Cecilia POVThere was one car in front of us and one behind as we cruised along the streets of Malmö. I didn’t know where we were going, but I balled my fists in my lap to keep them from trembling. Alessandro and Soraya were chatting quietly in the back seat, but I was too nervous to hear anything they were saying. “Alright, we’re stopping here.”Alessandro said. Harley pulled over at the side of the road and they started getting out of the car. I pushed the car door open and climbed out stiffly, every move felt like I was under water. Was this it? Was Alessandro really going to sell me to get those weapons back?Based on his earlier comment, it seemed that way. I felt a hand on my arm and I stared blankly up at Alessandro’s frowning face. Realizing what I was doing, I looked down quickly. “Sorry, Master.” I whispered. Alessandro gripped my chin and forced me to look at him.“You are pale as a ghost.” He said. “Are you alright?”I couldn’t help it, but a tear slipped down my
Alessandro POVAll around me were fully shifted wolves fighting for their lives. I had to give it to Viper, he was definitely good at training his warriors. Harley was tackled by a wolf beside me and he landed on the ground with the wolf on top of him. I got free of the moron I was fighting by quickly sinking my teeth into his neck and jerking my head to the side, ripping his windpipe out. I lunged forward and pushed the wolf off of Harley, pinning him to the ground. After biting and scratching every surface I could get, the wolf underneath me stopped moving. “Alpha, look out!”Harley’s mindlink made me snap my head to the movement in the corner of my eye, just as Viper’s wolf collided with me.I struggled, but quickly realized why they called him ‘Viper’. He sure was a snake in a fight. By taking me by surprise, Viper got a huge advantage and pinned me down on the ground. His claws sunk into my ribcage and I thrashed to get out from underneath him. My hind legs managed to g
We helped Alessandro get in the car and started heading back to the mansion. I was sitting in the backseat with Alessandro’s head in my lap, only dressed in a large t-shirt that I found in the trunk. Even though the wound was healed and Alessandro insisted that he was fine, the rest of us argued that he should be careful. I still had no idea what I did, so I couldn’t guarantee that everything was fully healed just because the open wound magically turned into a scar. I tried to process the night’s events during the car ride back. The silver collar had fallen off on the street outside of the old cemetery, and I had no idea how. Maybe I should have taken a closer look at the collar to see if it malfunctioned somehow. But it still didn’t explain the bright light that I saw. A million questions swirled in my head and I was nowhere to get an answer. Before I knew it, we reached the mansion and we got out of the cars. Harley offered Alessandro a hand, but he didn’t take it. “I’m fin
Cecilia POVI woke up with Alessandro’s body pushed up against my back, his body making me warm. The previous night’s events replayed in my mind, making me smile. For a second, I thought he just took me to his room to reject me, considering that Soraya was so convinced that he would. But it seemed to be another one of her schemes, just like when she made me believe that Alessandro was going to sell me to Viper. I had overheard Alessandro saying to Soraya that he didn’t want a mate, but the way he made love to me last night, I started to think that he only said it so that she wouldn’t get her hopes up. But there was still one thing that bothered me. Why didn’t he mark me if he was claiming me as his?Maybe he wanted to wait?Or was he bothered by Alpha Harald’s mark?I didn’t know how all of that worked actually, so I felt a little confused. If I was marked by Alpha Harald, how could I sense my mate?There were so many things that didn’t add up.Alessandro stirred and pulled me
Alessandro POVI felt bad. Really bad. As if I was going to be sick. My head and my heart were colliding so hard that I didn’t know what to do.I had already made up my mind years ago. I didn’t want a mate. I had a duty to get back to Italy and save my sister. The thought of Miabella made me feel even more guilty.Because when I finally met my mate, I didn’t want to reject her. Every fiber in my being was begging me to accept her, but I couldn’t.Still deep in thought, I took a shower and studied the scar from the night before in the mirror while I dried myself off. How did she do that?Based on her shocked expression, I didn’t think that she knew what happened either. After I got dressed, I groaned in frustration and rubbed my forehead. I had to go find Cecilia and finish the rejection. Walking out into the hallway, I started going down to the kitchen to see where Cecilia would have been stationed today. I ran into Judith in the dining room and she bowed to me. “What can I
Cecilia POVI was an idiot. Olivia had told Alessandro off outside of her bedroom door, and I had heard all of it. Alessandro had agreed not to reject me today, and to give me some time to come to terms with it. Olivia told me that she didn’t think that Alessandro actually wanted to reject me. He seemed to care about me and I shouldn’t take the rejection personally. There was something else going on.Since he had agreed not to reject me today, I figured that I should go talk to him and ask him about his reasons. If he rejected me anyway, I would just leave with Olivia the same night.The truth was that I desperately wanted to see him. My whole body wanted to be in his presence. So I left Olivia’s room and went to ask him about his reasons for wanting to reject me. I went to his office and knocked on the door, but my blood went cold when I heard Soraya’s voice inside. “Come in.”I opened the door with trembling hands and stopped right inside the door.Alessandro was sitting behi
Cecilia POV“Are you sure about this?” Olivia asked me. I wiped my tears and straightened my back.Looking at Olivia, I mustered up all the determination that I had. “I’m sure.” I said. “I want to give him another chance. But I can’t do that right now. We should go and try to find out what I am, and when I know, I can come back to him. I’ll probably need his help anyway if I’m ever going to be able to take back my pack.”“Then let’s go.” As soon as the sun went down, we started our little mission. There weren’t any Omega’s out, and Olivia said that she never really encountered anyone other than a few guards while working at night, so we could move around quite freely without having to sneak around too much.First thing’s first, we needed some way to defend ourselves. I could still get recognized and we were going to dangerous places, so we wanted to be prepared. So we snuck into Alessandro’s armory and stole a gun each. “How did you even know how to get in here?” I hissed as we
Alessandro POVI buried my face in my hands and sighed. She was gone.And I felt like I was suffocating.There were so many questions that were unanswered and the confusion infuriated me to no end. Where did they go?How did she create a rift in the ground that was on freaking fire?If she wanted to leave, why didn’t she accept my rejection first so that we could be free of each other?She must have had some kind of plan, but I couldn’t piece anything together. Harley walked in. “The fire has been taken care of.” He mumbled. “Any sign of them?” I asked. He shook his head and I looked up. “Start digging.” I said. “I need to know more about my mate. It feels like she has been lying to me this whole time and I need the truth.”Harley nodded. “I’m on it.” He said and left the room. I enjoyed the silence for a while, and even though a million questions still stirred in my mind, I took a deep breath and relished in the peace and quiet. “Alessandro.”I jerked at the high-pitched so
Rocco POVI knew that I wasn’t supposed to be in this part of the packhouse at this time of night, but I didn’t have a choice. I crept closer to the basement, where faint screams were heard. My hair was standing on end and I shivered at the horrifying sound. Being careful not to draw attention to myself, I snuck closer and peered inside the interrogation room. A man was sitting in a chair, his wrists duct taped to the arm rests. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and several cuts and bruises littered his body. I stifled a gasp when I saw Mia standing behind him. “Please.” The man whimpered. “I’ve told you everything I know.”Mia turned around, her body dressed in a tight leather bodysuit. “Oh, I know.” She purred. “But I’m not done having my fun just yet.”With that, she took out a knife and carved something on the man’s shoulder. He shook and rocked the chair trying to get away from her, but the chair was bolted to the floor. His screams gave me chills and Mia laughed at his anguish. “
Alessandro POVGabriel’s hands trembled as he walked up the steps, his head lowered. I would never admit it to Linnea, but I was going to enjoy this. Gabriel deserved it, and I loved getting my hands dirty. My father had trained me in hurting people the right way to extract information, and I had become really good at it. I took off the cuffs and instructed Gabriel to take off his shirt and face the crowd. Then, I turned to Linnea and made her back away a bit. I didn’t want to risk hitting her. Linnea looked at me questioningly, as if she was trying to see through me. Maybe she was seeing the excitement?I turned my face away and picked up the whip. “I’m going to count to twenty.” I said. “You should probably get down on your knees in case you pass out before then.”Gabriel nodded stiffly and sat down, refusing to look at the crowd in front of him. I unfolded the whip, the silver tip glimmering in the light as it came down on his back. Gabriel cried out from the pain, his hands b
Linnea POVAlessandro sat down behind the desk and I perched myself on his lap when there was a knock at the door. “Come in.” Alessandro called out. Wanda opened the door and showed a man inside. “Dante.” Alessandro smiled. “Thank you for coming.”“Do you know what’s going on?” Dante asked. “Soraya has been missing. I have no idea where she is. When you called, I guessed that this is what you wanted to talk about.”Alessandro nodded. “The council was here and took a lot of the people responsible into custody.” He replied. “I just wanted you to hear it from me first. Soraya contacted Alpha Harald in an attempt for him to claim my Luna as his. It backfired and the council deemed her an accessory to the crimes that had taken place in this pack.”I smiled apologetically when Dante stared at Alessandro in shock. “I’m really sorry about the trouble that she has caused.” He said after a while. “I’ll talk to the council since she is a member of my pack. I just never thought that she woul
Gabriel POVI didn’t know how long I had been in the cell, but I was starting to feel stressed. My mother was locked in the cell beside mine and she hadn’t stopped glaring at me. “Was it worth it?” She asked. “Selling out your family?”I shrugged. “We should never have gone along with this in the first place.” I replied. “Now we lost everything.”“Yes, because of you!” Mom screamed, making the other prisoners throw annoyed looks at her. “You did this to us. You would have been Alpha by now.”“Would I?” I asked. “I want to be Alpha because I earned it, not because I got a pack handed to me that wasn’t even mine in the first place.”Mom sneered at me. “It’s because of your mate, isn’t it?” She asked. “Maybe I should have asked more questions earlier, but let’s do this now instead, since she seems to be the reason for this.”I growled at her. “It’s none of your business.” I replied. Before my mom could reply, a group of MoonStone warriors walked in. “You are being transported.” One
Linnea POVThe council took two days to sort out the information they had gathered. In the meantime, we decided to clean up the Red Rock pack. The pack was very well off generally, but the ranked members were sitting on all the money while the lower ranked members were struggling to make ends meet. When we arrived, I located the kitchen to talk to the Omegas. One thing I had learned from being an Omega in Alessandro’s pack was that the Omegas heard a lot more than they would let on and if there were anyone to ask about what was going on inside the pack, it was them. I managed to find my way to the kitchen and found a group of twenty Omegas hard at work making lunch. The door to the kitchen was slightly ajar so I stayed outside to observe their dynamic for a moment.“Hurry up, the new Alpha will be here soon.”I peeked in through the door and saw a woman who seemed to be the head Omega barking out orders to the girls that scrambled to fix the last things. Taking a deep breath and
Linnea POV“You know, if I’m going to be living with you and share a bedroom with you, we might need to make a few changes.” I teased as we got dressed the next morning.Alessandro raised an eyebrow. “Really?” He said. “You don’t like my bedroom?”I gestured to my room and chuckled. “Do I look like the kind of person that would be totally fine with having a room as dark and gloomy as yours?” I asked. Alessandro chuckled too. “I guess not.” He said. “We’ll get to work on that once things have settled down.”We left the bedroom and descended the stairs to the dining room. “So how would you want to decorate the room?” Alessandro asked. I shrugged. “I want it a little lighter.” I said. “It’s a little intimidating, you know.”“Can we keep the pillars by the bed?” Alessandro asked. I smiled seductively.“Maybe.” I replied. “That depends.”Alessandro pulled me closer to him.“On what?” He whispered, his voice husky.“It depends on if you are planning on using them?” I whispered back.
When the car stopped, three men and a woman stepped out and made their way over to us. They were all dressed in black suits and their faces all looked stern and cold. The dominating auras that emanated from them made them feel so intimidating and I shivered a little. “Alpha Alessandro, I presume.” A man with dark hair that reached his shoulders spoke. “Yes.” Alessandro asked. They quickly introduced themselves as Councilman Jonathan, Tore, Isac and Councilwoman Carina.“Thank you for coming so quickly.” Alessandro said and shook hands with the man who appeared to be their boss. “We’ve been aware of the situation for a while.” Councilman Jonathan replied. “We reached out to Alpha Harald, but he reassured us that everything was by the book and he was going to leave the pack in the capable hands of the Alpha’s stepson.”Alessandro shook his head. “The takeover was done without a challenge to the Alpha.” He said. “My Luna can testify to that.”He gestured to me and Councilman Jonat
Linnea POVWhen we got back to the packhouse, everything was in complete chaos. Our warriors were leading Red Rock warriors into the dungeons. “Where’s Antonia?” I asked Gabriel.“In the dungeon.” He replied. “I locked her in there and went to help you.”“Right.” Alessandro said. “I need to go call the council and get them here ASAP.”I nodded. “Yeah, we need to sort out a lot of things around here.” I agreed. Every region in Sweden had its own council. The Skåne council was located in a small town called Höör, that was in the middle of the region. It would probably not take more than an hour for them to get here once Alessandro called. A group of warriors approached me and Gabriel when Alessandro left. “Where do you want us, Luna?” They asked. I glanced at Gabriel and he nodded. “I should probably get to the dungeon too.” He whispered. “I’m sorry.” I croaked out. “I’ll do everything I can.”Gabriel smiled softly and I turned to the warriors. “Give him his own cell.” I said.
Alessandro POVI had no idea why she was here, but she seemed to be on our side, so I decided to let it go for now and smelled the air to pick up Alpha Harald’s scent. “Go.” The witch said. “I’ll take care of the last of these idiots.”With that, she threw a ball of lightning towards the wolves. I looked over at David, who nodded reassuringly. We took off together towards the forest. Two Alphas against a coward that relied more on his money and armies than his own strength. Easy.I forced myself not to think that this was a piece of cake. If I did, I might underestimate him when the time came. He took over this whole pack in a matter of hours. He might have some more tricks up his sleeve. I spotted a running wolf at the edge of the forest and quickened my pace. The wounds from the previous fight were healing pretty well and I was starting to feel stronger with every stride. Alpha Harald raced out into a meadow when we caught up with him. David ran past me and was just about to po