LOGINSIXPENELOPE The instant silence following my comment was lethal in a legendary way."No?" I nodded.He chuckled softly maybe cause he probably thought I was just pulling his legs."Come on Penelope, say yes, the crowd is watching. No time for pranks."His smile irritated me.Disgusting cheat.My eyes scanned him once, twice."No," I said again, shaking my head.His smile stayed on his face.But the look in his eyes swiftly changed."You're joking right?" He tried to laugh my answer off with raised brows.I shook my head."No, I am not."My voice was firm, unmistakably serious so he didn't get the wrong idea at all.His eyes grew wide."Penelope—""Don't," I cut him off. "Don't say my name."I turned away from him to face the room so that everyone could hear me clearly. "I will not be getting married to Duke Salvatore anymore, and I will not be merging my pack with his."Someone gasped in the crowd."She's rejecting the proposal?!" Another person chipped in from somewhere.The came
FIVE PENELOPE One moment I was plummeting straight into the horrid darkness below. The next moment I was being pulled up by an invisible force towards a bright light. I gasped as I came to life, sitting afore my makeup table in a pearly white robe. My heart was beating loudly with force as if it wanted to escape from my chest. I pressed my hand down on it to keep it steady and in place as my brain lagged. Quite a while passed as I stayed still trying to understand what happened to me. My breathing was ragged as I stared at my own horrified face in the mirror. No bullet wounds on my forehead where the gun had delivered it from before. Shock widened my eyes. My hand reached up to grasp at the spot more in disbelief than concern. How on earth was I here, back at my home from the warehouse, afore the mirror? What was this? Astral travels? What happened to the gun shot to my head? I had clearly felt it then. The bullet had shaken my entire body and my eyes had closed in fina
FOUR PENELOPE A few minutes after they caught me, they knocked me out cold with a palm to the neck. When I had roused in the boot of a moving car, my wrists were tied tightly behind me. I kept twisting my hands anyway. Not because I thought it would work, but because staying still felt like giving up. But the knot was tough and tight and made the ropes bite deep into my flesh. The warehouse they brought me to smelled like rusting iron and old rotting corpses. I was trembling visibly when they pushed me down onto a wooden chair. There were five of them now and I could tell because I wasn't blindfolded. "Alpha Crest asked us to start the process before anything goes wrong." "Hopefully Salvatore replies fast and cooperates so we can get the hell out of here sooner than later," another said. It was the two from the parking lot and a third one who seemed to be in charge. The one who seemed to be in charge crouched down to my eye level. "Your husband is your lord and personal
THREE PENELOPE It was almost eight o'clock by the clock on the dashboard when I finally lifted my head.I realized that I had been sitting in my car in that parking lot for several hours. My eyes were dry now because there was nothing left in them to shed. I started the car without knowing where I was going and I just drove out.I stopped at a small pharmacy on the edge of town to pick up the prescription I had been ignoring for about a week now. Any distraction would be welcome now for me before I drowned in sorrow.I was inside for maybe ten minutes. Somehow, I dragged around dreading going back home to see Duke sitting there.When I came back out, the parking lot was darker than I had remembered.Two of the overhead lights had gone out while I had been picking my prescription.Also, for some reason, it was odd that there were no other cars near mine anymore.But I was too caught up in my own world to pay attention to my gut feeling.Too drained to make sense of everything tha
TWO PENELOPE The hours flew by in the time I hung around thinking of what exactly to do.Left to me, I would have pretended I didn't see the damn message and move on.But not Petra.Not my wolf.She was livid inside of me, screaming and pleading to be let out of me.Petra couldn't believe that our mate could do something like this to us.She wouldn't let me sit still and I ended up outside with my car keys in my hand.I drove too fast the whole way there with both of my hands unsteady on the wheel.But my mind was somewhere else.My brain was busy with running over words to bring this up to Duke and then throwing them out just to start again. I did not turn on the radio. I did not need sound. I needed to think in the silence.Composure was far from me by the time I pulled into the parking lot of his office.Even with that, I had already decided that I was going to be calm no matter what. I couldn't let Duke rile me.I was going to walk into his office, show him the phone, and le
ONE PENELOPE "When exactly are you going to give birth to a child, Penelope?" My chest tightened. I turned away from the stove to take a look at my husband, Duke. He pushed his breakfast plate away from him with disgust on his face. “Didn't you hear me?” He demanded after a soft tsk sound. I said nothing. Only watching him. He had that look on his face. The one where his eyes were somewhere far away instead of right there. One that had nothing to do with me. I took a deep breath. "Duke, I thought we have been through this already?" I asked quietly. He leaned back in his chair. "Have we?" He asked. I watched as he curled his brows. "Haven't we?" I inquired. "You tell me Penelope," he added. His arms folded across his chest. I swallowed in preparation for exactly what I knew would follow next. "Nothing has changed, Penelope. It's been two years—two years and still nothing." I set down the spatula. "I am trying, Duke," I started to say in a shaky voice. "You know







