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SEVENTY-THREE | HAWK
Lily
The last month had been a blur. No – it had been a whirlwind for Lily, sending her heart lurching in turbulent circles whenever it escaped from the cage she had so meticulously built for it.
Every day, she stared at herself in the mirror as she dragged a comb through her dark blonde hair and tugged it into a loose braid down her back. It had grown, and as the autumn crept in, carried on the cold breeze that shook burning leaves from the trees, it was starting to darken in colour, too. Her eyes were her own, although they were set back further into the hollows of her eye sockets and glazed in a perpetual way that spoke of more than pain – it was an ever-present ache that ate away at her flesh, day and night, dawn and dusk.
That was what the gaunt look to her features and the pallor to her olive skin spoke of, too. Even her plump, red lips appeared thinner and paler.
Lily scowled up at the ceiling. She&r
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The Broken Alpha SEVENTY-FOUR | BEST LAID PLANS
ElijahIt had been a month.Scratch that. It had been the worst month of Elijah’s life – worse than when his parents had died, forcing him to shift young at age twelve and take on the responsibility of being Sea Pine’s Alpha. It was worse than when Leahne had rejected him. It was worse – It was worse than everything, because he had been so close. He had almost saved her. She had been in his grasp, and then… She was gone. Just like that.“What do I do?” he mumbled, looking over the cliff’s edge and down, down, into the sea. He was a fire faelen, but sometimes it felt as though the water were his only friend.He twisted her mother’s garnet ring around her finger. At first, the knot of emotion in his chest had swelled, too thick and too fast and too full of guilt, for him to be glad he had it. He knew he should’ve encouraged her more to keep it, but as the weeks had bled into one another Elijah had been glad of the small comfort it afforded him. He had a piece of her, even if she no lon
The Broken Alpha SEVENTY-FIVE | HARVEST MOON
LilyWinding her long, wavy hair into a braid, Lily could finally meet her eyes in the shadowed mirror. With every day that passed, she felt more herself – and more lost than ever. The grief was beginning to still, to quieten, but as it did she felt further from the life she had grasped, for so short a time.Strands of her dark blonde hair stirred slightly in the cool autumn breeze, spilling in through the ever-open window. The curtains rustled, drawing her attention to the purpling twilight outside.Soon, the shift would be upon her. Twisting the length of ribbon around the end of her braid – in the same citrine colour as the bunting she and Atticus had prepared for the festival of Mabben tomorrow – she hardened her resolve. She knew what would be waiting for her beyond the walls of this now-familiar bedroom. Lily had spent too many hours staring at it through the long nights spent in Atticus’s bed.Biting back a sigh, she pulled on a cloak and shoved her feet into a pair of well-wor
The Broken Alpha SEVENTY-SIX | MABBEN
AtticusThe sound of Lily’s howl made something earthen, something primal, roar to life in Atticus’s chest. He howled back, an Alpha calling to his Luna, to his mate. There were no complications here, like this: there was just the craggy silhouette of trees above and the rumpled earth below, with darkness filling every cavern in between.It was not the darkness of hate or shadows; it was the cool balm of the shade on a summer’s day, the comfort of solitude shared with another. Atticus revelled in it, his huge black body blurring with it as he moved through the woods.It should always have been this way. This was right; Atticus felt it in every part of him, in the pulse of his blood and in the shards of his bones. As Lily slowed, he did too. They were one: light and dark, shadow and sun. He nudged her with his nose, playful, joyous. This was right. This had always been meant to come to pass.Her words from before stung, but they had lost their barb as she’d shifted with him. This was a
The Broken Alpha SEVENTY-SEVEN | REUNITED
LilyThe bark was rough against Lily’s back. She drew comfort from it, from that subtle brush of pain. It reminded her that she was alive, that she had survived. She had made it out of the cell in Red Ripper.Dropping her head into her hands, she let out a ragged sigh. Writing a letter for Elijah had filled her with nerves, the kind that felt more like snakes writhing in a dark pit than friendly butterflies flapping their wings in her stomach. He’d seen Atticus take her, but… She was more worried about him that what he thought of her.There was something else, though – something Lily didn’t want to admit, even to herself. Writing to Elijah had suffocated her with guilt. Last night, she’d felt something for Atticus. Not in the same way that she did Elijah, nowhere near, but when he’d called her beautiful… She’d felt it. It was the way his eyes, limned from within like sunlight streaming through summer leaves, had burned into her. Then she’d broken her own rule, and she’d shuffled furt
The Broken Alpha SEVENTY-EIGHT | COMPASS
Atticus“So… No. No, I don’t think I could ever love him.” That was what she’d said. Lily. After everything he’d done for her – even going so far as to send that damned letter to Alpha Nobody – she saw no future for them. He’d saved her, brought her home, reunited her with her family…He clenched his hands into fists as he stormed away. Veins bulged in his arms. “Oh,” Lily whispered. He could just picture her, a delicate hand flying up to cover her pretty mouth. The yearning inside him burned hot, a smouldering ball of rage and desire making his skin prickle.He wrenched a handful of citrine bunting down and tore it to shreds. It glittered dully as it tumbled slowly to the ground. His heart was a compass, the needle spinning wildly in all directions. Did he love her? Did he hate her? He hated that he loved her, and he hated that, even now, she still wasn’t truly his. She was all he had thought about for months, and though there were glimpses of her heart warming to him in her burnin
The Broken Alpha SEVENTY-NINE | BONFIRE
Lily“I can’t believe you’re back, Lils.” He’d said it a hundred times over dinner already. Lily’s heart twisted a little more each time.Her dad reached over the table and squeezed her hand. Lily stiffened at the touch for a second before relaxing into it. For all his faults, Atticus had never once touched her without her express consent since he’d rescued her from Red Ripper. Today, she’d been touched more than she had in the last month and, as the rush of excitement wore off, so too did her ease at the feel of foreign fingers on her body.She swallowed hard and, after a moment, she let his fingers drop. “Me either,” she murmured, poking at the roasted vegetables on her plate.“Aren’t you going to eat those?”She shrugged and pushed the plate over to him. “Probably not.”His brow furrowed, even as he took it and started to eat her leftovers. “You’ve told me what happened while you were gone, but… You haven’t told me everything, have you?”“I can’t.” Her voice came out hoarse. “Not y
The Broken Alpha EIGHTY | DARK MAGICK
ElijahDawn light spilled into the clearing. Elijah scratched a hand through his dark hair and stared without seeing at the dark swathe of bottle-green pines surrounding them. Pale, fractured sunlight caught the tips of needles and the bends of boughs, highlighting the remnants of birds’ nests and the red belly of a lone robin.He dug the toe of his boot into the dry dirt from where he was sat, his back pressed at an odd angle against a fallen, moss-covered log and his knees bent, pulled up close to his chest. He was supposed to be sleeping, but thoughts and hazy imaginings of what Lily could be doing – or what could be being done to her – had plagued him ever since night had fallen, and continued to do so as the sun had risen. Sighing, he turned his grey gaze to his Gamma.“I know you aren’t sleeping. I’m on watch – and there’s no point us both being awake. You’re moping,” said Caslein, arching an eyebrow at Elijah. “Again. Stop it.”Elijah’s throat bobbed. “No, I’m not. I’m thinking
The Broken Alpha EIGHTY-ONE | TWILIGHT
AtticusLily looked beautiful like this: painted in shades of red and orange and gold by the trembling brush of the firelight, one side of her face cast in navy shadow and the other all the brighter for it. She was smiling at him, and there were no reservations in her eyes.Atticus froze, losing himself in those irises. They were like autumn, he thought, brown and gold and, right now, lit by heat like the curled ends of a crisp orange leaf. He did not dare dip into the depths of her pupils, wide and honest and glittering like the stars above.She cupped her mulled cider between both hands and blinked up at him. “So?”His brows pinched together. “So what?”Her lips twitched. He never wanted this moment to end – chilled by the night air, warmed by the firelight, with Lily beside him, teasing and smiling and speaking to him like – like she liked him.“I said, ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ In private,” she added, with a slight quirk of her eyebrows.Atticus could feel the truth
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