Francesca's POVI spent a few more minutes with Alpha Ian at the shooting range, laughing and talking. He teased me about how Dominic won't be happy when he heard that he'd been replaced as my personal tutor. It was all in good fun though. We both knew Dominic would love the fact that Alpha Ian and I have decided to put our differences aside and reconcile. Or rather, I'd decided to stop being stubborn and meet his elder brother half way. It was something he has been begging me to reconsider for weeks now. I also knew I would finally get back in my mother's good graces. In some way, this was a win win situation.Our home would be more cohesive and this could only straighten our standing in the pack. Not that my mother and Alpha Ian weren't already revered as leaders but presenting a united front has never hurt. I knew it was one of the reasons my mother has been so angry with me. These are all things she taught me were important from a young age. And now she probably thought I was just

Francesca's POVDominic's words kept reverberating in my head but before I could spiral down a rabbit hole, my mum and Alpha Ian joined us in the dining room. I got up from the chair I was sitting and moved back to my original place, opposite the Beta. Dominic had gone back to looking like his perpetual relaxed self. If you didn't look at him closely and notice his red-rimmed eyes, you wouldn't have been none the wiser that he had been sobbing some minutes ago. It made me think that over the years, he's probably gotten very good at hiding his breakdowns over Damien. The thought made something twist in my chest. It was unfortunate what he was doing to himself and his fated mate. Jessica Reginald didn't look surprised to see me at the dinner table. I was right in assuming Alpha Ian had probably told him about the change in status quo. It occurred to me then that I didn't even tell Dominic why I had decided to attend dinner tonight. Well, he hadn't ask either. My mother made her way ov

Francesca’s POVOn certain nights after dinner, we moved to Alpha Ian’s Study for a nightcap. This also meant spending at least a couple of hours talking about everything and nothing. Tonight for family dinner, we’d been joined by the Alpha twins, Michael and Gabriel. I’d mentioned in the past that they’d been our primary trainers when we were growing up in our pack, and this made them practically family to my mother and me. Denise had also joined us. She was our other trainer, and we referred to her as Dominic’s evil partner in crime. Denise might have the coolest shoulder-length purple hair but she was also a sadist who always put us through hell during training. She never went easy on us. Not even when Dominic and the twins wanted to slow things down.The words that always fell from her lips were, “Did we think the rogues were taking it easy?”Right after dinner tonight, my mother decided to retire to bed. She claimed she had a headache and was in no mood to listen to Michael, Gabr

Alpha Ian’s POV “Well,” I prompted. “Tell me, what did you discover in that book?”Ezekiel continued to play with the ground at our feet, sly grin still in place. He was dragging this out because he knew my interest has been peaked. He was that kind of boy. I didn’t know where he got that from. His parents were the kindest people I knew, but Ezekiel was happiest when he was torturing some poor creature. There was this glimmer of excitement in his eyes when someone was under his mercy or he was withholding something you wanted.This went for everything from our favorite toy to the girls we had crushes on. Everyone was well aware of Ezekiel’s mean streak.“Do you know what the humans in the past used to do to us?” Ezekiel asked, cocking his head to the side, gaze intense on me.“You’re referring to our ancestors?” I said.Ezekiel nodded.“How far back?”“As far back as medieval Europe,” Ezekiel answered.I knew a little about that period thanks to our history lessons. We had an amazing

Alpha Ian’s POVTravelling back to memories of my childhood with Ezekiel wasn’t something I was especially fond of. The reasons should be very obvious. Our relationship crashed and burned, right alongside him growing into the monster he was always going to be. There were many nights after Ezekiel left when I laid in bed, wondering what I could have done to prevent his banishment. I thought incessantly about how I should have tried harder to make sure he never got to that point, to prevent the innocent murder of that human. I hated myself for scarcely disagreeing with him as we grew up. But more than that, I hated myself even more for never speaking up when I did disagree with him. I never intervened when I felt he did something wrong. Whenever my gut instinct told me Ezekiel had crossed a line, I never did to make him see that.At age sixteen, when my best friend was banished from our pack for a heinous crime, I was devastated, I was heartbroken, but above all, I was filled with sel