KiraCoffee. I’ve been up since just after 5am. I went for another hard run, even after yesterday afternoon’s half marathon. I’m sore, and my head slightly hurts. But with tired muscles, I fall asleep at night without the itch. Running keeps my mind at ease and the booze at bay. And it seems to be working, despite the three pairs of sneakers I’ve already worn out.Coffee has become my new vice. It’s a cycle. Run. Coffee. Collapse from my exertions. Repeat. I seek it out eagerly, and Dina even got a new coffee bar in the kitchen downstairs to indulge me. It seems she was as happy for the new apparatus as I was. She and I have had a blast adding speciality milks, flavors, and Goddess knows what to our early morning concoctions. I swear that woman doesn’t need caffeine, but here we are.

PerrinBy the time Marge and I cleared a quarter of the library, it was time to get to Gowan’s training session.I called for Kira, who reappeared only too quickly from somewhere on the far side of the history section. She looked equally displeased and disheveled.“You ok?”“No.”“Can I help?”“Are you alcohol?”I stopped, catching her arm. “Are you serious?”She yanked her arm from my reach and scowls. “Yes. But don’t worry, I’m headed straight to the pack house to meet Mark.”

Alpha JasonThe knock at the door was soft.“Come in.”I glanced up as my wife slid silently into my office, shutting the door quietly behind her. “It’s nearly dinner,” she said.I glanced at my watch. I had been preparing next week’s training topics for Perrin all afternoon. The training list was long; history of past treaties, personnel profiles on everyone in the Alpha Guard that weren’t retiring; political tactics and negotiations, geography and pack histories of our neighbors; the economics of running a pack; and importantly, our human liaisons in the nearby pure-human cities that knew about us and kept our secret. That last one was complicated, messy, and of utmost importance.I knew we had years to

KiraCloser…. So close—I could feel the vibration, the hum of it–But the vibration of the object I wasn’t holding pulled me thoughts away and distracting me away from the brink. Goddess damnit! No. I was too close. I slammed my free hand towards the object and silenced it, desperating clinging to the release that was now slipping through my fingers–I pushed the other vibration deeper within me, pushing against my clit to the point where pleasure and pain were one in the same. So close–so close I—It began vibrating again,

KiraI ignored Perrin as he pounded on my door, refusing to use the spare key I knew he had to my suite. It was out of courtesy, more than anything that he didn’t just let himself in. But I appreciated his honor in this sense anyway.I heard his phone buzzing from the other side of the door. “Yea, sorry. I was talking to Kira… yea, everything’s fine.”Liar. But I was glad to hear his steps recede down the hall towards the elevator. I needed my space to process in my own space. In this suite.Rather, my mother’s suite, My thoughts wandered to my conversation with Ethan. I had the right to the Beta Select suite by now. I hadn’t seen it in years; but truth be told, I remember it being beautiful.