KAYLA.“You know maybe he has his reasons” Lucien muttered, sitting by the edge of the cliff and looking over the forest. I paced behind him, before coming to a halt some distance away. “Take it from someone who knows how obnoxious and spontaneous Rafael can be sometimes” Lucien looked back and when our eyes met, I didn’t know why he was defending him.“It’s one thing to destroy my home but it’s another thing to not tell me about it. He’s had so long but these secrets keep piling up. I don’t think they’ll ever stop, Lucien—“ There was a crack in my voice. “I deserved to know. I deserved to know there was nothing left for me. You know giving up everything was the hardest thing I had to do but I comforted myself by thinking at least I still had my home, my little garden that when everything is over, I could return to” I whispered to him even though I didn’t expect Lucien to understand.But there was a sense of thoughtfulness behind his eyes while tears streamed from mine. A short silen

KAYLA.I was suddenly jolted back to consciousness when something rammed into the side of my head. It sent an unwavering sliver of pain from my temples to all around my body. I pried my eyes open to the darkness around me and there I was, head to the ground and crouched in a fetal position.All I could remember was a hand grasping me from behind and a bag over my head—I had to stop ending up this way. My face hurt from the bruises across it and it was then I muttered.“Lucien!” I called his name, remembering he was the first to be wounded but as I looked around, he wasn’t the one here. It was yet another masked man with a rifle in his hands. It was the muzzle that he’d rammed into my head to wake me up and he scented strongly of alcohol.Grasping me by my clothes, he threw me against the wall and my heart pounded in fear. I had no idea where I was or who this was and what he even wanted to do with me.“You’ve rested enough” He leaned forward but only to confirm the handcuffs were stil

APRIL.“We must find a way to kill the child” Veronica paced around the room and from where I was seated by the windows, I threw a look back at her. “And what are you thinking?” I asked.“Thanine” She pressed her lips together and I batted my lashes to make sure I heard correctly. “Isn’t that too drastic—I mean it could harm Kayla as well” I said and this wasn’t me sticking up for her. It was just that Thanine was a poison used against us during the first war.Not the war with the Lycans but an ancient pack called Marseilles. I was too young to remember anything but Rose had told us of the time we were fooled into a truce declaration. The night that followed was a great feast to celebrate the end of the war.But the Marseilles had other plans.They’d slipped Thanine into our drinks and many of our pack members lost their lives that night. It was centuries ago and now, Thanine was banned across the lands which was the reason I hadn’t heard of it in a very long time until now. “We can

“It was my home, even when you left me for dead there. I stayed there, I healed there and I was accustomed to my second chance fate there, the very reason I opened my eyes again and that was to make you pay. To avenge my people and my husband and my children” Rose looked behind and it was only April’s eyes that she met.Christina turned back and was sobbing in her hands.“You took my world from me and I’m going to take yours” Rose said and then brought her eyes to rest on Kayla. “Don’t do it” My heart lumped in the back of my throat and the words were laced with unease. “Kayla is your people too. She’s one of you, not of me. I take full responsibility for everything that happened that day including burning the house down but every decision that I took was never for me, I knew what it meant but I will also do anything to protect my people, like you would”“But Rose, Kayla is a member of Blood Moon. If you kill her today, that goes against everything you stand for. Is it really worth i

KAYLA.I used to hate looking into the mirror, at the scars and bruises carved into my skin that made me, me. I used to hate looking at myself because it was a treacherous reminder of what I wanted most to forget. But in this moment, the mirror was all I wanted to look into.I wanted to look at myself because as awful as it sounded, it seemed like I had forgotten. Ever since I opened my eyes, I felt different. I didn’t feel like Kayla and there was this awful feeling that tied my stomach in a knot. My hands fell to enclasp my bump as I stared at my reflection. It wasn’t entirely a bad thing to forget who I was before, maybe only then will I be able to let go of my past. But each time I remembered the child I was carrying, I prayed amidst everything that had happened, he was unharmed. I remembered it all, Rose standing above me and even as far as when Lucien was shot and he fell to the ground.I remember the feeling of a bag over my face and my lungs closing in on air. I remember the