Clary stared intently at the liquid she was brewing. She stirred it once more before boiling it with a click of her fingers, smiling when it turned a pale, almost translucent golden color. Perfect, she thought as she decanted it into a crystal bottle and wrapped a ribbon around the neck, the words 'Clary's emporium' printed on the ribbon. Nobody could say their money was wasted when it came to the presentation of her products, she thought with a smile. She glanced up when her wards went off, a few seconds before a magic circle opened into the room.
"Just wait!" Adira, her twin sister, said over her shoulder as she stepped into the room, closing the blinds with a wave of her hand before her mate, Jordon, stepped through the portal. "Three more orders," she said as she handed her a piece of paper and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
"So, has the Royal Alpha arrived yet?" Jordon asked by way of greeting, glancing into the corners of the room as if he expected the man to run at him with a stake. Which wasn't really such a strange reaction considering vampire hunting was considered something of a sport at the station; they had come up with some very creative ways of capturing and killing vampires. "I've heard he's a harasser, a proper tyrant. I spoke to a few friends when I found out his name, and they all said the same thing: apparently, Damon is extremely powerful, a true ALPHA. Not somebody you want to make an enemy of. Good job! You are an extremely powerful omega wolf. You can put him on his ass if he tries anything," he said with a laugh.
"Well, he's due in half an hour, which probably means he will be here in about an hour. We will see when he turns up," Clary said with a scowl. A royal wolf! "Why did they have to make me their leader? I was happy enough taking care of the Omegas; now I'm responsible for everyone, and I have to meet with the new head of the station," she muttered angrily, not for the first time. She certainly hadn't asked for the job.
"We made you our leader because you are one of the most powerful magical omega wolves in Nigaland. The night children wanted someone that could actually fight for them," Jordon said, grinning at the grimace on his sister-in-law' face. "One of the most powerful after my beautiful wife, of course," he added quickly when Adira glared at him. "You are equally powerful?" he asked when Clary glared at him. They were far too competitive!
"Stop whining, Clary; you are 27 years old, not 5," Adria said as she took the bottle from her hand and placed it into the waiting silk-lined box, pressing the lid into place and hand-tying a ribbon around the box. She sent it, with a wave of her hand, to the vampire who had ordered it. "What a vampire wants a love potion for is beyond me; why not just wait for your mate to come along?" she muttered as she turned to her sister. She saw her wince at her thoughtless words.
"Some of us don't have that luxury," Clary said, avoiding both their gazes, not wanting to see the pity she knew she would see on her sister or brother-in-law's faces. "Some of us weren't born with a mate. It's fine," she said with a wave of her hand when she heard her sister start to speak. "I just need to grab something," she said, rising to her feet and making her way down the small hallway that joined the storefront and workroom of her store.
Clary's face fell as she closed the curtain behind her upon reaching the store. As hard as she tried to bury the feelings, they always reared up. Every time somebody mentioned mates in a casual way like that, it hit her like somebody was trying to rip her stomach from her body. She had no mate. She had traveled the world, meeting Alpha after Alpha; none of them were her Alpha. When her sister met Jordan a year ago, she had gotten her hopes up. She had desperately searched, meeting vampires and werewolves alike, even going as far as visiting the Faries. There was nobody for her.
She had wondered time and time again if there was something wrong with her—was she defunct in some way? She tried to be a decent person, kind, and loyal. She worked hard and looked out for so many people, always making everyone else happy. Where was her own happiness? Where was her Alpha? Oh yeah, she didn't have one. She would live her whole life watching those she cared about be happy and in love. She would watch her niece and nephew find their mates and raise their own families. And she would be stuck like this, on the sidelines, watching what she could never have. All she had ever dreamed of was a family of her own.
She realized then that she hadn't taken her potion. She stalked around the counter, wiping the angry tears she hadn't realized she was crying from her face, and reached under the counter. She grabbed a bottle and drained it in one gulp, cringing at the taste. She stared down at the bottle, her only salvation from being an unmated omega, the potion that stopped her heat. It was her best invention and her best seller. Her next heat was due in the next two weeks, and she was already pushing her luck by taking it this late.
If she didn't have an Alpha, she sure as hell wasn't going through that misery every three months; desperately trying to find some way of getting through those torturous three days alone was more than she could take. And she refused to partner up with unmated Alphas. Sure, she'd had fun and distractions over the last two years, but shacking up with some random guy for three days every few months was more of a headache than she needed. It was too hard to sustain any type of relationship or even an arrangement with somebody who wasn't your Alpha, so she had tried to resign herself to the fact that she would always be alone. It wasn't working!
Clary sighed when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Shaking herself off and pushing her morbid thoughts down as best she could, she turned and pushed her way through the curtain, meeting her sister halfway down the hall.
"Clary, I'm sorry. I should have thought about what I was saying," Adira said, taking Clary's hand in her own and clutching it tightly. She looked into her blue eyes, just a bit lighter than her own brown eyes, noting the red rims and damp eyelashes. She cringed internally when she thought of the news she had to share with her, deciding to just come out and say it as she led her back into her workshop. She took a deep breath, forcing herself not to cry. "There was another reason for our visit; other than bringing the order forms, Olivia has found her Alpha," she said quickly, trying to soften the blow.
Adira stared at her sister as her eyes sort of glazed over. She watched as a shudder ran through her entire body, her shoulders sagging slightly as if a huge weight were being lifted from her. She heard her breath huff out in a deep sigh. "Clary, did you hear what I said?" she asked with a frown. This was not the reaction she was expecting when she heard the news of their cousin finding her mate.
Clary didn't hear a word her sister had said. She was too busy grinning at herself like an idiot. For some reason, she felt as if all her worries were floating away, one by one. She felt light, almost relaxed. She had this feeling in her stomach, not as if it were being ripped out, more like it was being rung out. This fluttering, giddy, hopeful feeling. As if happiness were there in front of her, just out of reach. All she had to do was reach out and grab it. The thought made her laugh.
"Clary, are you okay?" Jordon asked, rising from the stool he was sitting on when he heard his sister-in-law laugh. Clary didn't laugh; she barely even smiled, so sad all the time. She put her mask on when it came to anyone who wasn't family. But Jordon had known her for years, and that noise rumbling through him was as alien as the thought of an Omega not having a mate. He stared at Clary, grinning away at herself.
"Clary," Adira said, shaking her sister. "Clary, are you listening to me? What is wrong with you?" She asked with genuine concern. Her eyes darted to her mate; he looked just as worried as she did.
Clary rose to her feet when she felt something push through the wards on the front door, a light brushing against the door handle. She frowned when it stopped; maybe she had imagined it. She sat back down again, a huge grin spreading across her face when that feeling returned—that wonderful, strange, beautiful feeling of peace, mixed with equal parts of anticipation. It was spreading through her entire body, pulling her in a thousand different directions. Something good was coming. She felt the wards go off again; she hadn't imagined it; maybe she had a customer.
"Clary, did you hear what I said? Olivia has found her mate," Adira said, shaking Clary's shoulder to get her attention. She watched as she slumped in her chair, her eyes welling up as she inhaled a massive lungful of air, dragging in breath after breath through her nose as her eyes slammed closed. This was the reaction she had been expecting—kind of, maybe not the sniffing, but the rest of it certainly. She almost shits herself when she bars ALPHA! Look at her. "Yes, she found her Alpha... Claire?" she asked, staring at her.
Clary wasn't listening to her sister; she was listening to the voice in her head, screaming the same two words over and over again as the most amazing, intoxicating scent wrapped around her. The scent climbed into her nose, burrowing down into every cell that made up her body.
She could feel it as if it were a tangible thing she could caress as it filled every hole in her—the hole in her gut—where she had been punched again and again whenever that feeling of loneliness rose up in her. The hole in her brain told her she was unworthy of having somebody to love her. The hole in her heart, the hole that had been chipped away over the last years, slowly but surely with each happy event that she had been a part of but apart from. And the hole in her soul—the hole that should be filled with a sliver of her mates' soul. And as it all crashed through her, she listened to that voice screaming those two words again and again: ALPHA MATE, ALPHA MATE ALPHA MATE ALPHA MATE. She couldn't stop the words from pouring from her mouth as she shuddered, inhaling the scent over and over again. The scent of sandalwood, honeysuckle, and mint. And pure, raw Alpha. Her Alpha. It was a heady combination.
"Adira, she's... She's..." Jordon couldn't get the words out past the lump in his throat as he watched his sister-in-law. His mate was oblivious, not even taking in the scent that was wafting down the hallway from the storefront. She was too preoccupied with her sister's reaction to realize what was happening to her. Jordon pulled her away as Clary leapt from her seat and vaulted towards the hallway.
All Clary could think of was getting to her mate. She obviously had not traveled the world far enough and met enough Alphas. How long had she been missing out? How many years, decades, and centuries had she spent lonely and miserable when she could have been with her Alpha? It was hard to think about that when she felt the happiness and relief sweep through her again and again as every instinct in her body dragged her towards the curtain at the end of the hall, pulling her irrevocably towards her future, her happiness, and her mate!
"I hate going Alpha on them," Damon said as he and Moni crossed the street, both of them activating their power as they walked. They both had a lot of "It's the same every time! Can't I just once walk into a station that isn't full of disrespectful assholes?" he asked, rolling his eyes when she smirked."You would be out of a job if you walked into a station full of decent, hardworking wolves. Get these for me," Moni said absentmindedly as she yanked the back of her shirt up so he could activate the power on her back. "You should have seen Ram when I escorted him to his room to collect his things. He cried like a baby, muttering about how you left him defenseless against the mixed-blood vampires," she said with a grin as they dodged out of the way of a group of schoolgirls, oblivious to the two wolves skirting their group."He stole a vampire's fangs!" Damon said incredulously, running his luna stone over the left side between her shoulder blades. "Did he think he could get away with t
Yuri franziu a testa e disse:- É sobre a restauração do Palácio da Pena. Estou planejando fazer com que a Barbosa & Guimarães e a ARX Brasil, uma subsidiária do Grupo Garcia, concorram no leilãolicitação, mas Sandro é contra.A Barbosa & Guimarães foi um presente de Yuri para Lavínia após sua formatura, mas, nos últimos anos, não apresentou nenhum desenvolvimento significativo.O Grupo Mendes, que não se enriqueceu através da construção, via a existência desse estúdio como um alvo para alguns acionistas que desejavam eliminá-lo.Os três projetos arquitetônicos que surpreenderam o país e o exterior, ela os conquistou secretamente e todos foram entregues a Marcelo, do Grupo Garcia.Agora, refletindo, ela se considerava tola!Com o desenvolvimento estagnado da Barbosa & Guimarães, Lavínia sentia que a responsabilidade era toda sua.- Sandro é contra porque acha que o Grupo Garcia é o grande nome da arquitetura e que a Barbosa & Guimarães não tem capacidade de competir, envergonhando o Gr
"Fuck!" Damon roared, losing control completely as he spun on the spot, a deep, full Alpha snarl ripping from him as he slammed his fists down on the counter, a crack running through the entire length of the Carrara marble slab, making everyone else cringe and step back from the enraged Alpha. Everyone but Clary.Clary couldn't move a muscle, her control over herself slowly fraying thread by thread as her eyes slammed closed. Her hands balled up into tight fists, her fingernails cutting into her palms as her magic ripped through her body. She felt it push out of her, barely erecting a barrier around herself to protect them all in time before she let it consume her. She screamed out the years of pain and loneliness, all of her anger, bitterness, and sadness.Damon whipped around when he heard the sound—the furious, desolate scream that ripped from his Omega. The sound was like a thousand razorblades being scraped over his soul. It cut through his own pain, anger, and frustration; his Om
Moni stared at her best friend as he turned away from them, dropping the mask he had so carefully pulled across his features. She could feel the tremble of his hand and could see the clenching of the muscles of his arm as he gripped her hand. She had never seen him like this; he was always so controlled and so strong whenever he faced an impossible situation, but this? It had been a long time since she had seen him lose any of his rigid self-control, and she had never seen that look on his face before—that gut-clenching look of absolute desolation.She knew the others in the room would see an unfeeling, cold exterior, thinking him unaffected by the situation, but she knew better; she knew him like nobody else. Seeing the rigid way he held himself, the way he wouldn't look the Omega in the eye, the shake of his entire body as he held himself back, it made her want to take him in her arms and hug the pain away, something she had never felt the need to do before. She would usually just te
Moni threw her pen across Damon office, almost yanking her hair out as another wave of self-hatred reached her through her best friend bond with Damon. It had been the same for the last two days, a constant flow of anger, desperation, pain and self-loathing, over and over again, interspersed with short periods of numbness, a void of nothing where he clammed up and retreated into himself, trying to hide from it all.She couldn't take any more of it. She was just about holding the station together. She had begged, cajoled, shouted and tried to bribe him into leaving his room, to come back to work and try and put it behind him, he wouldn't listen though. She jumped to her feet and stormed through the station, glaring at anyone who dared look at her, maybe it was time to order him to pull himself together, it was for his own good!Damon stared up at the crystal chandelier hanging above the foot of his bed, counting, constantly counting. 972. The chandelier had 972 crystal drops. There were
"There hasn't been a mixed blood living in the head city for two, three hundred years?" Damon said his eyebrows almost in his hairline "not since the ending of the last rules. A step in the right direction indeed" he said with a nod of approval. "It seems Jasmine being made leader was the right decision, she has improved our organization relations vastly since she took over. Who knows, there might even come a day when a new agreement is forged between us, and the mixed blood." Damon said. He wondered what Clary would have to say about a mixed blood living in head city before banishing the thought as the hole in his stomach became just that bit more jagged."Yes, no thanks to you," Moni said with a proud smile. " You're the one who has forged agreement after agreement between station and mixed one worldwide, don't be giving Jasmine all the credit. I have Sofia under investigation, she was the one with the drug" she said when she saw his questioning look."When you say she was found with
Damon dropped Adira hand the second they stepped from the circle, darting toward the door of the bar they had landed in front of before he was yanked back. He spun on the spot with a snarl, glaring at his best friend before getting a grip on himself."We need a plan, Damon. You can't just go dashing off every-time" Moni said, keeping a firm hold on his arm when he started to turn towards the door "she could be dangerous, we need to prepare" she said, her eyes snapping to rose when she heard her scoff "the report said she was holding them hostage" she snapped."Whatever, there's nothing dangerous about her when she drinks," Adira said, rolling her eyes at the ridiculous woman "you two can stay out here coloring your wings in, my sister needs me," she said, stalking past the pair of wolfs and throwing the bar door open. She huffed when Damon darted past her through the open door.Damon dashed into the dimly lit bar, stopping in his tracks when his mat...the fairy scent wrapped around him
"It isn't like that" Moni growled, having to reign herself in at the sneer on the woman's face as she watched Damon "he didn't just decide Clary wasn't good enough, it is against our organization law to mate a mixed blood, you don't know the consequences. Thank the God it doesn't happen that often, not that that helps Damon" she said as she watched her best friend. It was going to hurt when he had to let go. "Your organization obviously needs to talk more," May said, turning to Moni with a curious look on her face, consequences? "It happens a lot more often than you think. You think this is something unique? That he is the first one to find out his mate is a mixed blood? Trust me, I've seen it before, it doesn't happen that often? That would be funny if it wasn't so sad" she said, smirking at the surprised look on Moni face. Originals! They think they know everything.Moni stared at May, what was she talking about? Of course, it was a rare occurrence! if Originals had been mating mixe