~Declan~Fucking hell. She shouldn’t have done that.I mean, fuck it! I’ve been dying to taste her lips again, but she chose the wrong moment to kiss me. Didn’t she feel it? Someone had been watching those three men from a distance, and his eyes shifted to Serena the moment she slid out of the car.It was obvious that Lia was still a high-profile shifter despite her being a rogue. Now, Serena and I are also targets for Obsidian’s men.I told her that walking out here is gonna be bad.Our kiss didn’t even last two seconds, and I already felt an ominous presence looming behind me. Then, the hard tip of a gun greeted my spine.“Tsk, tsk…” a sinister baritone murmured behind me.Serena paused, gold glowing in her eyes as we pulled apart. I shook my head, warning her to keep her cool. This is not the time to fight whoever was behind us. We are in a public place, and we don’t know what these people could do.She sighed, irritated that she needed to follow my lead. I can deal with her pout;
~Serena~If I didn’t know Lia by heart, I wouldn’t even recognize her as the three men in jeans and shirt walk her out of the apartment. Those three men looked like they were on a morning stroll, but I knew trouble when I saw one. Their eyes were scanning left to right now and then, assessing every person that passed by them, looking for a threat. Their hands are stiff, ready to pull out the gun tucked in the waistbands of their jeans and shoot any danger on the spot. These men are no ordinary people.Lia’s red hair was now blonde, the disheveled ends sticking out of her gray beanie, an odd piece of clothing in this humid and slick weather. She walked like a clothes hanger in her oversized hoodie and baggy jeans. The finesse and attitude that she was known for growing up were replaced by a gloom and solace. Surrounded by three bulky men as if she were a prisoner who needed guarding, she walked with her chin tucked on her neck. Her strides were slow and calculated. An image of the you
~Serena~Fallon City was just your any regular city when you see it through the eyes of a human. It has skyscraper buildings, heavily congested roads, packed streets, and at night, these streets become the playground for cut-throat souls. Technically, this is not the safest city to be strolling in as night falls.But Declan and I knew better. This city is crawling with rogues. Rogues that managed to make a pack of their own, using humans as their puppets.Declan and I are safe inside this vehicle. It was nearly sundown, and we still had time to find Lia’s place, or whatever she is doing here right now. Five years is a long time to change me. I don’t expect anything less from Lia. It’s like we had the same destiny, after all. Exiled from the pack by Alpha Declan Mitchell.“Our target location should be right around the corner,” I inform Declan after checking the map on my phone.“Have you been here before?” Declan asked.“No,” I said. “This is actually my first time here, but I heard a
~Serena~Lia…Is it really true that she lied to me? We were friends, almost like sisters, but I guess everyone from Declan’s pack couldn’t be trusted back then. Their alpha hated me and my family, and Lia’s loyalty to Oliver must have been stronger than our friendship.We will know the truth soon enough. I am not the naïve Serena that she betrayed five years ago. Backing me up is five years of hatred, pain, and suffering.Declan, sitting behind the wheel, had been eerily silent since we left Nurse Kerri’s place. His silence was deafening. The purr of the engine and hum of the air conditioning were the only tune inside the car. Even our mate bond was eerie.“What’s on your mind?” I couldn’t take the silence lingering over us anymore.“Lia is like a sister to me,” he murmured. Even his voice was tipping on the edge of uncertainty and hesitation. “She is very important to you,” I said with a bitter taste coasting in my mouth. This could be the mate bond, but just the thought of Declan
~Serena~Maybe I should tell Declan that there is a huge difference between the sentence, ‘I know where to find her,’ and ‘I know how to find her.’In my understanding, he knew where Lia was when, in fact, he knew a witch who could find Lia, and that witch was Nurse Kerri.Seeing Nurse Kerri outside her work at Fallenmist was a breath of fresh air. Instead of the uptight woman in a black-and-white uniform, Nurse Kerri was in a spaghetti-strapped, dark blue polka dot dress, secured with a little ribbon on her side. She greeted us with a warm smile when she opened her apartment door. She lives outside the pack but is still in the city of Brille. Her house was one of those houses that have lawns, trimmed shrubs, a patio with a wooden swing, and a lot of flowering plants around her house.“You made it,” she chirped. Even her voice was a lot calmer outside her work. “Come in,” her smile was instantaneous as she opened the door wider. She was a woman inviting her friends to come into her h
~Declan~This must be what it’s like to be a dandelion, extra lightweight, as if the wind would take me anywhere it desired.Tempted to repeat what she said, I ask instead. “Are you sure?” because repeating her words might trigger the version of Serena that was hellbent on dying instead of bearing my mark.She looked up at me, long lashes fluttering. Her cheeks were pink from all the alcohol she had taken. Then she bit her lip, uncertainty coasting her blue eyes as she shook her head. “No… I’m not.”My hope crashed to the ground like a rocket losing its engine after launch. Either way, I have to be grateful for Serena’s honesty.“I understand,” I replied. “The more I learn about what happened to you in your exile, the more I accept your anger at me. No words can amount to all the pain I caused you.”Her eyes grew wide, glazing over as she kept nibbling her lower lip. “It was still selfish of me to hide our daughter from you, Declan… but how can I tell you? Even if I wanted to, I lost