Storm woke up with a sense of dread churning in the pit of her stomach. She had just had a horrible dream, and the memory of it lingered like a dark cloud over her mind.As she lay in bed, trying to shake off the remnants of the dream, she felt a wave of panic wash over her. Her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe, and she struggled to control the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm her.The dream had been vivid and unsettling, filled with images that made no sense to her. She tried to piece together the fragments of the dream, to understand its meaning, but it felt like trying to grasp at smoke. Vampires, demons and what-nots. What was all that? What was the dream trying to convey to her?Her emotions were in turmoil, like a storm raging inside her. Fear, confusion, and a sense of foreboding mingled together, creating a tangled web of emotions that she couldn't untangle. She still remembered the words that she had exchanged with the jaguar man, Kon. For some reason, it w
Desperately, Storm tried to think of what to do to get rid of the malevolent presence. It was not giving up yet. She said another prayer.She didn’t think she could hold onto the wall for long-she could actually feel its strength withering. Could the presence feel it too?Should she try to confront the presence head-on, or should she flee from the room and seek safety elsewhere? But before she could make a decision, she felt the presence begin to dissipate both from her mind and her room, like smoke fading into the night.Relief flooded through her, washing away the fear and uncertainty that had gripped her moments before. But even as the presence faded away, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched, that something sinister was lurking just beyond the edges of her perception.For the past few days now, she had felt it, this sense of being observed, of being watched by unseen eyes. It had started out as a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, but it had grown stron
Storm inhaled deeply, and then again, and then again, until it felt as if she was competing with someone in an inhaling duel, until she laughed at herself, at her internal jokes. The air here was so clean. Cleaner than the one in her house. Free from maliciousness.Immediately she had left her house, she had pinged one of the servants whose contact had been left with her incase of emergencies, if she couldn’t prepare food for herself. Yes, her house had come with special food ingredients in the cupboards. She would have loved to try out something, but her mind had been singed with the dream and her findings. She had been too destabilized to cook. And so, she had called for food, and had waited on the veranda until it came. The food had been nice, the servant girl had been human, but Storm knew that she could cook better. After all, she didn’t work in Jess’ restaurant for nothing. After the meal, she had gone to the garden that had made her house the sweetest in the clan, had taken a
Storm didn’t recognize the presence of Avery right beside her. She didn’t even greet, or make an inclination that someone now sat beside her on the bench. She looked ahead, wishing for the first time to be anywhere but here, because of the presence of the woman whom she had seen frolicking with Kaden from her window, the woman that hated her as a result of that. “You weren’t taught to greet your elders?” Storm ignored Avery again. Rather she made do with the tapping of her foot on the soft grass beneath her feet. “I suggest you answer me, human. Unless you want yourself beneath six feet.” So, Kaden hadn’t told Avery then that she was not completely human? Storm wondered, a bit amused at the total annihilation of the woman from her case. Was it that Kaden didn’t trust the woman beside her not to make a fuss? Storm almost chuckled but for the fact that she didn't want her hair being marred by the woman. She could bet her ass off that it would be the first place the woman would t
At Tensel’s Place:“This is a serious matter. I know some of us here would be relieved that Levon has taken his sight away from our compound, from our people, from our women and children most especially, but his plan is still the same-colonize the world. We can’t allow that, because surely if we refuse to find the girl that had gotten his attention, then we are doomed too.” Tensel started, looking into the faces of the entire ancients in his compound. The women were there too, even with the human guards who were already skilled in knowledge about matters like this. “We need to find the girl, whoever she is. We need to stop Levon from wrecking terror in this world. This world might not be the best place considering the amount of corruption and decay I’ve seen in it since birth centuries ago, but it doesn’t deserve to be ruled by a wretched demon.” The men nodded.“That’s true.” Gray, the healer intoned. “Tensel is right. We have to the find the girl. Elina and Elizabeth were the one
Storm crunched on a banana cookie, her legs crossed on each other on top of Kaden’s table as she counted down to the minute, to the second, that Kaden will come here. She had been waiting for thirty minutes already. After Avery had left, she had dallied around in the garden for a while, touching flowers here and there, taking in their diverse scents, making a guess at their names, and when she hadn’t heard Kaden call out to her yet, through his voice or through the phone, she had sighed and sauntered out of the garden, a bit bored. So bored that she had even gone to training grounds to see the place that she would try to convince Kaden to let her train in. It had been empty, but the field was massive, so massive with the training equipment scattered here and there, scattered yet looking somehow orderly as if the training people were divided into groups. After standing there for a while, she had tried Jutul’s phone. It had rang, but he hadn’t answered. She hadn’t been sure if it was
“Storm?” Kaden tried again. Desperately even. Storm sighed. “I think I have been watched by someone.” “Here in the clan?” “Is it the red beast?”Lent and Jiraq questioned simultaneously. Their reaction similar to that of the others in the office. Kaden for one was beside himself with anger. What’s with all these? Will it ever end? Will she ever have a moment of rest? “She will, when the real threat is eradicated.” His Lycan enthused, and Kaden knew that it was right. Until whatever it was had been eradicated, no peace for him and his clan, no peace for Storm either. He had sent his investigators to locate Jess. It would take a while, and he wished he could fasten the whole process. He was sure that the woman would have a lot of answers to their questions. “Yes, in this clan. I am not sure if it’s the red beast or a demon.” There was silence in the room. “Demon… what do you mean by that?” Liam asked, ignoring the shaft of fear that has lodged somewhere in his spine. “Well, if
A thick silence dwelled in Kaden’s office when Storm was done talking. It was broken by a knock on the door, and before Kaden could tell the person to stay out, Avery stepped into the room. Avery balked when she saw the inner circle with Storm, when she instinctively felt the seriousness of the atmosphere, stemming from whatever important discussion that they were having. A discussion they had exempted her from. She, who had abandoned her mate back in the pack? She who had left everything, including family, and had followed them to the ends of the earth? “What’s going on here, Lent?” She asked her cousin, feeling her wolf howl in anger, not at her cousin, but herself. Being free now, her wolf had continued from where it had stopped. Berating her from running away from her mate just to be with the mate of another. But she had learned to silence it, or rather cope with the tantrums. She had just forgotten how tiring it could be. She would have wished for the collar back, but then the