Perrin
Once I was seated, I noticed that Dina had brought up the first course. I sent a mind link to my father.
What is Alpha Nael doing here?
We don’t know. Are you ok?
I’m fine. Just overdoing it.
You have five days to get it together. I watched as he looked at Alpha Nael while he spoke to me. Rest is part of that.
But what is he doing here? I repeated, eager to change the topic.
Salindra’s out of her mind,
Lo I stood in the men’s room, stunned into silence. I hadn’t meant to accuse him. I hadn’t really meant to bring Jaz up at all. I looked into the mirror, at the expensive dress. I couldn’t help but think that he had barely looked at me all night. In fact, he had looked like he was happy to look anywhere but at me. I wiped my nose, blinking hard, willing my makeup not to run. What the hell had this all been about? I took a step towards the mirror, running my hands over my face, willing my heart to stop hammering. I was half convinced every heartbeat could be seen through the fabric stretched across my chest.
LoThe room seemed to grow very still for several long moments, as if nobody dared to breathe.“Your… daughter?” Deidre finally stomached to ask.“Jesamine?” Mark breathed.“It’s not possible.” my father managed.The name had registered with all three of them, and it seemed clear that they had all known about the tragic car accident that had taken Nael’s wife and his daughter so many years ago. They had all thought she was dead. I had believed Jesamine was dead. Justin had told me so.I felt sick. This all had to be a bad joke. Except for the fact that Jaz
Lo “Bullshit!” Jason roared from down the table. “You were planted here as a spy, weren’t you?” As if the antagonization was all Jaz--no, Jesamine, I corrected myself--needed to showcase the Alpha that lay dormant in her blood, her own eyes flash dangerously, their dark amber glowing as much as the gold in her twin’s, who had still refused to look at his mate during this whole exchange. “No!” she yelled back at Alpha Jason, unwilling to lower her tone, now raised to a dull roar. “I came here because my mother wanted out of a terrible marriage. She wanted out from a man who tortured his children and his wife for the sake of power.” At this, she glanced at her brother. His face was stone. “We escaped, but my mother was more fucked up than anybody knew at the time. From what my father did to her!” Deidre gasped, her face turning fr
Ethan The door closed behind Jesamine, and for the first time in several minutes I felt the air leave my lungs. Justin still hadn’t looked at me. And as I looked to Perrin for some type of reassurance--some type of clue that this was all a bad dream, I noticed that his chair was empty. “What the fuck was that?” I said to my mate, but also to the entire room. Another silence had fallen with the exception of the water, still dripping to the floor from all of the overturned goblets. The Alpha’s voice toned calmly from the far end of the table. “Dina, you will find Cynthia downstairs in my wife’s office. Kindly go down and speak to her? I trust that I don’t need to tell you to keep this to yourself.” Jason gestured vaguely to the room.
Perrin I was only one floor down from the top floor of the pack house. When I had seen enough--heard enough of her fucking deceit. Her damned betrayal. I had simply left. Out the door to the patio, using my rage of the moment to get the mere tip of a claw out to climb the side of the building towards my open window. It wasn’t my best escape plan. But there wasn’t enough room for everyone in that tiny room anymore. It was stifling. Besides; I had heard the worst. Nothing more could have changed what she was. Who she had been and what she had done. To my surprise, I was calm. Too
Perrin“I think you found your true mate.”I heard the words. I saw her lips form them. I even repeated them in my mind. But as I towered over her, the words… rearranged, jumbled, or even in the order Mistra had spoken them; they didn’t make any sense.“That’s impossible.”“No it isn’t.”“Yes it is!” I said, a deranged laugh escaping. I took a long look at her, but when her face didn’t change… “Wait, you’re serious?”“Of course I’m serious.”I let out a nervous laugh this time. “Mistra, that’s impossible. I’d know.&rdqu
EthanPerrin hadn’t spoken for several long moments. I had told him everything about what happened after he left the dining room. About Jesamine’s departure, Justin’s confession; all of it.He had stood motionless, staring out the window. At the very least, I would have thought he felt joy. But he hadn’t moved. Hadn’t said a word. Could wolves go into shock?“Perrin? Helloooo?”His head snapped up as if he hadn’t been paying attention. “Did you even hear a word that I said?”His brow furrowed. “I did.”“And you’re not ecstatic that you get your life back because…”
Lo“For a few minutes?” His voice was calm, but tentative. Not full of its usual confident swagger.“As long as you tell me what’s going on,” I said, pleading. I could tell he was physically close. Maybe even behind the shelf of books that stood in front of me. But his feet had stopped moving. “Perrin?” I asked into the dark.“Please, just stay where you are.”“Are you hurt?”“No, just. Trust me, ok?”I heard him, rather than saw him, sink down onto the floor and lean against the shelf, his back to books, a smudge of dust poking through on my side. In that moment, I saw the outline of his shoulders through the small peaks and