each other and there's no denying that. I've always been the fucking added number, the odd one out, the weird one, the one Georgie was confused about. I literally make
{ Georgie }This is the first time I've ever seen Cain like this. He looks... over it. Shut down. He looks bitter and broken, and I hate myself for making him feel like that. I don't know how to fix it. I don't want him to leave. "Cain," I try again, my voice broken now. I'm so distraught, I had forgotten about Asheron until he touches my arm from behind. I can't help but move away from his touch because I don’t want Cain to see him touching me and get even angrier, "Listen to me, please. Tell me if this is about the kiss or something else. Are you not feeling the bond anymore?" Cain looks at me with fire in his eyes, like he's offended I mentioned the bond. "Of course I fucking feel it. That's why I want to leave. Yes, I saw the kiss. I saw you two in your romantic bubble and I just realized that's how it's supposed to be. So that's it," he repeats and lifts his gaze to Ash, "Asheron, please take your mate and leave my room." Ash does that. He grabs me by the shoulders and mana
{ Georgette }Asheron doesn’t follow me to my room, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. On one hand, I’m grateful because I can cry freely, but on the other hand, I want him here to make me feel better.Once again, Selfish Georgie is out and about. I wish I could stop being so fucking selfish, but I can’t control it. In my soul and in my heart, I feel like I should have both of them right here. That’s why I keep calling Cain, just to tell him that I need him here, even though I know I can’t tell him what he needs to hear: that I’m choosing him. I can only tell him the truth, that I’m selfish and I want to have him by my side for the rest of my days… I mean, for the rest of the month.But Cain never answers my calls or my texts. I don’t know how long I spend crying and calling him over and over again, but I fall asleep at some point. When I wake up the next day, I know my eyes are swollen and I don’t really want to get up to face reality, so I decide to stay in bed for longe
“Princess Georgie?” Josephine asks, opening the door to my room, “Are you okay? No one has been able to reach you all day. Flo called me because she’s worried about you.”I’m lying on my side facing the wall. I’m not crying anymore, but I can’t bring myself to turn around and talk to her or even give her a smile. I haven’t had the strength to get up since Asheron left. I’ve been here probably eight hours. “Georgie?” she asks again and closes the door before approaching. She kneels in front of me and gives me a concerned look, “What happened? I know they both left… did you make your decision?”Her words make me close my eyes and shake my head.“I did, I guess,” I answer in a whisper, my voice sounding hoarse and broken, “I chose neither of them… but I don’t think it even counts as me making a decision, they both left me on their own accord.”Jos furrows her brow and shakes her head. Seeing the confusion on her face makes my eyes start to sting again, but I can only shrug.“Asheron l
“Dad, can you go without me?” I whisper a second later, clasping my hands over my chest in a plea, “Please. Just go by yourself and tell them that I won’t marry either of them. I don’t want to risk seeing them so soon. I’ll fall apart right there.”My father closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. He hates when I try to avoid something just because it’s hard. “Georgette,” he growls, but I continue pleading with my eyes, “They’ll want to talk to you anyway. This isn’t as simple as you want to make it, love. Both Asheron and Cain lead a pack. And both packs want to be connected to us. This isn’t just about the love you all might feel; one of the packs will demand a marriage.”“They can’t force me,” I retort, frowning at him, “It is about love for me. It’s MY life. And I definitely can’t be with either of them without the other… even though it doesn’t matter because they don’t want me either. Please, at least for this ONE meeting, go without me. I’ll attend the next one.”
Boom. Boom. Boom.That’s all I can hear after that, my heart pounding against my ribcage, hard. I manage to say goodbye to the girls without making a scene or falling apart, but my mind is elsewhere when I return to Jos and I have to make small talk with Ferny while our coffees are ready.As soon as we leave the café, I tell Jos what I just heard. About Asheron looking for a new future wife.Those words sound so, so wrong. “What the hell is going on, Jos? Why is Elena trying to get him another woman so fast?” I ask, trying my hardest not to cry, “It’s only been eight days since we broke up.”“She hates you, remember?” She says, making me grimace. That’s true. In Elena’s mind, I disrespected her son’s memory. And now that he’s alive and I still ‘didn’t choose him,’ she must hate me even more.“But why the hell are they both out there spilling our business to everyone?” I mutter, completely irritated, “They’re both being jerks.”“They’re hurting, Princess,” she reminds me, but that ju
Dealing with my mother this past week has been a pain in the ass. I love her with all my soul, but she’s always suffocated me, and she’s suffocating me now more than ever. She’s out of control. When I returned to the palace, she was already waiting for me. Apparently, my father told her about my situation because he couldn’t bear to see her cry for my death if he knew I was alive. But even so, my mom almost had a breakdown when I appeared in front of her. She cried like never before and she hugged me for hours, thanking the Moon Goddess for answering her prayers. She’s still on house arrest, so I’ve had to deal with her all day, every day. I had to tell her what happened with Georgie and Cain. Her fury towards Georgie now is even bigger than before and that makes me uncomfortable because of course I don’t want my mom hating the most important person in my life. I want to tell her Georgie is not at fault here. She’s only dealing with the cards she was dealt… but then I remind my
I step back and I try my hardest not to snap at the girl who just gave me a kiss. I’m no longer the Alpha of this pack, but I’m still the prince and I have to be fucking respectful and nice. Always.So I force a smile as the girls giggle, but I keep walking away slowly until I can get away from them. The kiss was very innocent, but my wolf is still pissed and annoyed.I walk to the small bar and I make conversation with the guy behind it as he gives me shot after shot. I need to erase the feeling of another lips against mine. I need to stop feeling so guilty. I didn’t ask for the kiss, it came out of nowhere. I don’t even remember which girl gave it to me. Also, we’re no longer together. I’m single. “Are you sure you want more?” The guy behind the bar laughs. I nod. I can feel myself getting tipsy, but I’m still feeling like I cheated on my mate and I hate it. I want to stop thinking and feeling altogether. “Yes. Give me another,” I demand, making the guy laugh, but he pours me a
"I don't like you, what are you doing in my palace? I thought I told you, your family is banned from my territory," she says that directly to me. "He showed up unannounced, babe." "I come here in peace," Cain says and takes something out of his pocket. It's a card. Nina frowns, but she can't fight her curiosity so she walks closer to grab it, "It's a 'shut the fuck up' coupon to use on my mom. You can give it to me at any point if you ever need to tell my mom to shut the fuck up. I will do it for you and I will be aggressive about it. She deserves worse for being such a bitch that day. I'll take the fallout for you." "To be honest, I'm not that scared to do it myself," Nina murmurs, but a smile starts to grow on her face, "However, this is appreciated." "Can we start over?" He asks, taking a step closer, "I am actually very, very cool. I swear." "Mhm, I’ll be the judge of that," Nina says, punching his arm like she usually does when she's play-fighting with her brothers. Cain tu
"I can't fucking believe I said that," he says, covering his face in shame, "It was extremely disrespectful, I'm truly sorry. And I guess you're right, this isn't new, I just haven't fully gotten over it. Of course I will one day, this is still new. But you're my girl, I do desire you a lot, you are very pretty in my eyes. I just can't wait for you to grow up some more." I nod with a sigh. "I'm not angry, not like last time," I assure him, Justin takes a deep breath in relief, "But I don't love to know I make you feel guilty or bad. It's good that we haven't had real sex yet, I don't want it to be a bad experience for either one of us. I want to feel wanted and loved. So, I think what we should do is... put a pause in the sexual aspect of our relationship." "What?" He gets tense and looks at me like I'm crazy, "That's not what I want." "Yeah, but it's what I want," I say, clenching a fist. It's not what I want at all, but fuck him for making me feel like wanting me is wrong, "Not
"I'm sorry you had to hear all that, I really am sorry," the King says, looking down in embarrassment, "My wife..." "Don't worry, I get it. Justin shouldn't have surprised any of us with this news, it's not something easy," I say, eyes set on my mate's. He's totally freaking out, "I think I've caused enough damage, can we just go now?" "Yes," he almost whispers and just gives one last look to his dad before grabbing a suitcase so we can leave, but he stays silent as we walk out, all the way to the car. And even when he starts driving, "I'm sorry, Nina." "You should be. This was 'that bad' and then some," I mutter, looking out the window, "About everything else you said… don't even say sorry. It's simply what you feel and I understand, let's leave it at that." "No, no, I don't want us to be at odds again," he says, his hands tightening on the steering wheel, "I want to clarify, I didn't mean I'm not attracted to your or that I don't like you, that's the opposite of the truth." "I
"Let's go," Justin wraps an arm around my waist and he leads me outside. "Wait, son, I'm sorry I haven't said anything. I was just processing and..." the King finally speaks and I try to stop and hear him out, but Justin keeps me moving. He doesn't even give his dad a look, he takes me all the way to the foyer. "Wait for me here, I'll go pick some stuff, then we're going back to Fox," he says and leaves, almost as fast as he brought me here. I sigh and look for a chair so I can get comfortable, but when a couple minutes pass and I realize Justin is probably going to take a long time, I start wandering a bit. It's so weird that this place has so many corridors and different living rooms. Like this one. It's exactly the same as the last one I entered. I don't know what specific purpose it serves but... I stand very still when I hear footsteps coming closer and then two different voices. I gasp and look around for a place to hide. I find a little closet and run to hide in there.
"Cain!" Justin roars and a couple of seconds later I feel some relief and I can breath again as the huge man gets lifted and my fated mate comes to my rescue. He grabs my arms and picks me up, "Are you okay, Nina?" "No," I complain, my whole body hurts, especially my ass and my chest. The guy crashed against me like he had a personal vendetta against me, "What the hell? Who is that hippopotamus?" "Nina," Justin sighs, still not happy with me. He moves away to let me see the guy and points at him. I know who he is as soon as I look at his face, "This is my brother, Cain." He looks like a younger, less manly version of Justin. "I'm so sorry, kid, I totally didn't see you," he says with a grimace, he's still trying to recover too. He looks at me deeply and frowns, "Since when do we hire minors, dad? Isn't child labor illegal here?" Great. Amazing. So, Cain is an asshole. I sigh and look at Justin, he looks even angrier now. I don't know how this is going to play out if my ma
During the drive to his pack, Justin tries his best to make me feel less nervous. I'm sure he can smell my stress, fear and nerves all mixed up in my scent. Thankfully, he assures me over and over everything is going to be fine and he asks me so many questions to get me rambling that I actually start to get distracted. Until we get to Kallistar and I enter the pack for the first time in all my life. I swear it's like a new filter is unlocked to my eyes. So much color, everywhere. There's even a big welcoming mural, as if a lot of people travel from Fox to Kallistar. The grass is really greener over here, the sky is bluer, the roads are so perfect and clean. This is a whole different world for me. I'm almost scared. Because I know this is basically my pack now. But I kind of like my ugly, old, messed up pack. It has character. It's full of working people who are always willing to help one another. No one thinks they're better than other people in Fox but I'm sure over here everyon
"So, that means... I have to be the one to do something about it?" I ask, swallowing in nerves. Justin lies down next to me. "Not necessarily if you don't want to. All I'm saying is... I need to relieve some pressure," he says, "I've been so stressed about the conquest and scared about my brother possibly being in danger. And you being mad at me. I was so fucking tired and stressed." Oops. I guess that's my fault. Or his, for pissing me off to begin with. "Well... if you tell me what you like, I could help you," I offer, excited again. To touch him, make him feel good. It's my right, after all. But again, Boring Justin gives me a look that says he's not that sure, "Do I really have to beg a man to let me make him come? That's not fun, Fated Mate." "No, no, it's not like that. It's not like I don't want you," he rushes to say. I squint at him. He keeps saying that but not showing me, "I just... don't feel... okay. Tell you what. If you really want to touch me, you can do it."
I wish we could do it again (and again, and again) but I have a feeling Justin will get in his own head again. He just can't accept me for some reason. This past few days I've been doing research in fated mates. It's always what I thought it should be... instant love. Instant passion. Instant love-making. Obviously, because what else is it going to be when you find the literal love of your life? People never fight it... except for him. And why? Because apparently he doesn't like the way I look. Or, he does, but then he feels guilty about it. I sigh and roll in bed. My nose catches his scent in the sheets and I moan, feeling all tingly again. I gulp and my hand moves down south to relieve the pressure, but then I gasp when I remember why I woke up so early today. I jump up and run to put on my clothes on go to work. ➿➿➿➿ Justin and his brother were successful. When I get his text in my new super fancy phone, I almost pass out with relief. He told me a few times that it wasn'
That makes her look up at me again, confused. "We're going to get the territory today. I could technically die out there," I say, even though I know the chances are slim to none. I guess I just want a little kiss. For me, but for her, too. { Nina } One little kiss. This man who has been practically ignoring me even though he invaded MY home is asking me for a little kiss? After grinding his dick against me last night? He has some nerve. "Okay," I say, because... what am I to do? I've been waiting for this opportunity the whole fucking time. I’m not the one who hates this bond. I know I shouldn’t be so easy, but I am. I want that kiss so bad. Justin licks his lips and ends the distance between us, but not too fast. He takes his time, looking into my eyes for a few seconds. "I'm really sorry I made you mad," he whispers, melting my insides, "We've only been mates a few days and I already fucked up, I can't even begin to explain how shitty I feel. I'm just trying to do t