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014 | FROSTBITTEN
Our dinner had long since gone cold on the table.
I’d forgotten about it, swept up in the excitement of seeing a new part of Ares’s territory. More than that, I’d wanted to go somewhere that meant something to him. I wrinkled my nose at the idea now, my face hidden by shadow as he lit a fire in the hearth.
My heart was a frostbitten thing. The fire took, crackling and sending heat spilling into the room, but even it could not thaw my heart.
He lit the torches hanging from the walls in silence. I’d started to think of our altercation as an argument, but it had been nothing of the sort. It was worse: a dreadful acceptance of the fact that, no matter the mate bond holding us together, we could never work as a couple. The hope I’d felt earlier dissolved into ash, suffocating my heart even as the mate bond gripped it tighter, pressing me to apologise when I had done nothing wrong.
We were from different worlds, and there was no way to bridge th
Bab terkait
Alpha Ares 015 | BAD MOON RISING
Even though Ares did not know exactly where the body was, and Cendres and Nazte both did, he assumed the lead as we marched across Winterpaw’s territory. I had tried to keep pace with him, but Nazte had tripped me more than once and, somehow, I’d ended up at the back of the pack. I glared at all three of their backs; I would have folded my arms haughtily, too, but I needed them to balance as we slipped and skidded across the compacted snow. Maybe I should have simply been grateful that I had been included, but the slight in forcing a Young Luna behind a Beta and Gamma was something even I turned my nose up at. One day, I vowed to myself, stomping through a patch of deep, powdery snow that had spilled onto the slick pathway we followed, I would get Nazte back. I did not know when or how – I just promised myself that I would. “Should she be here?” Nazte muttered, too loud for it to have been a coincidence that I’d heard him. “Yes,”
Alpha Ares 016 | HATRED AND DESIRE
The snow, which rose in mounds around the training grounds, glittered in the morning sun. It was splashed in hues of brilliant, resplendent red, dark as blood upon the pallid landscape. It had been the same all week: every fragment of beauty I saw became a portrait of horrors. Even the novelty of seeing in colour could not bring my thoughts from the dark mire they had tumbled headfirst into. I pulled back, sliding my booted foot across a patch of ice and feeling the bite of dawn air slicing at my midriff. I shivered, losing focus for half a second and giving my opponent an opening to swipe at me. The brown wolf lunged, baring its teeth at me; I skidded on the ice and slipped, managing to catch myself at the last second due to luck alone. The wolf – a woman called Valeria that I often ended up practicing against, simply because she was one of the few Winterpaw werewolves amicable enough towards me to fight me without biting my head off, literally – drop
Alpha Ares 017 | PLAN OF ATTACK
I was falling for Ares.I knew it now, for he resided in every fibre of my being. I woke and I thought first of him, where once I would have thought of my pack and of my duty to them. I fell asleep with my legs tangled through his, heat radiating from his chest and the steady beat of his heart lulling me into dreams that were, almost always, about him.I felt like a love-struck teenager: the sort that got giddy over penning their initials and his in a little heart down the sides of their parchment in lessons and linking their hands together beneath the table, imaging their fingers were his and squeezing. That was so far from the person I had been for the last twenty years of my life that I found it hard to look in the mirror each morning, because the flush to my cheeks and the glazed, dreamy look in my usually sharp green eyes did not belong to me.Even as we sat in a council meeting, in a dimly lit room deep inside the cavernous mountain, I could not tear
Alpha Ares 018 | YOUNG LUNA
I pressed my paws into the snow, feeling its sharp bite even through my thick brown fur. Snowflakes swirled through the air, dusting my coat with white and sending shivers rolling through me.I was envious of the Warrior Wolves behind us – they were pressed so tightly together, holding the line that marked the edge of Winterpaw’s territory, that they must have been warm from the flush of body heat. I’d been forced to the front with Cendres and Nazte. The one small saving grace was that Hanna and Hans Pewer were marching around the Warrior Wolves, ensuring they were in the correct formation, so I was saved from their torturous company at least.I wrinkled my nose, flicking my gaze over to Nazte’s huge white wolf form. One of his paws looked like it had been dunked in chocolate and sprinkled with icing sugar from the snow. He stood completely still, his icy blue eyes fixed on the horizon as we awaited the arrival of the Bloodpelt Prowler Pack. The
Alpha Ares 019 | THE BLOODPELT PROWLER PACK
Everything around me was colour, bright and bold and wholly overwhelming. I swerved and darted between wolves, unsure which ones I was meant to be fighting and which ones I was meant to be defending. I didn’t know Winterpaw like I did Blue Moon; I couldn’t pick out a member of my new pack in their coloured forms, let alone the greyscale I was more used to.Blue Moon ran in my blood. It was built deep into my bones. Even if I’d wanted to be part of Winterpaw Warrior, it could never compete with that.Two wolves knocked into me at once. I growled, low and rumbling in my throat, yanking myself upright and twisting around to tear into them. They were smaller than me, but one ripped into my hind leg and another clawed my shoulder. I hung back, pretending to be more hurt than I was; they wasted a half-second glancing at each other, and then I struck.I leapt at the first one, snapping my jaws around its neck. I winced as blood hissed from the w
Alpha Ares 020 | BROKEN PROMISES
If I opened my eyes, I would wake up. Some subconscious part of me already knew that – and it held my eyelids closed, keeping me hostage in the dark. I considered fighting it, but traces of pain and blood and betrayal broke through my memories and forced their way into my present mind. I winced against the onslaught, against the feel of having bones and flesh that throbbed and ached, against the abject horror of knowing I was doomed, and that was enough to throw me back into my body. I didn’t know how I was alive, but I forced my eyes open to face whatever awaited me. I expected to awake to more pain, to the bite of snow beneath me and a blizzard in the air, to be utterly unable to escape the numbing cold and the red-hot agony – But there was nothing. Just silence, broken only by the pops and cracks of the fire in the hearth. I frowned at it: a large, stone monstrosity set into the wall at the foot of the bed. I did not recognise this room,
Alpha Ares 021 | HEARTLESS
I frowned down at the letter I’d written. My parents needed to know everything I did – from the fake attack by Bloodpelt Prowler, to the Warrior Wolf we’d found dead, to the conversation Ares had had while I’d been half unconscious. I’d worried over it being read by someone from Winterpaw – they didn’t trust me any more than I trusted them, after all – but the information was too important. I had to take that risk.With one final glance at it and an emphatic sigh, I sealed it with wax and took it to be posted. Winterpaw used carrier pigeons to deliver their post for the most part, and dedicated scouts carried packages and any urgent letters. I didn’t trust the pigeon so, as I tied my letter to its leg, so I gave it a sharp glare.I leant against the freezing stone wall, watching the bird disappear into the endless white sky. It seemed like it would be impossible for it to be intercepted now, but I kept my gaze
Alpha Ares 022 | THE GREAT ESCAPE
Screw that. Sorry, Ares, I thought, but you aren’t coming with me. I had to warn my parents – that letter tied to a dithering pigeon wasn’t enough. Besides, who knew what he’d do to me when we were alone and away from his territory? Here, I was somewhat protected by the truce, even if it was a load of nonsense. If I died here, Blue Moon had every right to attack Winterpaw. Ares might have been an idiot, but even he wasn’t that stupid. That had to be why he’d concocted the ridiculous scheme of getting his allies to attack me. His back was covered if Bloodpelt had done the deed. So I waited for him to fall asleep and then I snuck out. I grabbed the bag I’d packed earlier, sitting innocently next to Ares’s, and shoved on my cloak. I held my boots until I’d slipped out of the door, wanting my footsteps to be as quiet as possible. But the stone was so cold that, even with my thick woollen socks, I had to step into my boots within a few feet
Bab terbaru
- Alpha Ares 141 | EPILOGUE
- Alpha Ares 140 | COME TOGETHER
- Alpha Ares 139 | KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
- Alpha Ares 138 | SURRENDER AND SACRIFICE
- Alpha Ares 137 | BATTLE OF THE MOUNTAIN
- Alpha Ares 136 | THE END OF US
- Alpha Ares 135 | BE AMONGST THE STARS
- Alpha Ares 134 | HAUNTED
- Alpha Ares 133 | ON THE WINGS OF FATE
