Novels by firedreams412

Irabella~The car stopped a quarter mile short of the gate.I didn't understand why until the guard in the passenger seat turned around and told me to get out. No explanation. Just the door popping open and cold air rushing in around my ankles."Walk," he said.I looked past him at the road ahead, black asphalt stretching toward a gate I could barely make out in the dark, and understood. They didn't want the King's men to see me arrive sitting down like a guest. They wanted me walking in like what I actually was.Isabella's shoes were already wrong on my feet, half a size too small, and by the time I'd gone a hundred yards I could feel the blister forming on my left heel, hot and raw against the leather. I didn't slow down. Slowing down felt like giving something away.That's when I saw them.Two men in dark uniforms, walking the opposite direction, carrying something long between them, wrapped in white cloth. I had to step off the road to let them pass. Nobody told me to. It was just

Irabella~I didn't cry, but I didn't sleep either.I packed one bag. Two shirts, a pair of boots, the small folding knife I'd hidden under my mattress since I was fifteen. I didn't know what exile looked like. Nobody in my family had ever survived it long enough to describe it.At dawn, the same two guards from the night before opened my door without knocking."Time," one of them said.I walked between them down the stairs, out the front door, across the frost-covered lawn. Nobody came to say goodbye. I didn't expect them to.We made it as far as the old stone marker at the edge of pack land, the one carved with our family crest, worn smooth from a hundred years of weather. My hand was actually touching it when I heard the horn.Three short blasts. Then a fourth, long and low.The guards froze."That's the treaty horn," the older one said.I didn't know what that meant. I found out fast. Behind us, someone was running, boots slapping against frozen ground, and it wasn't until he got c

Irabella~I told myself I wouldn't look.I sat on the edge of my bed with my hands pressed between my knees and stared at the wall. There was a crack in the paint near the corner that ran up toward the ceiling. I had traced it with my eyes a thousand times. I traced it again.Nobody had knocked on my door all morning except my mother, once, to tell me to stay inside and keep quiet. She hadn't opened it. She had said it to the wood and walked away. I heard her heels on the hallway floor going back down, quick and light.Tires crunched on the gravel outside. Doors shut, one, two, three. A man cleared his throat, and my father's voice answered, too warm.Downstairs, the front door opened. My mother's laugh came up through the floor, the one she kept for company. Then my father's voice, loud and proud.Then another voice. Low. Even.My wolf lifted her head."No," I said under my breath. "Stay down."She didn't. She pushed against my ribs until I was on my feet, and I couldn't have told an

Irabella~ I watched my twin sister try on my wedding dress. White lace. Delicate beading. The dress I'd dreamed about since I was twelve, back when I still believed in fairy tales and happy endings. Isabella twirled in front of the mirror, her pale face glowing with something I hadn't seen in years. Health. Happiness. Victory. "It fits perfectly," Mom said, adjusting the veil. "Like it was made for you." It was made for me. My measurements. My deposit. My mate. But nobody cared about that. "Irabella, stop lurking in the doorway." Dad didn't even look at me. "Come help your sister." I stepped into the room. My wolf clawed inside my chest, begging me to run. To fight. To do anything except stand here and watch this happen. "The Alpha arrives in two hours," Mom said, smoothing Isabella's hair. "We need to make sure everything is perfect. Isabella, you remember what to say when he arrives?" "I'll tell him I'm his mate." Isabella's voice was soft, practiced. Innocent. "That I've