All Chapters of Primal Craving : Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

“The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.” —Carl Jung.LUCIEN I fucking loved being a father.“Damien, wait.” I held out a hand to stop him as I placed the twins’ bottles in front of them.“Two hundred dollars more that Axel doesn’t spill a thing,” Rowan said with that smug smile that made me want to laugh.“Five hundred dollars more that Aria finishes first,” Alanna cut in, chin raised, eyes gleaming with challenge.I leaned back, watching them with a slow grin. These idiots had no idea.These were my kids, my blood.I’d changed more dirty diapers and been puked on more times than all of them combined. I knew them better than anyone.“Two thousand dollars,” I said, crossing my arms, “that Aria doesn’t finish first, and a thousand more that Axel spills everything.”The look on their faces was priceless.“Yeah, I’ve changed Axel a lot this week. He’s got a whole lot of shit in that stomach,” Damien said, shrugging. “I agree with Lucien. He finishes first.”“Anyone want to chang

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”— Niccolò Machiavelli.LEONARDO These kids and their fucking noise.I rubbed a hand over my face and exhaled slowly, counting to three before the headache reached full strength. I didn’t even fucking need to leave my room when I was bored. All I had to do was tweak my hearing, and it was either the human or her friends with one of Lucien’s betas — giggling like fools who thought the world stopped for their hormones.Love. The most overrated disease of every generation. They speak of it like it’s power, when all it’s ever done is make people weak. You want to control a man? Make him fall in love. You want to break him? Take it away. I’ve watched empires crumble because some fool chose affection over ambition. I’ve seen warriors lose their edge the moment they started caring.Love doesn’t build legacies; power does. Fear does. Control does. That’s why I never let it touch me.My phone buzzed, and I smiled at the name on the

"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans."— Allen Saunders.ALANNAI’d seen death before, but never one that made my chest cave in like this.Tears streamed down my face, hot and relentless, but I still held on to Damien. My fingers dug into his arm as we stared at Kyle’s lifeless body.Lucien was kneeling in front of the headless corpse.Whoever had done this hadn’t just wanted him dead; they’d wanted him destroyed. Arrows riddled his torso, each one laced with wolfsbane; his veins still burned black, even in death.“What—what if it’s not him?” Rowan’s voice cracked as he wiped at his face, but the tears kept falling. “It’s a headless body, we can’t just—”“Look at him,” Lucien whispered.“But w-we could just—”“Look at him, Rowan!” Lucien snapped, spinning around. His voice broke as he pointed. “The tattoos, look at the fucking tattoos we all got on his bicep—” He stopped, swallowing hard, eyes wet. “It’s him. It’s Kyle. He’s gone.”Damien choked out a sob, his w

"It hurts because it mattered."— John Green.NYLA I missed him, even while he was sitting right in front of me.It was strange how quiet could hurt more than shouting ever did.“So—”“So—”We started at the same time.He cleared his throat, and my cheeks burned red. The silence between us was too familiar now, almost like a third person in the room.“You can speak first, Nyla,” he said softly.“No, you can go ahead,” I replied, my voice barely holding steady.I knew I was too stubborn to let peace start with me.“Nyla—”“Speak, Alaric,” I whispered, gentler this time, though it still came out sounding like a command.He cleared his throat again, his eyes flickering toward me but never staying long enough.I dug my nails into my palm, trying to quiet the ache in my chest while waiting for him to say something that could make us feel like us again.“Thank you for agreeing to see me. I’m glad I didn’t have to use my final card,” he said.Even when Damien told me he was at the gate, I’d

"It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch."— Yehuda HaLevi.DAMIEN The grief was supposed to fade, but mine had turned into a habit I didn’t know how to break.I didn’t mean to be so down all the time, but Kyle’s death hit me harder than I thought it would.“One, two, three.”I slammed the punching bag again, harder this time.Each punch landed heavier than the last. The bag swung back, biting at my bare knuckles. I hadn’t used gloves in weeks. The wounds had healed and reopened so many times that even the sting had given up on me.Alanna wasn’t pregnant.I must’ve misheard her. But I didn’t let her explain, I just ran like a coward who couldn’t stand another kind of loss.“Fuck.” I exhaled, grabbing the bag to steady its swing.gods, I was a terrible mate.Four days.It had been four days since I heard the words leave her mouth, and I practically bolted out of the packhouse.I’d been holed up in a hotel ever since, not because I didn’t want her anymore, but because I was