**Atlas**
My head was spinning with emotion. Tonight, a dinner would take place where Jarin would explain to Thea why we had looked for her. Tonight, he would essentially be asking her to marry him. Every time I thought of them getting married, of their wedding night…I couldn’t. My wolf growled with possessive jealousy. It was just as well I wasn’t able to let him out for a while due to the pendant. I’m not sure I could trust him to stay away from her. Part of me also yearned for the dinner to come. I would see her again. A mind link from Doran pulled me from my thoughts. He wanted to see me before the dinner. I knew what it would be about. I told him I would meet him in the garden near Jarin’s rooms so we could go into dinner straight after. I looked out the window for a moment to watch the last of the afternoon sun dim to an orange hue.
Not long after Doran’s a link, one came t
**Jarin**I waited for the others to leave and then turned to Thea. “I hope you do feel comfortable with me alone, I just feel what I have to tell you next…you deserve space to consider it.”I could see she was nervous. “Let’s go and sit by the fire, would you like anything else to drink?”She shook her head, and took one of the soft chairs. I came and sat opposite her taking a deep breath. “Thea, Atlas mentioned that you wear a necklace of sorts. Are you happy for me to see it?” She looked confused but lifted it from under the neckline of her dress. As soon as I saw it, I could not help but gasp. It was so similar to the one I had given Atlas. The same strange braid, but a slightly different looking pendant. “Have you ever taken it off?”“I was abandoned with it on&hel
**Thea**When I stepped out of the room, as promised Bessie was waiting for me. She gave me a warm smile and took my hand in hers. We didn’t have to say anything. I knew she was sorry that I had to make such an important decision, and she knew I was exhausted just thinking about it. We walked slowly back to my room, the sound of our footsteps echoing on the stone floor. As we approached my door, she turned to me. “If there is anything I can do, anything I can say or talk through with you, I am always here.”“That means a lot to me, I would like to talk about. Maybe tomorrow.” I just wanted to collapse.“Of course.” She made her way towards the room that was opposite mine, when a thought suddenly occurred to me.“Bessie?” She turned back to face me. “I’m sorry if this is personal but…you mentioned that you and
**Atlas**She was driving me wild. I kept replaying the moment in my head of catching her, our eyes meting and the warmth of her body being inches from mine. In that moment, I’d wanted to push her against the garden wall and press my lips onto hers. I wanted to move my hand up her dress and touch her between her legs until she called out my name in pleasure. My member was stiffer than it had ever been, and I needed to relieve myself before I was able to leave my room. I couldn’t even think about sleeping with another woman, the thought of touching someone else now made me feel physically sick. I reached down and took hold of myself, imagining her beneath me, the two of us wrapped together in passion. It was as if I could see her, feel her, taste her. My climax ripped through me, panting I opened my eyes, feeling more alone than ever.Today was going to be another difficult one. It was the first day Asher and I were ta
**Jarin**The day had finally arrived. I stood outside the old holding with Doran and some of my other pack members. It was the first day Atlas and Asher were tutoring Thea in regards to her new found powers. I had planned to be there but I felt this was too important to miss. At least that’s what I was telling myself. If I was really honest with myself though, I was here because I needed to see Viola again. I needed to know if I had imagined my attraction before. Until then, I couldn’t focus on Thea properly.Movement in the trees caught my attention. Cloaked figures moved towards us. They had arrived. I watched as the figure at the front removed their hood. I steadied myself. She was so unlike any werewolf woman I had seen, and more beautiful than I remembered. She walked in such a way that was both graceful and dangerous. Now I couldn’t deny that I was attracted to her. I tried not to think about what this me
**Atlas**A very small part of me knew this wasn’t a good idea. I’d never killed a human before. There hadn’t been any reason to. They normally remained separated from our supernatural world. Killing a human would feel different to killing another supernatural being. It wouldn’t be a fair fight for them. However, I wasn’t interested in a fight, I was only interested in the kill.The other concern was that I might be seen. Keeping humans in the dark about us worked in our favour. We could live in our world and leave them in theirs.The trouble was at this precise moment I wasn’t listening to any reason. The image of Thea’s back so badly beaten kept flashing in front of my eyes. To know that she could have died a slow and painful death as a result of infection made my blood boil. I wanted to avenge her. I knew that if Thea married Jarin, it would be on
**Thea**The first thing I felt was sore. Then nausea. I thought about opening my eyes but decided to wait a few moments. Something had happened. Then it all came flooding back, gaining control of my mage powers, shifting for the first time, Atlas carrying me…I decided to finally open my eyes. I did so slowly, squinting at the bright light. As the room came into focus, I saw Bessie was sitting in front of me. Concern covered her face.“Thea? How are you feeling?”“Sick. Aching” I croaked.She got up and went to the table, picking up a jug of water and decanting some into a glass. I pushed myself up on to my elbows a little. Without asking she brought the rim of the glass to my lips and I took a few sips. That felt better. I slumped back into the pillows.“The aching is normal after your first shift. The sickness might be th
**Jarin**It was the day that Thea had asked to do some research with Asher. I decided to join them, seeing as I had spent hardly any time with Thea. I realised it was no good spending more time with Viola. Clearly, I was attracted to her. But I hadn’t really given Thea a chance.The library where we were to be was one of my favourite rooms in the entire castle, although I didn’t get to spend as much time in it as I would like. As Alpha, it was not my job to do the research. It was my job to decide who else was going to do it while I took care of other things. Asher was our main point of call for the task. He loved books as much as I did, and he had an excellent memory.As I stepped through the doors, I allowed myself to take a deep breath in, enjoying the wonderful and comforting smell of old books. Like many grand libraries, the dark wood shelves reached right up to the ceiling
**Atlas**I was still reeling from Gurtar’s kill. The only thing I was thankful for was that Doran had not made any more attempts to talk to me about it. What also helped was that I had barely seen Jarin. He was so busy with the council that our paths didn’t normally cross. He wasn’t spending a lot of time with Thea either. I had mixed feelings about this. On one hand I loved the fact they didn’t appear to be getting close. On the other, what would this mean for our collective future? It was also strange he was doing so much of the council work himself. It was something he would usually delegate to me. I guessed he wanted me to focus on Thea’s training. Because of the training, I had now spent far more time with Thea than he had. For the past few days, we had been experimenting with Thea’s abilities. After she had heard about the wolf