Fen’s POV   I’m getting tired of waiting for the council to make a decision about Ares and Ari. He wasn’t supposed to be her mate! Their mating one another royally fucked my plans up. Now I have to spend most of my time pandering to the court of public opinion...the media. The more of the ‘Mr. Perfect’ image I project right now, the more everyone will sympathize with me and press the council to name me the heir.    I hear a knock on the door of my office. I’ve been hulled up in here for the past few days working out the schematics of my proposal I am going to present to the council. Before I do though, I’m going to give a speech to the public on national television to pressure the council to lean in my favor.    Alexia still hasn’t returned home. I’m beginning to t

Ares’s POV   After a few more hours of driving into the mountains we finally arrived at the location I knew to be the Sisters of the Moon’s coven headquarters. We had to dip down a side street in the small mountainside town due to the paparazzi that seemed to be accumulating in every area we went.    “What are we going to do? They are swarming around that place!” Illyana says in a very concerned voice.   “Relax! Throw these on.” I toss back trench coats, sun glasses, and hats to everyone to put on. Sometimes covering up as much of your identity as possible is the only defense.    As we hop out of the SUV and begin walking towards the crowd and coven entrance, a photographer notices us. I immediate

After a while, the witches settled down a bit and actually welcomed us in. We sat down in their main greeting room and one of the mistresses brought tea for everyone.  “It’s not much Alpha, but we do pride our coven in our generosity towards those in your territory and pack. We are loyalists after all.” One mistress stated while sipping her tea.    Something was bothering me and I knew what it was but I didn’t want to raise any alarms with Ari so I tried to be cautious in how I approached the subject.   “What’s wrong?” Ari whispers to me from behind me.   “Nothing. I was summoned to the council. I told Trace I couldn’t go right now, obviously.” I whisper back to her as she nods and relaxes back into her seat.

We left the diner to go back to the council headquarters where our room for the night is waiting for us. I’m exhausted all the time now, and I can’t wait to put my face into a pillow. We said goodnight to my dad and settled in our room for the rest of the night.    As I laid my head on a pillow on the bed, my phone went off. Someone text me, so I rolled over and grabbed my phone from the bedside table.   Alexia: I’m going to reject Lane.   Me: Really? Are you 100% sure about this? You know I will support you either way.   Alexia: I’m sure. I can’t even think about that place. I just can’t.   Me

Ares’s POV The match was challenging, but not too difficult. After Councilmen Horis declared Ari and I the clear winners, the entire council as well as the other alpha’s bowed in submission and swore their fealty and loyalty to us both. It didn’t take long for the media to get word, and thus, the circus monkey’s are at it again, only they are starting to get worse. It was a relief finally ridding the world of that disgrace of an alpha. The fact that he openly admitted to murdering my father was icing on the cake - an added touch to the reasons for his death. His pack will end the horrid practice he was fully taking advantage of and I will send my father’s former beta to go and run the pack up there for the time being until we can find a better solution to managing our new pack territories. Ari has been scared to death of everything that has happened, and I don’t blame her, but I did reassure her multiple times that I would be fine and everything would be okay. I think she can fina