-Kira- I feel the mortification hit me as soon as those words leave my mouth. Arkyn stares at me with wide eyes, his crimson gaze melding into one to show his confusion. “Kira-” “Oh, my Goddess!” I cringe, covering my face with my hands and feeling so much more naked now. “I don’t know why I said that! I’m so sorry!” Arkyn pries my hands away and leans his face towards mine, his beard still glistening with my arousal when he smiles. “Hey, there’s nothing to apologize for saying something like that. Your emotions are all over the place right now, so I understand.” I groan and pull him close to me, needing to hide myself from him, but he sees right through me. He pushes me back and takes my face in his hands. “No hiding from me, sweet girl. As much as I want you, no, as much as I fucking crave you, I will not fuck this up,” he says, then gently kisses my lips. “Our first time will be in the forest behind Volkov mansion. I will claim you as mine on the night of the full moon, I pr

-Kai-Another lash across my back tears my flesh in two, but the pain has long since subsided. I haven’t felt the silver split my skin, my only focus is the unmoving, emaciated body of my mate in front of me. My son, Creed, has passed out from the pain, broken ribs, and dislocated arms healing slowly.The fuckers have us strung up in silver chains and shackles in an underground channel underneath my family cabin. My brothers are being held in separate cells and I can feel they’re alive, but they’ve done something, so we cannot mind link each other. It’s especially frustrating to me, seeing as I felt a link snap a few days ago and still do not know who it is. “Marle wasn’t kidding when she said you’d be a tough one to get through, but then again we’re long past asking questions and I’m just doing it because it’s fun,” the fucking usurper prince says behind me before one last lash of the whip lands on my lower back.My wounds heal almost immediately, and I hear him let out a frustrate

-Arkyn-It’s all gone to shit. The entire plan has been flawed from the get go, and somehow I think these fuckers knew our plans. I can’t prove it right now, but I know Jade, or fucking Kaia, had something to do with this.“You seem pissed off,” Eli says as we wait for Alpha Kai to return.I roll my eyes. “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. Don’t tell me you’re not worried in the least about how easy this shit was?” I ask, leaning against the black SUV and crossing my arms. “No, something’s definitely fucky over here. They’ve let go of their biggest leverage and a literal God who could kill them with the snap of his wrist. Either the witch bargained on this, or they have something worse planned.” He says, gesturing with his hand as he talks. On our way to the Volkov cabin, we ran into Alpha Kai and Eli’s father. Gabriel Priest had somehow gotten wind of the Volkov's being held there, so he went to snoop around, only to find Alpha Kai himself. Adryan Helseth is now dead, and I’m sure his

-Kira-I’ve never been this worried before. What could my mother possibly want to speak with Arkyn and me for? We follow her to the back garden, sitting down at a stone bench and table. She looks at Arkyn with an odd glint in her eyes, then she turns to me and takes both of our hands in hers. “I want to apologize to you both for my error and inability to see someone had tampered with your Mate Bond,” she says with her eyes shining with unshed tears. Wait, did she just say our Mate Bond?!Arkyn looks at me with a knowing grin, while I narrow my eyes, confused. “Our Mate Bond, Mamma? Are you saying-”“Yes, Arkyn is your True Mate, baby; but I think deep down you’ve always known that,” she chuckles, then her expression turns serious again. “I didn’t want to admit that my Goddess could have been wrong, but little did I know Marle desecrated her work. She needed Helseth as a pawn to capture us all and even sent Kaia as Arkyn’s Luna Bride. All planned, down to the last second. What she d

-Kira- Kaia’s welcome home banquet goes on well into the early morning hours. The pack gave her a welcome to remember and my father gave her his bite to make her a BloodCrest pack member formally. Before her induction, my mother discovered several parasites planted within Kaia and her wolf. She promptly banished them and implanted a tungsten stone underneath her skin; tungsten repels magic of any kind. My mother did this to all the members of our pack to stop the parasite problem during the war. Luka and Alexei had theirs removed by Marle in order to imbed the parasites, so she had to redo the tungsten implantation on the two of them. During the banquet, Arkyn was quiet, and it made me wonder what his father spoke to him about. He’s adamant that it’s nothing, but I know Arkyn better than that. We’re walking alone through the forest after the party has died down; he’s holding my hand and looking ahead, still not saying a thing. I decide that I’ve had enough and stop abruptly, pulli