LorenzoI let her go. She slipped out of my arms and I let her go. When my brain finally started working again, I realized what the hell I had done. I wanted Ariana! I wanted her to be my queen! Everything I had been looking for was right there in front of me and I couldn’t even say that I didn’t see it, because I did! I knew that she was perfect and I had done exactly what I accused everyone of. I judged the slaves before taking the time to get to know them.I was so damn wrapped up in my own world that I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me. I scanned the crowd who had started the next dance but I knew she wouldn’t be there anymore. Running up the stairs, my mother called me and I turned around sighing.“Lorenzo! What did you do to Ariana?” The scowl on her face was strange. She never showed emotion in front of people. Quickly moving up the stairs, she stood opposite me but I was still taller than her.“I made the biggest mistake of my life, Mother, and I would like to g
Lorenzo“LORENZO, WHAT A NICE SURPRISE.” Emanuel appeared in front of our group. I was expecting her to show up a lot sooner, but with this one, you never really knew what she would do next! Shifting so she couldn’t read my thoughts, I took her hand and kissed it.“Emanuel, I hope you are doing well.” She looked at my crotch for a moment, raising her brow as a smile started to form on her face and I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes as one of my men handed me a pair of shorts to put on.“Now, not so much.” She sighed and turned to walk away. “What are you doing in my forest? We didn’t have an appointment, did we?” She had to know that Ariana was in the forest, but I had to be very careful how I approached this. Emanuel might look like a little fairy, but she was a pixie. She had powers beyond our comprehension.She was bound to the forest in a way that was just breathtaking and I envied it sometimes. Wishing I could be bound to my territory that way. Feeling when people trespassed
THINGS WERE STARTING TO TAKE SHAPE around my new home after a couple of days. The seeds had been planted and, thanks to the pixies, I could already see small plants growing. Their magic just touched the plants and it would come to life. I would really have been lost without their help and I knew it.So, I hadn’t built my own home and they were helping me grow the food … So what? They seemed friendly enough and they hadn’t asked me for a thing since I got here. I hadn’t seen Emanuel again in the past couple of days, but since she was a queen, I could only guess that she was busy. I wondered if Lorenzo had even come to look for me, and quickly pushed all thoughts of him to the back of my mind.I had a lot to do around my new home, and keeping busy kept my mind off what could be happening in the world outside of mine. My wolf was slowly starting to accept our new life and that I wouldn’t be going back to Lorenzo no matter how much she cried, but I could feel the effect her sadness had on
I needed to find out exactly why Emanuel wanted the harbour so badly. It felt as if that would be the key to solving my problem once and for all and saving Ariana. I decided I needed to get down to the harbour. If I could see it for myself, I might just be able to see something that I might have missed before. It wouldn’t just be the business that moved through the harbour. I couldn’t see Emanuel running around collecting taxes and dealing with ship captains.As I walked through the market, it pained me to see the slaves chained up. The market wasn’t what I remembered it to be. The shock was enough to distract me from Ariana being missing. I spent all morning in the market taking notes of all the things I wanted to change in the lives of the slaves, like making sure they had their own homes.It was one of the reasons I needed Emanuel to grant us access to the forest. I couldn’t expand the kingdom beyond its current borders because that would mean war with some nation, but I needed my
I had no idea what I was going to say to him or what he would even do, but I needed to speak to him. I had just turned a corner when Emanuel appeared in front of me. Her face suddenly looked so angry. It was distorted and I wanted to sidestep and run past her, but she did something and I couldn’t run. My legs were running in the air and I was getting really frustrated when I suddenly hit the ground with a loud thud and trees came up all around me like a cage.“Didn’t I ask you politely not to go back there?” She hissed and for the first time, I saw her fangs. She was nothing like she pretended to be! Unfortunately, I saw it too late!“Did you mean it when you said you wanted to save the slaves?!” I growled, knowing she could read my thoughts. I was stronger in my wolf form. There was no way I would give her the upper hand … More than she already had.“That is why I asked you to stay!” A howl echoed through the forest, interrupting our talk. That had to be Lorenzo! I opened my mouth to
ArianaI COULDN’T MAKE OUT WHETHER the pixies were celebrating or if they were upset that I was there, which made me wonder if I would ever be allowed to leave again. Now that I knew where their home was, it would make sense for them to keep me there.A lot about their species suddenly made sense. I always thought they were just some kind of fairy, but clearly, they weren’t. They were the opposite. No fairy would have done this to me. No fairy would ever have taken me prisoner like this, would they? The woman who used to look so damn beautiful now looked as though she was a thousand years old, as she leaned on her walking stick on her way to one of the houses. She was talking in a language I couldn’t understand and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what she was saying.This was a huge mess and I was the one who got myself into it this time. I watched as things slowly died down and wondered what the chances were of me being able to escape. I studied the strange bars of the cage that se
ArianaSILENCE FELL AND A GROUP OF BIRDS took flight. We could hear the fight in the distance, but when silence fell, the guards who were in the camp looked at each other as if they hadn’t heard something they had been waiting to hear.I was just about to try and howl again when the cage around me suddenly started to pull away and I dropped to the ground. I didn’t hang around to find out what the hell was happening and burst past the soldiers on my way back home. Not my peaceful house in the forest. My home is in the castle. I knew I would never see my peaceful home in the forest again, but it no longer mattered.I was just about to burst through the forest line that showed the border of the two kingdoms when I heard his howl behind me. I turned around to see two men carrying a half-dazed Lorenzo. He was still alive, but he had been badly injured, which made me wonder if she was still alive. I didn’t want to waste time as we rushed him across the clearing and into the castle.Trixie a
I knew that tensions were brewing all around us. I could feel it even in my room. Sadly, most people would never know why I ran. Hell, I wasn’t even entirely sure anymore. After my bath, I couldn’t sleep and Lesley suggested that we go for a walk. We were walking through the gardens when I noted people making their way back to town. Many of them were crying, and some of the faces were of the family Lorenzo and I went to see.“Lesley, would it be possible for me to see the dead?” I whipped around, giving the poor girl behind me a fright. She seemed to think about it for a moment and then nodded. I wasn’t sure if she was asking permission through the pack link or if she was just thinking about it, and frankly, I didn’t care. Even if she said no, I would have found a way to go and pay my last respects.Silence fell over the great hall as we walked in and it almost felt as if people were too scared to approach me. I walked to where the first warrior’s family was standing near him and than