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039 | BRUISED SOUL
What I had to do made me sick to my stomach.
But it needed to be done.
I took a deep breath, forcing it to calm my racing nerves. The mate bond urged me onwards, desperate to close the chasm that stretched between Ares and I. For once, my logical mind and my stupid heart agreed on what I had to do.
I needed to get Ares to trust me – so that I could kill him.
After this morning, and my close call in the tunnels, I knew what I’d have to do to get him to even look at me would make me want to vomit. Even so, my heart pounded at the thought of seeing him again, up close, close enough to touch…
Damn it. I ground my teeth together and knocked on the door.
“Come in.” Stars, his voice like that – honey and gravel and entirely edible – made my core heat. I bit my lip, swallowed my pride, and pushed the door open.
Ares was reclined on the bed. Evening sunlight swept across his featu
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I did not see Ares for over a week.I slept in the guest chamber I had first been put in, with no window and only a lumpy mattress. It was not worthy of a Young Luna, but perhaps I was not worthy of that title anymore.I could have just kissed him. I should have.I’d not even managed to write to my parents. My failure, compounded with the endless muffled screams that writhed constantly in the back of my mind, had sent me spiralling. I sat in the darkness of the cave-like room and thought of half-baked plots and plans, none of which would work without me either gaining Ares’s trust or me starting a full-blown war between our packs all over again.I didn’t know how many times I’d considered walking up to him and clawing his head off, but I’d never once moved so much as a toe to actually get up and do it.My parents’ plan made sense. We would be away from Winterpaw, with no witnesses to lay the blame
Alpha Ares 041 | EYE OF THE STORM
I stormed back out into the dining room, my eyes narrowed as I hunted out Ares’s smug, arrogant, despicable… Handsome, muscular body. Damn it.Of course he wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t. He just had to make everything difficuclt, didn’t he? Seething with rage, I glared at anyone who dared come near me and stomped out into the hallway. He couldn’t have gone far.I squeezed my hands into fists. I wanted to shift into my wolf form – so intense was the anger burning through my veins – but that would achieve nothing. My nails bit into the soft skin of my palms. I focused on the tiny spark of pain – and looked down to see red crescents making the soft flesh.I had to get a grip.Okay, I thought, cramming my temper down. It smouldered, a fire waiting to be stoked again, but it was quiet enough that I could see past the red haze edging my vision. It was Sunday tod
Alpha Ares 042 | PHOENIX
I kissed him.We came together in a clash of teeth and tongues. The anger we both felt guided us together, pushed on by the mate bond.And stars – it was heated and rough, and his teeth dug into my bottom lip, and I drove my fingernails into his shoulders. I groaned into his open mouth, moving one hand to pull at the soft, curling hair at the nape of his neck.“Stars,” he growled. “You make me crazy, beautiful.”I snarled. “You are crazy.” I clawed at him with wild abandon, the wolf in my soul urging me on. “I hate you so damned much, Ares.”He laughed against my lips. The sound made my heart swell, and my mouth parted for him. He spoke into me: “Then why are you kissing me like that?”I tightened my hand on his hair, yanking his head back. I moved down his neck, biting and sucking at his hard jawline, leaving red marks to bloom into bruises. There was nothing gentle
Alpha Ares 043 | A SURVIVOR
I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, how easy it was to forget about everything important when I was wrapped in Ares’s arms. Even as I brushed my fingers over his bare chest and saw bruises blooming where I had gripped him, and fingernail marks beaded with blood, I did not remember the reasons why I had been angry. My soul came alight at his touch, and damn it – I’d had a hard week.I could even forget my responsibilities to my pack, if only for a short while. They would hit twice as hard when I came out of my mate bond induced stupor, but as Ares and I lost ourselves in one another’s bodies I frankly did not care about anything beyond the reaches of his bed.But after, when it all came crashing down, the guilt was ravenous. It ate away at my insides, leaving me hollow as we dressed ourselves. This wasn’t a conversation we could have in a lover’s embrace. I wouldn’t be able to focus if we did.“Tell me about the attacks,” I said, sitting down at the little dinner table. “You told
Alpha Ares 044 | AGAINST THE TIDE
Dearest Haile,I am afraid I do not write to you with good news or well wishes…I choked back a sob as I read the now-familiar words for the hundredth time. I let my anguish burn up inside of me, becoming anger instead. Anger, I thought, was always more productive than sadness.Suspicion, thick and tart at the back of my throat, helped to calm me. Why had Ares had my letter? There was one way to find out for sure – and it would aid me no matter what.“I need to go home,” I said flatly, pressing my palms down on the table. If this was another ploy on Ares’s part, then he would surely refuse, because Damon would not really be dead – “Then let’s go.”Hope fizzled out in my chest. How messed up was that? I wanted Ares to be scheming, if it meant that Damon hadn’t really been killed. But the writing had been in my mum’s familiar hand, and he had agreed easily…“Ares?”“Yeah?”“Why did you have the letter? Why wasn’t it delivered to me?”He frowned, like he hadn’t considered that himself.
Alpha Ares 045 | GREY AND WHITE
The wolf stalked us, darting from tree to tree, using snow banks to hide as it got closer. I kept my eyes focused on Ares’s slack face, not wanting to give away that I had seen it until I attacked.Next to nobody had known we were going to be travelling, let alone on this particular route. Ares had barked at Nazte that he was in charge while we were gone, and I had to assume that, as his mate, Cendres knew too. Was this wolf, of average height and average build, the same one that had killed Ares’s wolves? Was it the same one that had killed Damon?Wake up, Ares, I thought, staring at his face and begging him to somehow hear me. My parents could mindlink through their mate bond, as could Etta and Damon – the sting of pain at thinking of them, of Etta, was like a whip’s lash upon my bare back – but Ares and I had never been able to. I had even heard tales of some mates being able to feel each other’s emotions when they were close, but we couldn’t do that, either. I thought it and I th
Alpha Ares 046 | CALLED BY POWER
The cart swayed beneath us, its wheels grinding through the snow. Ares steadied me, his hands gentle as they daubed honey onto the bite marks marring my shoulder.“You’re good at this,” I said awkwardly, needing to fill the silence. Otherwise, stupid thoughts about how stark the contrast between his huge, muscular body and the soft, almost reverent way he bound my wound would fill my mind. “I have to be.”“Oh.”“Yeah.”My throat worked on a swallow. I made the mistake of looking down, and I saw the taut muscles in his forearms flexing as he swept honey down the length of the abrasions. My core tightened.His eyebrows pinched together. “Does it sting?”“No, not really.”He smiled. “Liar.”I rolled my eyes. “Only a little. Not enough that I’d complain.” In fact, compared to the heat of my blood and the pulsing at the apex of my thighs, I couldn’t feel the bite at all. There was only Ares, only his touch, his gaze…Gah. No.I glanced over at the grey wolf instead, slumped across the be
Alpha Ares 047 | SALT IN THE WOUND
I’d never thought coming home would fill me with dread. But, as the cart pulled in alongside the Pack House, my stomach tied itself in knots and my heart beat out a staccato rhythm in my chest. Everything around me blurred into a haze of sunlight and colour, and even as my parents rushed out to greet us I felt like I was watching my own body interact with them from a distance.The warmth of their hugs was even separate from me, as though there was a thick layer of air between their skin and mine. I blinked slowly at my face-full of my dad’s black, curly hair and Mum’s dark brown braid, and slowly eased back out of their embrace.“How is she?” I heard myself asking, my eyes darting through the blur in the hopes that I would be able to pick out Etta’s familiar face and red-brown hair.“Haile…” my dad breathed, his crinkled brown eyes drooping sadly as he pulled me in tight again. He whispered in my ear, “Etta isn’t doing well, sweetheart. I think seeing you will do her some good.”I nod
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