I had nothing else to say to the lycan king but I certainly wasn’t in the mood to listen either, and once again, I tried to pull away but he didn’t let me go. And I immediately lost it so completely that I swung on him.
My attempt to hit him was sloppy as he caught my hand and quickly twisted me around holding both my hands behind my back. He snatched me into him, my back facing him as he brought his lips down to my ear.
“Use your mind, little human,” he hissed. “Those beasts killed a human…and nothing else.”
“We were the closest to the forest. Of course, they did.”
“You are so blinded by bitter rage that you cannot even acknowledge the truth of what happened tonight,”
Alastair:Following the incident that happened last night, I made sure to quickly set the next day’s affairs in order at both the high school and my office that day. I’d have no obstacle in my way when it came to spending my last remaining hours with Valene trying to convince her not to leave.“You do realize that the chance of success is slim to none,” Aziz voiced in the deep recesses of my mind.“I do not need pessimism right now, Aziz,” I spat. “If you have nothing positive to add, then there’s no need for this conversation.”“Fine,” Aziz c
His gaze lingered on me, his stare seeming to wordlessly communicate that he was considering what I was saying. Then he finally spoke. “That is a weakness, alpha,” Ares replied. “A weakness that can mean life or death for my people,” he said, shaking his head. “That weakness has to be stamped out, and it will be. I assure you, alpha, that my life would be forfeit before any harm could come to your daughter.”“Why would you risk that, Ares?”Instead of answering the question directly, Ares came up with his own piece of logic. “Funny, you’ve been taking the risk for years, have you not?” He then headed for the door. “I do not wish to keep you from your daughter any longer, Alpha Wade. I will ask that you think about my proposal. I will accept you
Alastair:We spent most of the day on the road, venturing outside Shadow Veil. If today was going to be Valene’s last day with me, I wanted to make it memorable. I’d have been lying had I said that a part of me and Aziz had also hoped that it would convince her to stay. That was definitely a long shot, of course.At the end of our adventure, we stopped at a little restaurant and settled ourselves. I could tell that Valene was nervous about the endeavor that she would take at the end of the day. Her being Valene, she would never allude to it, however.“Have you enjoyed yourself today?” I asked after we shared a moment of laughter.“The best day I’ve ever had,” she smiled. “This…is the perfect gift for my anniversary. Harlyn’s presence would have made it even better.”I could sense her disappointment when she mentioned Harlyn’s name. “You know Harlyn is going to miss you just as much as I will, Val.” “Yeah, sure,” Valene didn’t believe this, and if she did, she no doubt assumed that Ha
“Seven.” I finally answered Valene's question. I knew that she would find it impossibly young. “Seven what?” her brow rose suspiciously. My expression said it all. Her eyes widened, and suddenly, her expression displayed that of sympathy. “Surely you don’t mean he was so young as seven when he’d taken over the pack! That…that is well below the age that a child should even have their own say! You let him-” “Ares may have been young, but he has always had his own mind, and when it all boiled down to it, I was not his father.” “Were there no adults…to look after the boy?” “There were adults,” I said. “There were pack members, a delta, but none were fit to lead. They became lost
Valene didn't say anything. She stabbed at her truffle bomb, her silence lingering for so long I was almost concerned. Then, she finally expressed what was on her mind. “The truth,” she simply said. It was at that moment that her eyes began to mist with tears. “A gentle truth,” she shook her head as her words began to waver. “That Tobias died because of me,” she leered. “I wanted to go…follow his pack into the woods to find more of those…wretched things! I had planned to kill as many as I could and-and he insisted that I stay...that it was too dangerous, for me especially. I didn’t want to listen.” “He told you the truth, hoping that it would stop you.” “He only made my conviction to go into those woods even stronger. I wanted to die after he said that. After I realized that…that all of those deaths…were b
Valene:To wait! I was forced to wait! If I was going to be accompanied by the beast, the least that he could do was be on time. I refused to go back into that Packhouse. I hadn’t been there long, but I was certainly there long enough to have memories. It was hard walking past Harold’s room as Tobias seemed to be his closest friend. He was taking the loss extremely hard. And it was even harder to walk past Tobias’s room. Somehow, losing him- someone whom, while I did have regular dealings with, I did not truly know, was one of the most difficult things that I ever had to deal with.I’d always assumed him to be a superficial human with an arrogance about him that pushed him to believe that he could commit transgressions, transgressions that were usually punishable by severe imprisonment or even death. Only since I moved into the Packhouse did I realize that Tobias was not completely who he was made out to be, but a little more.He died, and I could feel that there was so much more mean
My knees buckled, and I gripped myself tightly while clenching my heart. It actually ached. This guilt swallowed me whole, and I could not resurface from it. “Those attacks…Tobias is dead!” I whimpered messily. “Harold was nearly killed…my mother was killed! Because of me!” I cried. “What-I don’t-I can’t do this! I just want to leave! Why can’t you just let me leave?!” I lifted my violently shaking hand to wipe away my tears when I felt his large hand against my cheek, wiping them away for me; When I looked up, he was sitting there across from me, his legs folded. For some reason, I was amazed by his casual gesture to just sit across from me as if he were equal to me. As if I was his equal. “Did you ask to be born with such treasure flowing through your veins?” I half-shook my head before dropping
Alastair: I hadn’t seen Valene hardly at all after our little back and forth. I thought that giving her time to cool down was for the best but apparently, it wasn’t. Maybe…maybe she wasn’t going to calm down. Maybe I’d finally crossed the line, but…but I just could not imagine that this would be her breaking point. She was no longer outside, and she was nowhere in the packhouse. She wasn’t at our home either. Where could she be? Part of me had hoped that she’d left but my gut told me that she hadn’t. Ares would have informed me before they left. “I have a bad feeling, Wade,” Aziz whispered in the back of my mind.