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055 | HAILE AND ARES
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Alpha Ares 056 | A PIT OF VIPERS
“Are you sure about this?” I asked, picking at a flap of skin beneath my cuticle. Ares stood in the doorway, his figure shadowed by the darkness of the cavernous hallway beyond.The arrangements had been made. Ares was to go to the Greyhide Canyon Pack to discuss their alliance – alone. He nodded tightly, a muscle feathering in his temple. “I am. You know why you can’t come, don’t you?”I rolled my eyes at him and crossed my arms. The bulk of my multiple jumpers made it less sassy than I would have liked. “Because you can’t take me if you want their Alpha to believe you’re working on a way to break the truce,” I said, my voice flat as I repeated his words verbatim. “But, in truth,” I added, arching an eyebrow at him, “it’s because you don’t want me to risk going out in the snow. Even though the storm stopped over a week ago.”He shrugged, a small smirk pushing at his lips. “Yeah, you’re right on both counts.” Then he sighed, the air puffing out of him. “I don’t want to go without you
Alpha Ares 057 | MOUNTAINTOP
It was hard to keep my voice from shaking as I asked, “How are you, Nazte?”He smiled, and the slow stretch of the skin around his mouth made me shudder. I stepped inside, and every inch of me ached to step right back out again. There was nothing wrong with his room – in fact, it looked almost identical to Ares’s room, with its distant window, gnarled wooden dining table, and its crooked double bed – though its sheets were neat, primly tucked and pristine, whereas Ares’s were rumpled more often than not. Maybe that was it – the neatness of the space was putting me on edge. Even though I now knew he shared this room with Cendres, who was one of the messiest people I’d ever met, everything was organised. Yeah, that was what it was. It absolutely had nothing to do with the six-foot-four man stood in front of me, his bright blue eyes gleaming in the pale light of the cavernous room, his smile set in such a way that it looked forced. I tensed my muscles, holding back a shudder.Nazte bru
Alpha Ares 058 | AS IT WAS
I knew what he meant. I knew, and yet I still asked, “What do you mean?” Because I didn’t want to believe it. I’d started to hope that Nazte and I could one day be friends. If I believed this, if I let it sink in, then that hope was not merely gone – it was dead, ripped to shreds by the conniving Beta wolf wearing the same smirk he had when we’d first met. When he’d first tried to kill me.I refused to shudder. I refused to look weak. I refused to do anything but eye him warily, holding my ground, holding his gaze. His smirk became a lolling, wolfish grin. “You aren’t stupid, Haile. I’ve seen you play at it – pretending to be lost, pretending not to understand. But then you say things that no idiot ever could. No Young Luna is dense, and you certainly aren’t. You know what I mean; do not belittle yourself by pretending otherwise.”Ouch. I jutted out my chin, determined not to let him fell me. “What do you want with me?” I asked instead. He huffed out a humourless laugh, his upper
Alpha Ares 059 | GRAVEL AND HONEY
Blind panic consumed me. I barely felt the bite of the cold as I ran, my body nothing more than muscle and sinew and tendon, each working with the next as I coiled and sprung, coiled and sprung, slipped and skidded across the Winterpaw Warrior Pack’s frozen territory.My wounds closed up as I ran, but there was a rush of dizziness from the blood loss that slowed my pace every few hundred yards or so. I did not dare look back for fear that Nazte would be at my tail, his teeth gleaming with my blood.There was one thought, one name, at the heart of my pounding blood and straining muscles. Thinking it made the panic flare brighter, so I tried to think of nothing as I ran. I pictured him instead, the wolf I had first seen in my dream, all those long months ago. Black, with a white crescent on his forehead. The smell of cedar and woodsmoke, earthy and warm amidst the barren landscape of snow and ice and rock. His voice – that low, warm growl, the one that made my insides heat and squirm. G
Alpha Ares 060 | A BOY AND A MAN
And then a wolf leapt at me.It was a blur of pale fur against the snow, crouching low, well beneath my eye line. Before I could move to help the boy, a head butted into my chest and I was sent stumbling backwards.I snarled; without thinking I dove back into the fray, knocking the pale wolf to its knees and taking a chunk out of its neck. It bared its teeth at me, but I couldn’t look past the dark patch on its neck.Dark, like a slick oil spill. Dark, but not red. In the dusk-light everything was painted in shades of grey, and I was overwhelmed with panic for a split second that Ares was gone. That I was cursed to see the world in black and white again. That the colour in my life had faded, torn from me along with my heart.But the sky was purple, and Ares was growling as he slashed at the two wolves circling him, and I had lost precious time to my worry.The pale wolf took its chance, snapping its teeth and clipping my ear. I spun, disorientated, and it grabbed my throat between its
Alpha Ares 061 | RACE AGAINST TIME
“Ares?” Panic made my throat tight. I grabbed at his shoulders, trying to pull him upright. “Ares? Ares, wake up!”The man snorted at me. “He’s fine.”I rounded on him. “He doesn’t look fine to me!”“Some Alpha.” A smirk pulled at his lips. “Can’t even take on two wolves.”He did that for me, I thought, his words hammering against my skull. He threatened you. I had to give in.I staggered back to Ares’s side. The man was not worth my attention. Not now. I hauled Ares upright, checked his pulse, checked his breathing; all the while the man mocked me, his laughter tart and cruel. My bones felt hollow, empty, as I made sure Ares was all right, as though the snow had wormed its way inside me. My heart was another matter – it was burning, fury and agony aflame in my chest.“Get him up,” said the man, his voice bored. Two of his wolves, his friends, were dead, and he sounded bored? I bit back a shudder and stared at Ares, begging him to wake up with gentle touches and silent, screaming wor
Alpha Ares 062 | THE GREYHIDE CANYON PACK
Ares and I were left alone after the Medic had checked him over. I’d felt numb throughout, staring blankly at the deep, oozing marks slicing down Ares’s chest. He was yet to wake, and I was helpless to do anything but wait by his side until he did.I’d tried the door six times. I knew it was locked. It didn’t stop me from getting up and trying it a seventh. We were only here because Ares needed to rest and heal, but I didn't like feeling trapped regardless.With a sigh, I slumped back onto the end of his bed. I curled my legs beneath me; I’d heard young wolves in Blue Moon call it sitting “criss-cross apple sauce,” and remembering that faint sound, of girlish laughter and high-pitched voices, made me smile. It faded as I looked around the room, re-assessing it for the hundredth time since we’d been brought here.There wasn’t much to look at. Redwood planks made up the walls, and a few makeshift cots unfurled down the length of one. Only one bed had a frame – the one Ares had been plac
Alpha Ares 063 | ALPHA BLARE
Alpha Blare stepped forwards. Without greeting us, he worked his way around the sconces, lighting the torches in the room. Only then did he step back, and at last I could make something from the shapes of his face.I had never seen Alpha Blare before, save for on the battlefield in his wolf form. My parents had always dealt with him whenever the need arose, although the last occurrence had been years prior. Mostly, they communicated through letters.His appearance was of no great shock to me, though. Like most of the wolves inhabiting the eastern stretch of Erandos, he was pale in both skin and hair, which was long, draping down well below his shoulders; but his eyes were brown – a rare sight amongst the snow. His face looked unaccustomed to smiling, drawn from harsh lines that did not soften, not even as he looked upon Ares’s crumpled body in the bed. It aged him; I knew from my parents and my ravenous study of the packs of Erandos, the ones I had thought I would one day have to know
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