I take a step back, ready to change course and leave, but the Lycan King closes the distance between us. He’s dangerously close to me now, his body in full display and sending my whole body aflame. The familiar heat between my legs starts to appear. “Where are you going?” he whispers, his breath hot against the top of my head. “Are you really trying to leave?” I don’t say anything. I can’t. All I can think about is how his length would feel like inside me, and that’s not something I want to linger on right now. I need to focus. He laughs softly. “I know you feel it too. There’s no denying it. You’re mine.” * * * Outcast. Freak. Cursed. These are things that Beta heiress Valeria Ross is used to hearing. After all, with her otherwordly appearance, and her cursed white wolf, she’s bound to be set apart from everyone else. So much so that even her mate who promised her eternal love casts her aside, choosing her much better stepsister as a partner. Deciding that things should end on her terms, she decides to flee her pack. Only to run into the arms of the Lycan King, Ares Ryder, who’s spent centuries looking for his mate and finally found it in her. Now Valeria is faced with a hard choice. Will she stay in the shadows of her family, forever tormented with the sight of her mate with her sister? Will she exchange that hell for a softer one, a life with a cruel King who’s known for collecting women like trophies?
View MoreAres’s POVThings are starting to spiral, getting way too out of hand even for me. I start to get nervous as the chaos of the crowd begins to erupt around us. I want to wrap my arms around Valeria and push her backstage to protect her, but I don’t know if she would want that.However, before any of us can decide, someone steps up from the crowd and speaks the words I never expected to hear here.“I’m a half wolf, half human. I will tell you what you need to know about them.”I immediately turn to look at the source of the voice and see a young man who’s not wearing one of the nametags that the rest of the journalists are wearing. He slowly makes his way forward, swallowing hard as though afraid that the others would suddenly pounce on him. I can’t blame him for this, but I just beckon him to come to the stage while I keep an eye on the rest of them, ready to step in in case anyone gets an idea.The boy looks at me and mutters a quick thank you. Fortunately, none of the journalists bo
Valeria’s POVThis is it. The thing that we worked on during the days leading up to this. I’m nervous and excited at the same time, but there is also something else brewing at the pit of my stomach as the video starts to play, an emotion that I can’t quite name.I take a deep breath, angling my body so I can watch the video too. Ares meets my eyes and he smiles at me, reaching over the table to hold my hand. With that, we tune in to the video.It’s Nikolai in the training room in the palace, wearing his usual suit and the crown. He looks confident and strong as can be, but he also emanates an air of nervousness that I think gives him a very human touch. I believe we did the right choice keeping this unscripted and just from the heart. He smiles softly, and I can almost feel the women in the room tense up because of how he looks.“I don’t quite know how to begin this, and how to address all of you,” he says in a gentle tone. “But I will say this… I know what the speculations are, and
Ares’s POVI thought that years of being under the spotlight would not make me vulnerable to nerves anymore, but I was wrong. That night, after we managed to get into the mansion without the reporters trying to clamber onto our car, I didn’t get a single wink of sleep. Valeria slept next to me and I held her, but the only thing that I could think about was the things I have to say in the press conference the next day.We rehearsed that for the entire afternoon. I knew how to work the media and I always have. I knew what to say, what to look like, what to do. When we went back and forth with Heather to confirm our narrative, I was confident.But now, as I face myself in the mirror fixing the cuff links of my jacket, I don’t feel quite as confident. I swallow hard, thinking back on the things I was supposed to say. Heather is right behind me, peeking through the curtains to see the press on the other side of the room. I can already hear the buzz of their voices and the shutters of the
Gianna’s POV“So all he needs is a bag of blood every day?” Dimitri asks, watching me hold Seth in my arms. It’s been a couple of days. The vampire king Dimitri agreed to let me stay. He keeps Seth and I in a room away from everyone, just in case the vampires catch a whiff of my smell. But this time, it’s sunny, and the vampires are away.Seth hasn’t recovered completely yet, so every day I bring him to Dimitri so he could give blood. Usually he just inserts a tube into the room for him to feed on, but this time he lets us out.Dimitri looks down at me and I meet his eyes. I still feel intimidated by him. He has a kind look in his eyes, perhaps even a hint of sadness, like he witnessed a lot of bad things and he lives with it every single day. However, I can tell that this is just a front. A fake kind of vulnerability. Behind those eyes lies a cold heart, maybe even colder than mine.His gaze travels lower, to Seth who’s cuddled against me. “Your little whelp there might just finish
Valeria’s POVOur little entourage of four receives basically a hero’s farewell when we leave the palace, but once we’re in the car on our way back to the human world, the energy among us four doesn’t feel too high. In fact, we’re silent all the way through.Ares is driving and I’m riding shotgun. Heather and Vincent are in the backseat holding hands. It’s awfully quiet, and I know for a fact that the drive takes a couple of hours. I’m way too tense to stay in silence, so I nudge Ares to start a conversation because even I don’t know how.He looks at me with some panic in his eyes but even without mind-link, he seems to understand what I was trying tok say. He clears his throat and then looks at the rear-view mirror.“Um, remember our first trip to the human world?” he asks.Both Heather and Vincent perk up as though they’ve been waiting to have something to talk about all along. Vincent laughs in reminiscence, and Heather smiles softly.“I do remember perfectly,” Vincent says. “Frank
Valeria’s POVAres’s words ring in the room like a flashback. It feels like he just dropped a bomb for all of us and it feels right and wrong at the same time. I know that he’s right. I know that it has to be done as soon as possible and the next best thing to now is tomorrow. However, I can’t help but feel bad that it has to happen this way.“We will help you pack your things,” Nikolai volunteers. “I would like to come, but I believe it would be better if they see familiar faces first. They might be scared if they see you coming with more people that they don’t know. Some idiot might call it an invasion.”It seems out of pocket, but he’s right. We’re in a very fragile position right now where everything we say or do could be given a different meaning entirely. I look over at Ares and it seems that a decision has been made.“Emmett and Edith must stay here,” he says in a low voice.We both look down at them, and they look up at us. I can tell that they don’t like this already. I don’t
Valeria’s POVMy heart breaks with one quick snap. It feels like it’s been a long while since I saw any of my kids cry, and those times were naturally just so full of distress and sadness that I didn’t get to comfort them the way I should have. So now that I’m seeing Edith, her eyes red and her nose all blotchy from crying, I just feel my chest tighten. Nikolai gets to his feet when he sees her too, but he must have understood that Edith might not feel comfortable talking about her feelings with him around, so he slips into a nook in the forest and starts to walk back to the palace.Meanwhile, I approach my daughter, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Baby?”She looks up at me, and my heart gives a little crack when I see another tear flowing down her soft cheek. I reach out to wipe it with my thumb, cradling her face in my hands and kissing her forehead. She sighs against me, and I can tell that she’s hesitating, but I just hold her against me and let her cry it out.When sh
Valeria’s POVThe night we made love, I get the best sleep I have ever had in what felt like years. Ares and I doze off holding each other, curled up in each other’s arms, not knowing where one starts and where one ends.It’s a good feeling to be aware of that but relax at the same time, so imagine my surprise when I wake up and I find Ares not there by my side anymore. My heart immediately jumps to my throat and I find myself patting the space beside me as though he would reappear, but of course he doesn’t. I don’t know if it’s just my trauma acting up because of what happened between us just recently, but I’m getting scared.“Ares?” I call out, looking around the bedroom to see if he’s just changing and I missed him. “Ares? Are you there?”No answer. Now I’m getting truly nervous.I get up from bed, changing into proper clothes and pulling my hair into a tight ponytail while I walk through the door. The palace is already booming with life. Guards and maids alike are going around, p
Gianna’s POV“Hold on, okay?” I whisper to my son Seth as I hold him in my arms, keeping him close to me as his breathing starts to get more and more labored. “We’re almost there. We’re going to be okay.”It’s been a few days since my disappearing act at the warehouse. I’ve been on the move since then, going from one hidden place to another, trying to find a stable shelter for both of us so I can get around to healing him. The fight with Valeria happened so fast and I have no idea what really happened between them. All I know is that my son is terribly wounded, struggling to even breathe. And the worst thing about this is, I can’t help him. I don’t have the means to heal him or even feed him. We both have no strength to do anything to help ourselves right now, and if I heard the news right, all my men have been arrested and sentenced.I know for a fact that they’re also looking for me. I don’t know who snitched and gave my identity away, but someone definitely did and now I can’t fin
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