CLAIRE I let out a sigh as I began to scrub the counter free from any form of liquid puddles that was on it. I couldn't believe that I had been working at the café for a week now.A week of surviving among the people I feared. A week of meeting new people and getting to see that they were all not as bad as I thought they would be. None of them treated me like the outcast I expected to be. You know... an outcast in the sense that I wasn't even a werewolf, to begin with. Or an outcast in the sense that the family I came from was their number one core enemy. Instead. They treated me nicely. True. Some of them ignored me plainly, but no one was rude to me or even treated me unjustly. It was more like everyone just decided to mind the reason why they walked into the cafe in the first place."Are you wiping over a spot repeatedly just because you don't want to take a customer's order?" I blinked my eyes. I stopped wiping and looked up to face Isabella -the only rude person I knew of at t

ALEXAKIS I didn't know what to make of the situation that was currently brewing between Claire and me. The fact that she was the one who kept complaining that I had no time for her, yet when I tried to move closer these past few days, she was the same person who took three steps back for every single step I took made me feel overwhelmed. I knew why she was like that though. A smile crept to the corners of my lips as I remembered how her lips had tasted. Perhaps I shouldn't have kissed her like that, with no warning given. But I wasn't sorry about the kiss. It was something that had lingered on my mind ever since she told me subtly at the cave that she loved seeing me shirtless.When I saw her in the cave looking almost lifeless, I knew that she was someone dear to me. Someone I never wanted to lose... ever. And then when I saw that she was awake after days of drifting in and out of consciousness, I had to fight the urge to run to her and kiss her until she was senseless. Ever since

ALEXAKIS It was true that I was beginning to get worried about her. After I left her that morning and had gone to meet Kieran and Luna Lisa, where they forced me to meet the council of Elders as the Luna proposed, I had gotten so exhausted after all the getting-to-know-each-other talk and had gone straight to my room to get some rest before thinking about any other thing. By the time I woke up, I saw that the day was already getting dark.My mind had immediately gone to Claire and I had wanted to see her, to talk to her, and ask her to stop ignoring me because I found myself missing her so much and the easy companionship that we shared in the past. So, I made my way to her room. I knocked and knocked but there was no response from her. At first, I thought it was because she was set on ignoring me, and I decided that I was not going to leave her door until she opened the door and we talked about what happened.But after waiting for close to an hour, without hearing a single sound from

ALEXAKIS For three days after that incident with Nathaniel angrily walking out on us at the dining table happened, I made sure I was scarce around him. I didn't move around anyhow to avoid bumping into him. It wasn't because I was angry about his outburst. It was because I understood him perfectly well. I knew where he was coming from, and I understood his worries. The position of the Alpha was something he had trained hard for all these years. To have it snatched from him without mercy was really going to be cruel to him.But much as I tried to stay in my lane, it didn't last. The council of Elders finally called the meeting I had been dreading all these days. A meeting to finalize who would take the position of the Alpha. I was going to have to come face to face with the other man whether I wanted to or not. Not only that. I had to decide what would happen between the man and me.I got to the large hall used for meetings and saw all the Elders already seated. I thought I was late b

ALEXAKIS As I grabbed Claire's hand and led her out of the place, I aimed to find a place where we could be seated and spend some quality time together. I might have let us move over to her room, but I knew that servants still trooped in and out of the place now and then. What I wanted was total calmness for both of us. I decided to move us into the woods where we can just sit on a tree branch or a clearing and chat away to make me forget the pressure back at the house with the way Luna Lisa and Nathaniel had gone all out with each other."Alpha Alex." A young girl of no more than ten years old greeted me. I was taken aback by the way it seemed that people had chosen to attach the Alpha title to my name even when nothing has been finalized yet. Perhaps it was not just the council members who had made up their minds to instate me as the Alpha. Perhaps the pack members had decided in their hearts who they wanted. I knew how sad it would have been for Nathaniel if he were to hear how t