LOGINCassandra's pov
I stared at the domineering sky scraper in front of me. Who the hell had a skyscraper as a pack house? Everything about the Lycans screamed money and they never wasted an opportunity to flaunt it.
"Welcome to your new home." The Lycan announced as he stood beside me. When it was glaringly obvious I had no where to run to, I had conceded but I knew it wasn't over and I would find my way out of the pack house no matter what.
I quietly followed behind the Lycan, ignoring the stares I was receiving as we walked. They stared at me as though I was an anomaly and in their world I guess I was. They were bo doubt wondering what a filthy little human was doing with one of their own.
"Alpha." A man whose face was pinched into a frown bowed as he addressed the Lycan.
Alpha?
My heart dropped as I recognized the title. It explained why this man's aura was so commanding and oozed of power. Was this a sick Joke? How would the alpha of the Lycans think I was his mate? Me, a human!
"Kael." The Lycan retorted.
"Is this her?" The man asked as he stared at me with an observant gaze. They had spoken about me?
"I'll show her to her room, you can wait for me in my office." The Lycan announced, ignoring the other man's question.
"Is this who?" A soft feminine voice asked and I turned to a beautiful sophisticated woman who had a small smile plastered on her face.
"Who is this Seb?" The woman asked as she assessed me with cold eyes. She had a softness to her but also a cold, calculating aura.
"No one you need to worry about Claire." The Lycan, Seb, retorted and the woman's eyes turned to slits.
"Why would you bring a human to the pack house? What would everyone think?" Her eyes darted back to me before she returned to the man who growled beside me.
"What I do is not to be questioned Claire, I'm the alpha and you had better remember your place," his voice held venom as he spoke.
"But I'm to be your Luna and that means I have a right to know things Seb," the woman announced defiantly and I stilled. If she was to be his Luna that meant they would most likely mate...where would that leave me? What would happen to me?
"I don't have time for this." Seb gritted out as he harshly gripped my arm and steered me away from the woman.
"Your hurting me." I called out to him as his hand squeezed my arm tightly. At my announcement he immediately let go of me and I gently massaged my sore arm with my fingers.
We stepped into the elevator and I pressed myself against the back of the metal as I tried to get as far away from this Lycan as I possibly could.
He stared at me for a second just before the elevator pinged and the doors slid open.
As I followed behind him I heard him nutter something about humans and how weak they were but I ignored it.
"Your room is directly next to mine." He announced as he held open a door to me. I slowly walked into the room and gasped at it's sheer magnificence. Everything about it was perfect and I couldn't help but wonder if I was in a dream.
"That is a conjoining door which will take you straight into my room-" he pointed to a door at the corner of the room.
"For now you are not to leave this room without me, you aren't allowed to wander aimlessly in the pack house unless I am at your side. If you need anything inform me and I'll have it delivered to you." The man announced and anger surged through me.
"Do you understand?" He quirked a brow at me when I remained silent.
"Just because I didn't put up a fight and I came here with you doesn't mean I'm your little prisoner who you can keep locked away forever." I gritted out but the man's countenance remained the same as he regarded me, save for a twitch of his lips.
"You look smart and I know you have already figured out I'm the Alpha king of the Lycans. You should also know that I am bound to have enemies, enemies who are waiting for the slightest hint of a weakness to use against me." The man stalked towards me as I backed away till I hit a wall. A low flame lit within me as I comprehended his words...he saw me as a liability, a weakness. What I couldn't understand though was why he hasn't just let me be, why did he have to drag me into his world?
"Finding my mate, a human at that, places you in great danger. No one needs to know right now that you are my mate, I'm already having a hard time figuring out what excuse I'll give for bringing a human to the pack house. I don't know what I'll do with you yet but for now, you stay in this room and talk to no one," he announced as he trapped me between himself and the wall.
My heart beat rapidly in my chest as I noticed his eyes flashing.
"Then why did you bring me here?" I croaked, ignoring the tears prickling the back of my eyes.
"My wolf needs you." He announced as he strolled away from me and towards the door.
"So what am I meant to do in here?" I called out to him as I hugged myself but h ignored me and gripped the door handle.
"I don't even know your name." I called out desperately.
The man paused for a second before he turned to me.
"Sebastian." He informed me with a nod before he left the room. A sob racked through me as I heard the soft nick indicating he had locked me in the room and my heart dropped.
Was this what my life would be like for the rest of my days?
Lyra's POVI stared at the phone until the screen went dark.My hands were still trembling. Not violently, not the way they had trembled when those men dragged me out of the chamber and down to the dungeon. This was quieter than that. A fine, persistent shake that started somewhere deep in my chest and worked its way outward until it reached my fingertips.Kaelen.His name alone was enough to do this to me and that made me angrier than anything else. That he could still reach me here, in a place he had never been, in a house that was not mine, surrounded by three men I had only just met. That his name on a screen could still take the air out of the room and make me feel sixteen years old and foolish all over again.I set the phone face down on the table."I am fine," I said, before any of them could ask.None of them spoke. I appreciated that more than I could say. Vaelin kept his hand on my shoulder, a light and undemanding pressure, and Soren was watching me with the particular quie
Cassandra's POVThe elders' hall was older than any room I had been in since I arrived here.You could feel it. In the weight of the air and the thickness of the stone and the way the torches on the walls threw shadows that moved like things with intent. The curved table at the front sat five elders and above them, carved into the stone of the arch, were words in a language I had no name for.I stood at the centre of the room.Sebastian stood to my right, slightly behind me. Not beside me. Not in front. Behind, which I understood, after weeks in this world, was the position a wolf takes when they are guarding something.Kael stood at the far side of the room near the door. Easy. Relaxed. Smiling at nothing in particular. I did not look at him longer than once.Claire entered last. She was dressed carefully, which I noticed because everything about Claire was intentional and the effort she had put into this morning was a kind of statement. She looked at me across the hall and the look
Sebastian's POVRiver found me in the training wing at noon.He did not knock. He never did. He stood in the doorway of the equipment room and watched me wrap my hands for the bag until I acknowledged him, which was the rhythm we had operated on for twelve years.You sent for me, he said.I did.I had done it quietly. A message passed through a junior wolf who answered to me directly and only to me, routed past Kael's sight lines, which took twice the effort it should have and which told me something about how far into the structure this situation had already grown.River was forty-three in human years. He had been my father's wolf before he was mine. He was not political. He did not care about standing or positioning or the social geometry of pack life. What he cared about was the pack's safety and the Alpha's word, in that order, and those two things had always been the same thing until now.I told him what I knew.I watched his face as I spoke. River's face was not expressive at th
Cassandra's POVLiving in the same house as someone you know is dangerous is a specific kind of awful.It is not the loud kind of fear. It does not announce itself. It sits behind your sternum and runs a low current through every ordinary moment, so that breakfast in the kitchen is breakfast in the kitchen but it is also something else entirely, and walking down a corridor is walking down a corridor but you are aware at all times of every doorway and every shadow and where the exits are.Kael smiled at me at breakfast the morning after the woods.You stayed, he said, with just enough warmth to be perfectly normal.The Alpha asked me to, I said.Of course. He poured his coffee. I am glad. The house suits you.I smiled back. I had practised that smile in the bathroom mirror at six in the morning. Light and neutral and giving nothing away. I was reasonably proud of it.Sebastian had been different since the woods. Not visibly different. Not in ways another person would easily clock. But
Sebastian's POVShe said his name and everything rearranged itself.Not loudly. Not with drama. She said Sebastian, I have to tell you something about Kael in a voice that was quiet and careful and completely certain, and I looked at her face and I knew before she said another word that whatever came next was going to cost me something I was not prepared to lose.We stayed in the trees. She talked and I listened and I kept my expression still through all of it because that is what I have always done when something has hit me hard enough to flatten me. I go still. I go inward. I present nothing to the outside that can be used.She told me everything. The covered walkway. The storage building door. Kael's voice stripped of its warmth. The other voice she had not recognised. The exact words.When he falls it has to look natural.When she finished she held my gaze and waited. She did not fill the silence with reassurance or apology or any of the softening that people usually reach for whe
Cassandra's POVI made it to the tree line before my legs stopped working properly.Not physically stopped. They kept moving. But there was something wrong with the way the ground felt under me and the way the air tasted and the way my chest had been doing since I walked past Sebastian in that doorway. It was the same thing that had been sitting in the wrong place since last night when he said I needed to leave and I had watched something almost say itself in his face before it didn't.The pack's driver had taken me as far as the south gate in silence. I had told him I would walk the rest. He had looked uncertain. I had told him again, and he had let me go.There was a path from the south gate through the outer pack lands that led to the road. I had walked it once before, weeks ago, trying to map the grounds in my head the way I always did in new spaces. It was maybe a fifteen minute walk through a stretch of mixed woodland and then open field.I was five minutes into the trees when i
SEVENCassandra's POV The next day felt like j was floating on air. Everything felt great. I had classes and although the lecturers were as ahellish as ever, I felt free. I had lunch with Jessa and now, I was heading to the bleachers t watch a football competition go on.I took my seat with my chi
Let's Make a dealCassandra's POVThe bang I heard earlier made sense the second I stepped into the living room.Sebastian stood there, chest heaving, fist still clenched. And right in front of him was Theo, stumbling back with blood at the corner of his mouth. My eyes widened, my feet glued to the
You slept well.Cassandra 's POV His hand touched my shoulder and on instinct, I pushed forward, grabbed the door knob and fled, with Jessa right by my side.I didn't stop as I pushed through the crowd, Liz and Theo the last thing on my mind as I ran away from him.How had he found me? Damn it. Th
Cassandra’s POVI couldn't believe that I did it. I escaped.I ran through the woods, trying to get to the main express. If I could find someone to hitch a ride with, I would be finally free.After Claire had barged into my room and questioned my looks, she stormed off and I knew just where she wa







