My body is alive, but my soul feels already buried,
Would it not be easier to let go? To vanish into the void? To stop fighting and simply follow my pup into the afterlife where I might finally hold it, cradle it, protect it as I should have?
My wolf stirs faintly at the thought, and for once she does not resist. She likes the idea of death-likes the idea of reunion.
And yet here I am, trapped in this endless fog of nothingness. No sights, no sounds, no scents. Just the weight of despair pressing down.
“Elaine?”
The voice cuts faintly through the haze. I blink, barely registering it.
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“Elaine, I’m done speaking with Alpha Michael,” the voice continues, firmer now. “It is time to leave.”
Alpha Darius.
He has spoken to me many times already, but I did not answer. I could not. My body feels heavy, my mind drifting. He enters the room again, and I sense rather than see the worry radiating from him. I must look like a corpse, still and silent, my eyes empty.
Strong hands frame my face, forcing me to meet his gaze. For the first time in what feels like eternity, I focus. His dark eyes lock on mine, steady, unyielding.
“I will carry you out of here if I must,” Darius says, his voice a low growl of determination. “We are leaving,
Elaine. We will not come back. But you must fight. You must survive.”
Something flickers inside me-distant, fragile, but there. A spark.
“Leave here?” My voice is hoarse, thin, as though it belongs to someone else.
“Yes.” His grip tightens, as though anchoring me to him. “I told you, I will take you away no matter what it takes. Do not give up, not yet. You are still alive, and there is more waiting for you than this darkness.
I will take you to my pack, where you can begin again. Where no one will dare touch you.”
I stare at him, searching for deception, for pity, for anything that might break me further. But I see only truth. Only strength.
Slowly, weakly, I nod. My lips part, trembling. “Thank you, Alpha Darius.”
His expression softens, and for the first time since my world shattered, I wonder-just wonder-if maybe beyond this fog, there is something more. Something worth surviving for.
Maybe.
Just maybe.
Darius didn’t let go of my face, not until he was certain I was truly looking at him. His jaw clenched, determination carved into every line of him.
“Rest now, Elaine. Leave the rest to me.” He said.
Before I could protest, he slid one arm beneath my knees and the other around my back. My body felt weightless to him, but for me it was as if I were floating-adrift between life and death.
My head fell against his chest, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I could hear the steady, grounding rhythm of a heartbeat that wasn’t my own.
The sound anchored me.
He turned and strode toward the door. The click of his boots against the polished floors echoed in my ears, and as we left the room, the fog in my mind stirred with unease. A sense of danger loomed.
It didn’t take long.
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The moment we reached the main hall, voices rose in alarm, bouncing off the walls like a warning bell. “Alpha Darius! You cannot take her!” Beta Richard’s voice boomed, his posture rigid with both fear and duty. His gaze darted between me-weak in Darius’s arms-and the towering figure of his own alpha behind him.
Darius’s growl reverberated through his chest and into me, low and menacing.
“Stand aside.” His command rolled like thunder, laced with pure alpha authority. The walls seemed to hum with it, the air crackling as wolves in the hall lowered their heads under its weight.
“She belongs to this pack. You can’t just take her!” Alpha Efrein’s voice rang out, cold and clipped, his eyes hard as stone.
“She belongs to no one,” Darius cut in, his voice sharp as steel, each word slicing through the silence. “Not to this pack. Not to the family who abandoned her. And certainly not to the male who betrayed her with her sister.”
Gasps rippled through the hall like a wave, whispers spreading among the pack members who had gathered to witness the standoff.
My eyelids fluttered, heavy, but I could sense them-eyes watching, ears straining, hearts beating faster at the spectacle unraveling before them.
And then came his voice. The one I once thought would always be my shield, my safe place. A voice that used to set my heart racing with love, now twisted into something that filled me with nothing but revulsion.
“Alpha Darius, you do not know the whole story.” Michael said. His voice was firm, but I heard the cracks in it. “We did not have any choice. I chose Kathy as my mate long before I discovered Elaine was my fated one. And Kathy…”
His hand reached out, brushing protectively over my sister’s swollen belly. “She carries my pup. I could not abandon our child.”
The air thickened, pressing down on me like a vice. My throat burned as I forced my eyes open. And there they were-Michael, the male the Moon Goddess destined for me, standing tall but pale, and beside him Kathy, my sister, her hand curled possessively around the swell of her stomach.
His pup. Their pup. The one they celebrated while mine bled out of me.
Darius did not falter. His stride remained steady, his hold on me protective, his eyes glowing faintly with his wolf’s power.
“You had your chance to protect her,” Darius said, his words a deadly blade. “You failed. Now she is under my care.”
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New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.