VioletI should’ve realized something was wrong when that afternoon Sylvia’s driver wasn’t waiting at the pick-up area.Half an hour I stood there watching as students piled into cars worth more than the houses in my old pack. When I heard the curly-haired football player Kota mention something about a half a million-dollar sports car to a couple of his buddies, I nearly toppled over.Only when the students and staff dwindled into nothingness and the middle-aged crossing guard began to flash me glances of sympathy, I decided walking might be my only option.“Did your ride ditch you or something?” A disgruntled but very much feminine voice asked. When I turned around and saw that the owner of that voice belonged to Olive Chen, I wasn’t sure how to reply. Her slender lips, which were painted a deep shade of plum, twisted into a sour pout at my silence. “Oh, you’re too good for me now that you’ve spent a single lunch with Holden Cartier?”“I—no, of course not.” I interjected, smoothing o
VioletOther than that one time after school, there wasn’t another confrontation between Hael and me. Even Mykelle seemed content with ignoring my presence for those last two days, which I hadn’t minded in the slightest.I took that time to listen to every rumor floating around, to watch the two of them even when I knew I shouldn’t.It was frightening, the things the students and staff said about Alpha Xavier’s eldest son. The scarred Prince, the head of the untouchables. I hadn’t seen a single scar on his body, yet every single time I heard his nickname mentioned, it was always paired with that infuriating word.When I heard about his and Mykelle’s odd relationship, it hurt more than I anticipated—much, much more. Pain crackled across my chest, scalding my nerve endings much like I thought a blast of lightning would. I had known from watching the two of them that they were more than just friends, but fuckbuddies weren’t what I had in mind.Sure, she hovered at his side like the other
Hael“Aw, come on! You can’t be serious. What kind of right hook was that?” Cole groaned dramatically, flattening his hands against his face. Peeking through his fingers, he muttered listlessly. “Can’t believe they penalized you for that…wasn’t even your fault.”“Wolfsbane does wonders to the body.” I said dryly, glaring daggers at the fucker on the television that cost me last weeks fight.I knew he’d been tweaking the second he stepped into the ring, but I’d been too amped up to give a shit and chose to pummel him anyway. Turns out the guy had a mild form of the rogue gene, so his enhanced strength and speed were admirable but ultimately paled in comparison to the ‘superior genetic make up of an Original Wolf descendant’, spoken directly from the mouth of my father.“It does, doesn’t it? Too bad the high feels like shit. Can’t stand waking up with that foul taste in my mouth.” Cole grimaced, but the sour expression lasted a second before he let out a deafening howl and cheered my vi
HaelShe was so soft, so achingly soft that it caught me off guard for a moment.The pale skin of her throat felt like velvet against my hands, like redemption and retribution for the instruments of death I’d used more times than I could count. They were the same ones I used now, the same ones throbbing in tune with the pulse in her neck, sapping the life from her trembling form.It was a fitting end for her, backed against the wall with nothing but my chest to claw at as I watched the oxygen seep from her lungs. The dress she wore, like sin draped over perfect fucking curves that would’ve had me frothing at the mouth if they didn’t belong to her.I expected her to beg, I fucking wanted it.People were predictable to the point where it didn’t matter what morals a man might have. When someone stronger than them sauntered in the room, snatching up the weakest morsel to take and take and take. What did they do? They turned their heads, they reveled in their insignificant lives hoping tha
Violet“He almost killed you?” Olive deadpanned; her dark-lined lips pressed in a thin line.I stopped my pacing to give her a look, and quickly hid my trembling hands behind my back. “Yes, but he didn’t want to…at least, I don’t think he did.”It had taken the better half of an hour and a triple dosage of my anxiety medication to keep me from spiraling into the bottomless pit that had claimed me those years ago. Even then, the more I thought about my throat constricting and my lungs crying out for oxygen, the hazier my vision became.“If he didn’t want to, then why did he do it?” She questioned, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as she watched me walk laps around the suite.Talking to Olive, it was all that kept me grounded.I said nothing about the name I heard Mykelle utter, even though it struck no chord of familiarity within the patchy holes of my memory. Arianna, she had called her. Was she a girlfriend of Haels? A childhood friend?Owe her? You let her get raped, Hael. T
VioletWhat surprised me more than Olive’s downright enthusiastic approval of my plan, was the fact that she stayed the night to go over every single one of the miniscule details that could lead to us getting caught.I’d expected this to be a plan of my own making, one she followed through on solely because she was able to see her estranged older brother.It was her fascination with my job at Jeb’s that she spoke about the most. I was still on the fence about telling her my biggest secret—well, second biggest now that I knew who my mate was. She just about knocked me off my feet with her reaction. I’d been expecting the jaw dropping laughter, but not the serious look that crossed her face as she said, “…this is a big deal for you, isn’t it?”“No one knows about this, and it has to stay that way.” I pleaded, not caring if it made me sound whiny or pathetic. “I don’t have many secrets…like at all, but this is one of them.”“Believe me, I know a thing or two about secrets.” Olive respond
VioletI refused to look his way, even if his stare was a mixture between a soft caress and a brutal shove. Hael kept his distance for the time being, opting to glower at me from across the room like I was the one who choked him out.There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his existence.You’d think he’d be grateful I kept the charade between him and Mykelle a secret considering he’d been nothing but a nightmare since we first met. Not only did he shatter the fairytale every she-wolf envisioned when they finally felt the bond snap into place, but he couldn’t even do me the favor of rejecting me himself.‘Maybe we should reconsider spilling his secret.’ Lacey muttered, still enraged from the incident in the dressing room.Our last day of high school had been her worst nightmare. She hadn’t been able to protect me, no matter how hard she tried. Being choked by Hael in the dressing room of some snooty boutique, it hit far too close to home for Lacey.
VioletOne look at the vacant and shattered expression on her face and I knew something terrible had happened here and might’ve happened many times before this.“What—”“Don’t, Violet.” Olive barked, and just like that the broken expression vanished, replaced by her usual hostile mask.I stared at her, the tray of food in my hands forgotten. “Don’t what, Olive?” I bit back.She stood from the couch in a hurry, smoothing out her dress with shaky hands while using the cashmere scarf she’d been wearing to wipe away the eyeliner that drizzled down her cheeks. She looked younger and much more vulnerable without the heavy eye make-up surrounding them.“Don’t stand there and act like you have any idea what’s going on because you don’t. Okay?”I was going out on a limb here, speaking my mind in a way that could end in utter catastrophe, but I had to give it a shot.“He raped you, didn’t he? From the looks of it he’s done it before too.” I speculated, noticing the expert way she pulled herself