Amelia’s POVI strode swiftly from the meeting room, my hands flexing at my sides. How dare he? I gave everything I could to this pack; sue me for wanting to keep a tiny little thing, like the odd shampoo bar, for myself. I could have ditched Night Wind and gone home the second we knew we weren’t coming out of winter. I hadn’t. I’d sacrificed so much for Caleb and this was how he chose to repay me?He didn’t know the full extent of what I’d given up to be here with him. Even so, he did know enough that he should’ve been in my corner today. What sort of Alpha sided against his Luna and with a thief?‘You’re hiding something from him,’ said Maeve, my wolf. ‘He might be hiding something from you, too.’I rounded the corner and jogged up the stairs, the hot flare of my temper already starting to cool. I shook my head. ‘Caleb? Hiding something? I doubt it. He’s about as secretive as a glass wall,’ I replied.Maeve grinned. ‘True. But stranger things have happened, petal.’I swept into our
Amelia’s POVTears blurred my vision as I hunched over Kieran, squeezing his hands so tight my knuckles went white. His face was pale and drawn, and I stared at it desperately, willing him to grin like an idiot and tell me he was joking, that he wasn’t really dead – He groaned, then coughed, then spluttered. His eyes rolled back in his head; he sucked in a rasping breath.“Kieran?” I whispered, leaning forward and pressing my hands to his cold cheeks. I couldn’t believe how much this hurt. Screw tearing in two – my heart was being forced through a shredder, minced into a thousand tiny pieces. It shouldn’t have been like this, though. I’d made my choice – and I hadn’t chosen him.“Ames?” He blinked up at me, squinting through puffy eyes. Recognition grew in his gaze, and he looked at me seriously. “Feel my shirt.”Worried, I ran my hands over his top. I frowned. There wasn’t a wound there. In fact, there wasn’t even any blood. Kieran cracked that idiotic grin. “Want to know what it’
Kieran’s POVI gazed across the chasm in the earth helplessly, hopelessly. My beautiful Amelia had been parted from me, torn irrevocably from my grasp.For the second time.But something about this felt worse than the awful, fateful night she’d rejected me for Alpha Caleb. A rejection was supposed to be the most permanent way to part two souls, forcing them to pine for their other half eternally. So how did this feel more permanent than that?I stumbled back from the edge, my chest heaving. I still felt woozy as a giddy goose on a turntable from my unfortunate date with the knife and the resulting bash to the head, and now the ground under my feet was trying to do me in as well. “Are you all right?” I shouted over the gorge. It wasn’t too wide – perhaps the length of my body twice over – but it was enough of a distance to terrify me. More because of what it represented that what it was.“I’m fine! Are you?”“Yeah!” I lied. No reason to make her more worried than she already was. It h
Caleb's POV Panic flared in the depths of the mate bond. I sat bolt upright, reaching for Amelia. Her side of the bed was still cold – but it wasn’t her I was worried about. The uneven beat of my heart pulled me out from under the warm covers. ‘Rhiannon?’ I mindlinked her, even though I knew I shouldn’t. She didn’t reply. Shit. Was she okay? Half mad with lack of sleep and the raw panic spilling down the mate bond, I leapt out of bed, stuck my bare feet into my shoes, and grabbed a thick coat to shove on once I was on my way. The fire had burned low in the hearth, bringing a chill to the air. Biting back a shudder, I jogged out of the bedroom and headed towards the Omega Quarters. ‘Cal? Are you awake?’ I froze at the sound of Amelia’s voice in my mind. I blinked away the haze of fear and swallowed hard, my dry lips parting on a shuddering exhale. What the fuck had I been doing? I couldn’t go running to Rhiannon in the middle of the night like some medieval knight in shining ar
Rhiannon’s POVThe breakfast shift was my favourite – once I’d dragged myself out of my cosy bed and gently tugged myself out of Stephen’s strong arms. I hated getting up early, but I loved the blush of the dawn sky as I nestled deeper into my jacket and jogged from the Omega Quarters to the pack house. I also liked that it meant my work was done by midday. So I yawned, with out-dated dreams of hot coffee filling my sleepy head, and skidded my way down the stone path. Well – where I knew the path was from memory, anyway. We’d long ago given up on shovelling the snow off it, once we realised this winter wasn’t fucking off as it should’ve. It was pretty well-trodden, so there was a layer of thick, frozen grey slush for me to slip on. Great.Mousey Marcella was hovering by the huge stove when I arrived, shaking snow from my silver hair, peeling off my gloves, and draping my coat over the stand in the hall. She was warming her hands by the fire; a single lock of pale brown hair fell forw
Rhiannon’s POVI stormed up the stairs to Alpha Caleb’s office, rage brewing like a growl of thunder in my belly. I was a hurricane made manifest; I was anger and wrath; I was– ‘Cool it, Hurricane Rhiannon.’ Tiger snorted. ‘You need to keep your head if you want to get the answers you need.’I took a moment to gather myself. ‘You’re right,’ I agreed reluctantly, slumping down on the arm of a sofa on the first floor. ‘Wow, agreeing with me on the first try? You really must be worried,’ she said, her voice light and teasing but undercut with a gentleness I recognised as the first strains of pity. I knotted my hands together and sighed. ‘I am. What if…’ I blinked back tears I hadn’t expected to cry. ‘What if Dad was the wolf who was poisoned?’‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. My breathing sounded disturbingly moist. I clenched my hands into fists and stood up. Sitting around thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere good. I needed to act. ‘Come on,’ I muttered, searching for the spark
Rhiannon’s POVI couldn’t feel a thing. My whole body turned to ice in an instant. My lungs stopped breathing; my heart stopped pumping blood. I was a statue, a creature made of cold, unfeeling stone. “He… he mentioned something to Kieran, which Amelia passed on to me, after I… after I found him.” Caleb’s throat bobbed. “I don’t know if I–”“Tell me,” I snarled, wrenching my hand away. My anger licked like fire up my stone sides, melting the ice encasing me and allowing me to move and think again. It was easy to let anger back into my hollow soul. It burned away the pain I knew was waiting for me in the cold and the dark.“It will hurt you, Rhiannon,” he rasped, looking away.“Tell me,” I said again, desperation making my tone turn reedy.He sighed, resigned, and drew me over to a sofa opposite the fire. I stared into it as he spoke. “Your father died of starvation. I found him on the path to the pack house, just after I’d sent the other wolves off to hunt.” He shivered; I felt the
Hyacinth’s POVIt was when I saw them all at breakfast, Flint, Calcus, Bella, and Holly, that I knew. Dad should be back. He should be here – but he wasn’t. Maybe Rhiannon wouldn’t want to go and try to see Alpha Caleb again, but it was the only option I had left. Dad would have told us he was going somewhere. Dad would have left a note. Dad would have –‘Your dad would never have done this,’ Dolly said with a huff. ‘Come on, queen! You march straight in there and give them what for.’I managed a small smile. ‘What for?’She nodded sagely. ‘You’ve got it!’I applied my strawberry lip balm, then popped my lips at myself in my bedroom mirror. “I’ve got this,” I said aloud, and Dolly cheered in my head. I straightened my clothes, layering pink over pink, and jogged down the stairs after tucking my short hair just-so behind my ears.Stephen poked his head out of Rhiannon’s bedroom as I was about to leave. “Hey, Cin?”My heart leapt. I spun around eagerly – too eagerly – and beamed at him