Sibyl growled at me as she passed, gesturing to her guards. When they were gone, I lifted the phone to my ear.“I’m reporting this to His Majesty.”“Wait,” I said, taking a deep breath. This wouldn’t be enough. Candido’s honor would push him to try and fix our problems with each other, not back out of the deal. “Just wait for it. Could you pick me up lunch? I’m going for a run.”“… as you wish, Miss Hedy.”I walked outside, dropped my bag on the stands of the running track, and broke into a run as fast as I could manage, hoping to focus on something more than my anger.Sibyl was evil, and she was blaming me for everything that was going on with Candido. While I was happy that things weren’t going well for her with Candido, I couldn’t help but be frustrated because Candido was too honorable to back out of this marriage.As I finished my run, I slowed to a stop several feet away from where I had left my bag.In place of the leader of Team Gamma-2 or the guard that followed me around sch

After the little celebration, Candido walked me back to my room and said goodnight. I wouldn’t be drinking milk mixed with his blood any longer. I was at once grateful and a little sad. It felt like I was losing just a bit of the connection I had with him. It felt like it was just the beginning of losing that connection too. First, it would be the blood. Then, I wouldn’t see him as much. Then, he’d be married to Sibyl. Even if he wasn’t married to Sibyl yet, I still hadn’t gotten him to see me as more than just a little girl. Sure, there had been some heated moments between us, but that had all been instinct. The wolf in him recognized me as a woman, but he didn’t and that was the problemI huffed, trying not to think about it too much more. I opened every bag he’d brought. There were casual dresses along with a few cocktail dresses. I wondered if he planned to take me out more often. I did notice that the clothes were in different colors than they had been when I was bigger. I didn’t

I struggled against the darkness. I knew I was unconscious, but as I pushed and pushed against whatever she had prayed me with, I felt my mind waking up. I pushed my power to strengthen my mind and senses, listening for something. I felt something jostle me. If I had to guess, Bella either stumbled over me or kicked me. Then I heard her feet going away.What was her plan? I didn’t know, but as I forced my eyes open, the ceiling spun in my vision. I heard her getting farther away. I grit my teeth, pushing at the heaviness in my body until I could turn onto my side and drag myself away from where I had fallen. My head pounded. Had I hit my head? I didn’t know.My heart was beating a mile a minute with fear and panic, but I tried to focus. I had to move. Even avoiding her plan, staving it off a little would buy me time. Team Gamma-2 would come looking for me soon. I heard my phone ringing, but I couldn’t get to it.If I didn’t answer it on the second try, they’d come after me. I just had

Candido said nothing for a moment, seemingly thinking about what to say, but it only made me worry more. I could believe that Candido hadn’t even considered what it would do to him to shift and kill them all, but I was worried. Now was not the time to lose him. Now was not the time for him to be reckless either. Things were ramping up, getting worse, with each passing day. This was just part of it. Had any of them been in opposition to Candido? Were they just disgruntled and using me to hurt him, or were they just at Bella’s beck and call?Did it really matter since they were all dead? Where was Bella? Did Steven know about any of this? Were there other people involved? Was it all connected somehow? I had many issues with Steven and the Wolf Fang Pack, but he had always seemed too proud to defect to the vampire side, but things were different now.I knew nothing about Lilian so it wasn’t improbable that she had some connection.The spray was nothing like anything I had ever heard of.

I woke up early, got dressed and packed. With about twenty minutes to spare before I needed to be heading out, I logged into my Moon Shadow laptop to check on the investigation of the murders. Armageddon had added several files to my research folder including a few other attacks that had resulted in deaths with the same pattern as the others and the case file of Bella’s orchestrated attack. My heart lurched. Did Armageddon know it was me? I had only been offline for a week. That wasn’t unusual. I opened the note attached. Unidentified substance used to incapacitate the victim. Tracing origins. Sent to lab under ID# HCAKP-144538966. I relaxed a bit. It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought that it was probably connected. I was glad that Armageddon was seemingly getting involved in this. The lab hadn’t completed its analysis, but the preliminary notes suggested that it was related to the substance found in the blood on other scenes. I swallowed thickly. Had Bella known that it was proba