Ju All the while a werewolf’s world was overturned and nearly ending across town in a dingy bar Julian scowled darkly scowling at the patrons around him, a clear snifter clutched in his pale hand. The establishment was of a poorer taste than he was used to, but he had found himself in need of a drink. He swirled the topaz liquid in his glass as he continued to glower at the patrons of the bar. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a particularly large swig of the alcohol. He enjoyed the burning that the liquor had on his esophagus. It warmed his stomach, but it gave him no comfort. Dark mud-brown eyes lazily drank in the patrons one by one; he sneered in disgust until they landed on his brother. Raymond had surrounded himself with all sorts of women, nothing but harlots in Julian’s mind. His brother had not an ounce of finesse that Julian possessed and therefore the pale man could not begrudge him his behavior. Julian still needed him to accomplish his goals and therefore would
At first, Alexa was surrounded by a sort of nothingness that left her feeling as if she were afloat in a calm sea. A darkness that crept into the very crevices of her soul, the redhead could hardly feel anything but that nothingness, no fear and no pain, just nothing. It felt as if she were drifting in some weightless space far from the pull that gravity normally had over her body. Coldness crept in alongside the nothingness chilling her very soul. She watched this iciness spread from her veins and ooze into her skin turning it from a deathly pale into a sort of blue color, if she were to describe it it was almost a Saxe blue. Then a light caught her eye, in front of her burned a fire of the same Saxe color that was currently seeping into her pigmentation. Her pale fingertips reached toward it in an effort to find warmth and she watched with fascinated eyes as the tips of her fingers turned black as if burned from the icy flames. They provided no warmth but continued to spread the c
He felt relief flood his body like endorphins flooding his brain. He was almost high as he peered down at his breathing mate. Each breath she took was music to hears and soothing ointment his soul and his wolf howled in happiness inside him. Viridian eyes stared down at sapphire orbs in relief before frozen lashes covered them and her shallow breaths deepened and evened out with her unconsciousness. Aiden lifted his head and looked over his bare shoulder as his naked best friend sat there staring at the sky almost praying out of relief. His russet skin stood out in stark contrast to the bleached world around him. He turned his magenta eyes back towards his friend and they shared a long look. “I don’t know how to thank you, Griffon, truly,” came the grateful reply from the very grateful werewolf. “Don’t mention it,” the older man replied standing up from his seat next to the pale girl. Aiden stood with a lingering glance at the girl’s chest to make sure it was still moving, comfort
Jean Winters stayed up all night long unable to get her body to shut down for the night as it waited in the anticipation of seeing her daughter alive and well. It had been a long night for the matriarch as things between herself and her son had become strained, their relationship turned to stone with his anger. When she had first learned that Alexa had been found by the pack her heart had jumped in her throat and she had to squash the irrational fear that flooded her. She was terrified that they would somehow see the power she possessed locked away and that they would take her child from her. She was what they were unknowingly waiting for and that alone put her eighteen-year-old daughter in so much trouble. She had to remind herself that the spell she had done to lock that part of her daughter away was powerful and that to any supernatural being she would have appeared nothing more than human. That fact alone was the worried mother’s only saving grace and she had felt waves of relie
The white powder crunched beneath his bare feet with each hurried step he took as Aiden rushed through his home, Black Pines Forest. After coming to an agreement with Griffon that he would return the girl back to her family and the town his heart had not stopped aching. His wolf rampaged in the back of his mind echoing the dissatisfaction he felt toward their mate. But as Griffon had painstakingly pointed out she was still human, she may have been his mate, and although he could sense the strength of will, that could rival any Alpha he knew she was in fact still vulnerable to the supernatural physical strength their kind possessed. Even though Aiden and his wolf would do anything to protect her even he with all his abilities and strengths could not protect her from everything. It was a hard pill to swallow for the werewolf but one he was so painstakingly aware of thanks to his much older friend. He tightened his hold on her and pulled her shivering body towards his own. She was so st
Charlene watched the retreating bare back of her son’s best friend with a heavy heart. She knew he must be in terrible pain, disobeying a direct order from an alpha could be fatal, but a beta would feel as if his insides were being torn apart and filled with lava. She knelt on the ground ignoring the gravel digging into the soft flesh of her knees. Her nude stockings provided no protection from the harsh tar road, but she was more concerned with the teenage girl in her arms. When her landline had rung early that morning, she’d had no clue as to what was waiting for her on the other end of the line. The frantic and panicked voice of her son had pulled her out of her musings quickly enough. Her heart had jumped, and she had been filled with worry until he had explained their situation back at the pack house. When his father had passed, she had left the pack house but had not the heart to leave the territory as it had been her home for centuries. Her son had only lived on this earth fo
Isaac and his mother had arrived at the sheriff’s station early that morning eager to get the day started. The boy was still furious with his mother for all the lies she had told. All their life he and his twin had gone on with no idea who or what they really were. He himself had kept things from his own twin and had quite possibly destroyed their relationship forever and now he learns his mother had been doing the same. It had been a lot of information to digest in one night, they still had not seen Jayden as she had locked herself in her room. Her parents had both passed but it had been her father’s request that she never know. He had been an ordinary human who fell in love with a witch and like any human he had been against her use of magic. George Montgomery had been a simple man in his life and had wanted a simple wife with a simple life. When he had learned the true nature of the woman, he had been planning to marry he had been repulsed. Magic had never been part of his plan a
Whilst mother and son made their way toward their town hospital back in the pack house Griffon paced back and forth anxiously as he waited for his friend to return. He could hear the beta Aaron Black screaming all the way across the pack house in his anger. He felt his wolf whimper in fear at the rage coming off the man in tidal waves. It was almost hard to breathe through the negative emotion at the forefront of his pack bond. When he arrived back at the pack it was already obvious that the boy’s father knew what he had done. Griffon had to sneak through a window to avoid the warpath the leader was carving into the mahogany floors. He had made it with enough time to fulfill his promise to Aiden and call his mother who immediately agreed to collect the girl. She had been so angry when he had explained the situation to her, and he knew he would receive an earful from her on his next visit. Charlene O’Connell was not a woman to be trifled with and it was a lesson his teenaged rebellio
** Warning: Graphic mentions of violence and torture, mentions of rape, and graphic sexual content **Far away from the damaged Burrough across many, many acres of land, over hills and mountains, across rivers and streams, nestled in an open valley welcomed by a glistening silver lake and flanked by white-toothed mountains stood a tall ivory castle, lit up by the silver beams of the moon.The surrounding land was peaceful and the night quiet for all weary travelers wandering through the nearby forests, but it was anything but peaceful within the ivory walls, for what was once a beautiful shrine to the moon goddess was now possessed by a much darker, more sinister entity.For on a marble throne adorned with the skulls of his enemies sat the hulking figure of something more beast than man. His heavily scarred features could strike fear in all who gazed upon him as he relaxed back in his stolen seat, the once polished marble now permanently stained crimson from all the bloodshed during h
“NO!” Jean cried out, the sound grating against the sides of her throat as Aiden’s glistening, sharp fangs sunk into the tender flesh of her daughter’s neck. With a burst of power, she ripped the werewolf from her child and unceremoniously tossed him across the room, a common theme today it seemed, not particularly concerned about the grandfather clock he shattered along the way. “What have you done?!” she cried, pulling Alexa into her arms as the once thrashing girl stilled, almost as if she had died. “We just said that it could kill her! How could you be so stupid?!” Jayden angrily yelled. “I couldn’t just sit here and watch her die, I had to do something!” he sat up, wiping the blood from his lips as his fangs receded and his eyes changed back to green. “You don’t get to decide that mutt!” Isaac rebuffed, now coming face to face with the shifter, chest puffed out in anger and a defiant look raging in his glimmering green eyes. “She’s my mate,” “That means nothing if she’s dea
Alexa thrashed on the forest floor in an uncontrollable manner, her body spasming horrifically in the now-destroyed sanctuary. She was clawing at her own skin as she attempted to dig out the fire spreading through her veins, nails digging into the bite on her neck. Alexa screamed as if she were being tortured from the inside out as the vampire venom disseminated through every fiber of her being. Oh God, it hurt, it hurt so bad! She was burning up from the inside. Make it stop! She pleaded silently as nothing but screams ripped through her throat. Aiden rushed to her side, almost keeling over himself as her pain burst through their soul bond uninhibited feeling like a raging ocean was trying to overwhelm him and pull him under with its intensity. Desperation bloomed in his chest as he reached out to the seizing girl and pulled her into his arms. Alexa screamed and cried out at the feel of his hands on her skin, she tried to jerk out of his arms, but he only held on tighter. “Alexa,
Spinning around Alexa came face to face with the object of her nightmares. The sight of his blood-red eyes leering at her in a bestial manner as if he were the hunter and she his prey, which she considered to be exactly the situation she was in. The cold grin that stretched across his deathly pale face sent shivers down her spine and she felt her skin break out into goosebumps. With her heart hammering in her chest, she stared back into the gleaming crimson orbs and told herself that she was not the same girl he had broken nine months ago. “Julian,” His grin spread impossibly wider, and he let out a pleased hum, stalking toward her until he stood directly before her. “Good girl, you still remember me,” he reached out with his icy fingers, reaching out he pulled at a strand of her luscious red curls, bringing it up to his nose where he took a long deep breath and almost purred as he scented her. “Your hair is longer, what a pity,” he let the silky locks slip from his fingers as he
“What?” “Dream walking. It’s when you fall into a hypnotized-like trance,” “What could cause such a thing?” “Honestly I don’t know, I’ve never seen anyone do it before,” “But you’re over a hundred years old!” “That doesn’t mean I know everything you disrespectful child!” Jean snapped at her son, angered by his need to remind her of her many years on this earth. “There must be something we can do, anything you might know Aunt Jean,” Jayden replied warily, staring at the redhead’s back in concern. “There’s a myth that dream walking is the result of a deity calling you to them, if that’s the case then it’s no wonder I’ve never seen it before,” Jean massaged her temple, willing the migraine creeping its way into her brain to disappear. “Why?” “Our Gods rarely ever interact with us directly, to summon one of us means that something of great importance is needed, and the fact that they waited for the solar eclipse to do it is even more peculiar,” “So what? Let’s snap her out of it,
With his wolf-enhanced reflexes, Aiden quickly stabilized Alexa as the earth violently shifted beneath their feet. Glass décor shattered in a thunderous roar as it fell from the countertops in their room. A mutual look of concern passed between them, for they both knew that the unforeseen force behind the tremors was anything but natural. Not when it was accompanied by the shrill panic-stricken screams of their pack mates. ‘Their?’ the thought startled Alexa unsure as to when she had started thinking of this wolf pack as hers. With a shake of her head, she quickly banished the thought as quickly as it had struck her. Now was obviously not the time to dwell on such frivolous concerns. Instead, she focused on the strong hands that were securely wrapped around her upper arms. These large appendages were the only thing keeping her upright as the unnatural quake died down, but the sounds from outside did not follow suit. Without so much as a sound between them, they both dashed out the
Ten months he had waited, ten grueling months he had trained and plotted his revenge. Ten long agonizingly boring months he had nurtured the ego of a foul-smelling dog and her pitiful desire to rule over her pack of wild mutts. For nearly a year he had been plagued by an unquenchable thirst and the need to claim his revenge. It was almost as if he were hyper-focused on those two fixed points in his life. And although he learned to control his new state of being surprisingly quickly that hyper-focus could lead to his own downfall. Not that the man himself noticed too fixated on enacting his revenge too much to think about anything else, much less what he would do once he had it. Shaun, who had trained the new vampire on the wishes of his mistress could see the crazed gleam in the man’s undead gaze and wondered not for the first time what his mistress had seen in the newborn. His mistress, Amara, had never been the kind to explain the reasons behind her actions and Shaun had learned
“You don’t know,” Alexa’s eyes welled up with tears threatening to fall, her bare feet burning unprotected from the blistering cold. Aiden looked at her with an unreadable expression, one that not even she, who had learned to see the emotion behind his eyes could decipher. “I don’t know where I’m going, I wake up in a different place each time,” “Each time? How long has this been happening?” The flash of anger through their bond was enough to ground Alexa’s shaky thoughts, and she clung onto it as if it were a buoy floating in the middle of a raging sea and she was caught up in the tumultuous waves. Alexa was at a loss for words as they stared at one another. His anger was clear in his eyes. How could she tell him that she was scared, drawn in by an unknown force that called out to her even in her waking hours? “How long, Alexa?” he asked again, with more force behind his words. “A few months,” She let out a tired sigh. “A few months?!” the shock and the anger swirled within, f
Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. Spring bloomed, chasing away the winter chill, Summer burned hot that year until finally autumn leaves began to fall and the wind turned cold once more. It was funny how quickly Alexa became accustomed to living among the pack. No longer did she feel out of place as if she stuck out like a sore thumb. Eventually, many of the pack members warmed up to her presence and began accepting her not only as Aiden’s mate but as their future Alpha too. Her only problem being her unwanted run-ins with Vanessa, who was dead set on causing her as much grief as possible. Still opposed to both ideas she had learned to keep her thoughts to herself as many of the wolves couldn’t understand her opposition having been raised in pack life where all this was just another ordinary day to them. Even the few humans who had not been raised within the pack and who had had time to acclimate didn’t understand her firm stand against being labeled Aiden’s mate