LOGINChristina
We run out the back door through the kitchen and immediately start to sprint away from the people chasing after us. I have never ran so much in my life. We couldn't get to the car because they had swarmed around us so the back door was the only possible escape we had. My legs start to hurt and I suddenly feel so dizzy. I can barely breathe. I’ve never been good at any physical activities. “Please, we need to rest!” I yell out. “We can’t!” Dad screams. “Peter, we have to shift!” Melissa shouts. I ignore what Melissa says not because I don’t understand it but because the guys behind us seem to be getting closer. I guess this is the day I die. I wouldn’t have minded dying if it wasn’t for the vast amount of drama that has happened in the past few hours. I need to At Least understand why my mother was killed before I die. Hell—I want to avenge her. Becca looks back and sees that I’m slower than all of them. She then looks behind me and I turn around to see the people that were chasing after us are no longer people but.. animals. I can’t see them well but with the way the ground starts to shake I’m sure they're the same beasts that I saw my dad turn into. They run like they have some kind of cheetah genes. “Fuck it.” Becca says and before I can even blink she turns into a similar werewolf as my dad did earlier today. Hers is brown like dads. Dad does the same. Melissa tells me to hop on before following suit and turning into a brown and white werewolf. I scream so loud I’m pretty sure whoever is on the mountains near this forest heard me. For some reason I’m more surprised now than I was when I first saw my dad do it. Perhaps my brain convinced me it wasn’t real and now that I’m seeing it again I can’t take it. Melissa or rather— the brown and white werewolf bends her head towards me and pushes her head up twice whilst looking at me as if she’s signaling that I should do something. I remember her saying hop on before she became this animal so I quickly walk beside her and try to climb on her back. I put my right leg over her and sit on her back. I try to ignore how it feels whenever her hair brushes my legs. I’m about to sit more comfortably but Melissa immediately takes off with me on her back. I start to scream because I’m afraid of falling so I lean down like I’m on a horse and hold onto her hair with my hands. Becca and my dad are beside us. Melissa‘s running so fast I can barely see anything so I close my eyes. I stop screaming when I realize I haven't fallen off. I open my eyes and start to smile because this is actually fun. I don’t think it’s a normal experience that humans have but it’s like being on a roller coaster. I see a tree branch right in front of me and quickly duck. I look back and see that the werewolves have stopped all of a sudden. As if there’s some kind of invisible wall that’s not allowing them to pass through. I see them turn around and run away. I thought if I looked behind us I’d see that we’d have outran them not that they would willingly leave us. Something’s not right. I look forward and immediately gasp. Melissa stops running and so does Becca and dad. There’s a bunch of men and women sitting on trees pointing arrows at us. A few of them are in front of us holding guns. There’s one man in the middle of them holding a gun as well. He seems to be the one in charge, for some reason I can feel it as if he has some kind of aura. What have we gotten ourselves into? He’s staring straight at Becca. “Shift.” He says simply. I’ve been with them enough to know that he wants them to turn back to humans. I get off Melissa and they turn back to humans. They're completely naked. To my surprise, Melissa was carrying the same bag I saw her get from the trunk of the car earlier. She pulls out the clothes that we’re inside and passes it to Melissa and dad. The man who told them to shift walks up to Becca after she finishes putting on her clothes. “What’s happening?” I whisper to dad wondering what the hell is going on. “We’re in the wrong territory.” He says simply as if I’m supposed to understand what that means. I think these people are different from the ones that tried to kill us earlier. Maybe that’s why they had run away from us when we entered this part of the forest, I guess it was apparently the wrong territory. “What do you want from us?” Becca says after the man reaches her. “Mate.” He says simply. He leans his head towards her neck and smells her hair. She gasps and pushes him away. He suddenly turns into a black werewolf. What the hell have I gotten into, this will never be normal to see. To my surprise Becca walks up to him and taps his wolf's head while he purrs. Uh…What the hell..? “What is going on?” I whisper to Melissa this time. “He’s the beta. I can smell it.” She says as if I’m meant to understand. “He’s Becca’s mate and the second hand in command of the Alpha.” Dad says as if I’m still meant to understand. The black werewolf turns back to a human and gets passed clothes by his people.. “Is it normal for you guys to be naked in front of each other?” I ask while gawking at the organ dangling between his legs. “Sort of.” Melissa whispers back. The man finally wears his clothes and smiles at us. “I’m the beta of the River bay pack. Alpha Xavier will be delighted to know that one of his intruders happened to be my mate.” What the hell does that even mean? Dad looks at me and I look at him. He sees how confused I am and smiles. “An Alpha is like the ruler of a pack. And a pack is like a kingdom. He’s saying that Becca is his soulmate.” I nod at my dads weird ass explanation. “Who are these three?” The man asks Becca. He speaks with his hands behind him. “My sisters and my uncle.” She lies…technically. “As much as I fancy you mate, it isn’t good to lie.” he smiles at Becca before he continues his speech. “I can smell that the lady beside you is your sister. However the other two.. not very much. That man’s a rogue and the girl next to him is an omega…” He raises a brow as if he’s deep in thought, “or.. A rogue I believe. Her scent is odd and I do not see any white strands of hair that would make her an omega but perhaps I'm mistaken.” How could he tell through simply smelling us? And what the hell is an omega… What the hell does that mean? The man has dark hair and beautiful blue eyes. He’s muscular but Lean at the same time. He walks up to my dad and I, he nods once but it didn’t look like he was nodding at us. Before we can react, a black hood is put over my dad and I’s heads and the last thing I hear before falling unconscious is Melissa and Becca’s screams.CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE - EPILOGUE 2CHRISTINAI had always wanted a night wedding.Something about the idea of saying the most important words of my life under a sky full of stars felt right in a way I couldn't fully explain. So the whole morning was given over to getting ready, and the room was full of women, laughing and talking over each other, passing things back and forth, someone always doing something to someone else's hair.I hadn't seen Marcel since the night before, that was the rule we'd agreed on, no contact until I walked down the aisle, and I had underestimated how strange it would feel to wake up without him in the same building.One of the younger omegas was suggesting we make a run for it, disappear somewhere in the pack grounds and make Marcel come searching, and the whole room was laughing at this when the door burst open.A girl stood in the frame, chest heaving with eyes wide."You have to come see this," she said. "Right now, everyone"Nobody asked questions, we we
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR — EPILOGUECHRISTINA⋆。°✩ ⋆⁺。˚⋆ five months later ⋆˚⁺⋆。°✩⋆After Pierce died, everything became smooth.That's the only way I know how to say it, it was not perfect, and not without grief, but smooth, just like the way a road becomes after the worst of the storm had passed and you can finally see where you're going again.Becca and Melissa took their mother's death hard at first, that was expected and it was right. Whatever Pierce had done, she was still their mother and they were allowed to mourn her. Marcel gave them the space to do that without judgment and slowly, over weeks that turned into months, they came around. They started showing up for dinners, started talking without the guardedness that grief puts around people, It helped that they'd been also given time to grieve their father too.We couldn't make it to Davina's son's naming ceremony and she understood without needing much explanation. Those early months were hectic in ways that were hard to des
CHAPTER NINETY-THREECHRISTINAI felt her move through me, this huge deep power coursing from the inside out. I felt Patricia before I even saw her.My name, called out in a voice I hadn't heard since Maxwell took me, warm and bright and familiar in the way only she had ever been.I turned.Patricia was standing a few feet away, and she was glowing, not the soft shimmer I remembered but something stronger, her white hair lit from within like moonlight concentrated into a single point. She looked more real than anything around me, more solid, more present.I couldn't speak for a second.She crossed to me and wrapped her arms around me and I held on."You're back," I said."I never left," she said simply. "I've been with you the whole time, you just couldn't reach me."I pulled back and looked at her face."I tried so many times," I said."I know." She smiled. "But you're ready now, that's the difference."“Am I?” I asked and she nodded.“You're ready Christina” she said softly but I
CHAPTER NINETY-TWOCHRISTINA"Dad."He didn't respond."Dad, please."I pressed my hands against the sides of his face, tilting it toward me, his eyes were half open and unfocused, there was so much blood, too much, spreading fast beneath his head across the floor."Someone help me!" I screamed. "Please, someone help!"And then he coughed.A wet, broken sound that sent relief crashing through me so hard I started crying before I could stop it."Okay," I said, my voice shaking badly. "Okay, you're okay, I'm going to get the doctor, just stay right there…."His hand found my wrist.Weak and barely any grip at all but it was enough to stop me."Don't," he said."Dad….""Christina." His voice was barely there. Just breath carrying sound. "Just stay." He said "You need help, you're bleeding, I have to….""Stay," he said again.I couldn't move, I couldn't leave him and I couldn't stop crying, I pressed his hand between both of mine and held on.He looked at me, the way he had when I firs
CHAPTER NINETY-ONECHRISTINAMy father stood up from his chair slowly and walked to the window.He stood there with his back to me, his hands loose at his sides, looking out at whatever was beyond the glass. "We had to leave again," he said. "After the massacre we went into hiding, found a remote part of the pack and stayed" He was quiet for a moment. "A few days passed, we thought maybe the worst of it was over.” He paused again."And then Damien called for Titiana again."I stayed very still.My father turned his head slightly but didn't fully turn around."I made mistakes," he said. "Ones I've had a long time to think about, I should have reported what Damien did to the hall of gods immediately, I should have sent that letter to Titiana after Veronica died, I should have done a hundred things differently." He exhaled slowly. "But I was unfocused and scattered, I kept thinking there was more time than there was."He stopped again."Dad," I said softly. "What happened to her?"H
CHAPTER NINETYCHRISTINA"If you knew you were spelled," I said carefully, "why didn't you do something about it?"My father was quiet for a moment, looking down at his hands."Two reasons," he said finally. "The first is that the spell, whatever it was, made it nearly impossible to act against it, the awareness of it would come and go, when I was with Titiana I could feel it clearly, like suddenly being able to see the walls of a room you'd been locked in but the moment I was away from her it would close back over me and I'd lose the thread of it." He shook his head slowly. "You can't fight something you can only see half the time.""And the second reason?"He exhaled. "Pierce was pregnant, my child was coming into the world and I couldn't walk away from that, whatever else was happening, whatever had been done to me, there was a baby who hadn't asked for any of it." He looked at me steadily. "I couldn't disappear on my own child.""So we kept seeing each other," he continued. "I
Chapter 81CHRISTINAThe soil was cool and damp between my fingers as I pressed another seedling into theground.It had been almost a week since Esmeralda had collapsed, and since I'd been allowed tomove freely around the pack grounds without Maxwell hovering over me like a shadow, and Iput the
CHAPTER 80CHRISTINA"Can I have a moment alone with her?"Mera paused at the door and looked back at Esmeralda, then at me, she didn't ask why, shejust nodded and slipped out, pulling the door quietly behind her.The room settled into stillness.I found a chair near the wall and dragged it to the
CHAPTER 79CHRISTINAThe door opened and Maxwell stepped out.He looked terrible.His jaw was tight, there were shadows under his eyes and the easy confidence he usuallywore like a second skin was completely gone.I stood up from where I'd been sitting in the hallway."How is she?"He looked at me
CHAPTER 78CHRISTINAThe loud sound made me jump in terror, the water from my glass spilling over my hand.A sharp crack followed by something rolling across the counter and hitting the floor, and Ispun around so fast I knocked my elbow against the cabinet behind me."Who's there?"For a second, n







