After my short nap, I prepared myself for the conference meeting. It is already evening and the sun is setting, I enter the dining room to have a meal. Cora is already seated there while the servants are serving bountiful food on the table, her mouth is watery and those doe eyes are opened widely.
As I take my serving, she taps me lightly on my hand. Her eyes blink nervously - and shyly - when my eyes meet hers.“It seems like I have a little problem here,” she tells me.I remain silent, giving her a simple nod to go on.“I have no idea how to use the cutlery.”“You’re saying that as a joke, right?” I ask.She nods in response, biting her lips in a manner that arouses me oddly. It is quite shocking to learn that from Cora, I know that she is not the Alpha’s daughter. Probably an omega that was used to supersede their daughter, but knowing that she has never used the cutlery all her life is a huge blow.First of all, I dismiss the servants and guards in the room. I don't want them to have a bad impression of their Luna or see her as an obscenity and shame to her name.“I’m going to show you how to use them but you must promise me that you’ll be a fast learner by tomorrow morning.”She smiles, “I promise.”I touch her right palm and a spark of electricity tinges our skin. We pull away her hands, and Cora cradles her palms to her chest with a confused look on her face.“Did you feel that?” she asks curiously.I nod, “It’s nothing to worry about.”I shouldn’t have lied to her. Sparks don't happen unless you are in close proximity to your mate but it doesn't matter, Cora is my Luna after all. I hold her right palm again, this time around the tingling sparks are lighter and now tolerable.“This is a spoon and it’s used to take food like this and straight to your mouth without dropping a grain.”I demonstrate the process several times until she can do it on her own. Although her hands are shaking, I see no problem with that as long as the grains are not dropping.“This per knife for cutting your meat into slices and a fork for stabbing it and taking it into your mouth… understood?”“Yes sir!” She replies with enthusiasm.I leave her to struggle with her meal while I finish mine.“I’m going for a meeting, I’ll be late tonight.”“I wanna go with you,” she blurts out.“You can’t, this is solely for business purposes…”“Am I not part of your business plan?” Her innocent voice sounds sultry in my ears and I drop my spoon.“Say that one more time and I’ll be having you on this table.”Cora zaps her mouth, focusing more on her on her food. I sigh, after all, she is now my responsibility to deal with, and leaving her alone when the environment is unfamiliar will not be safe for her,“Fine, you can come with me…”“Yay!” She screams and throws her arms around my shoulder, then she seems to collect herself, “Sorry about that.”“On one condition, you won’t be causing any trouble.”“Of course, Mr. Alpha.”“It’s Zane,” I correct her.“Whatever.”We finish our meal and head to the car, Conrad looks taken aback to see Cora with me.“You brought the Luna?” he asks me.I allow Cora to enter the car first before answering.“What was I supposed to do? Leave her in the pack house?”Conrad chuckles, “You do care about her?”“Say that again and I’ll silence you here forever,” I threaten, but not seriously.Conrad rolls his eyes, “Save your threats later, someone else will need them. Let’s go.”Cora looks excited all through our ride to the company, I take her to the waiting area that’s close to the conference hall.“Stay here and wait for me, I’ll be in there for about thirty minutes.”She nods and I leave her alone. The members of the board are already waiting for my arrival so the meeting starts immediately.“What is the current profit on the stocks we have?” I ask.“Fifteen percent…”I glare at everyone in the room, “This is very poor. Do you all even want a salary this month?”“We do,” they respond in unison.“Then work on this or I’ll fire you all myself. How is the project management going?”“Uhh, sir… There haven’t been any recent developments since last week.”“What have you all been doing lately, huh?”“Sir, the team went with Erika on the market research but has not reached out to us since.”“Then, reach out to…”I stop as a disturbing feeling washes over me. Cora’s strong scent is suddenly faint and slowly fading away. I stand up abruptly and hand over the meeting to Conrad to take care of, I excuse myself to check on Cora but she is not in the waiting area again.My heart races fast as fear creeps in - the first time I am scared of losing someone. In Erika’s case, I only regretted not standing up for her but never feared losing her. This brown Doe who I care less if she wants to escape is making my heart race and beat faster.I follow the faint scent to the elevator and down to the reception area, my eyes search for her until I sight her being dragged away by the security.“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” I query the security men.“Sir, we caught her snooping around the hallway. When we questioned her, she gave us no tangible response so we decided to walk her out.”I sighed, the security men were just doing their jobs.“Let her go, she’s with me.”They release their grip on her and I drag her to the elevator.“I told you to wait for me, why did you leave?” I ask her, anger is now surging through my veins at the thought of her disobedience.“I’m… I’m sorry,” she whimpers.“You are sorry? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you if those security men kicked you out? There are rogues on the loose for crying out loud!”“Are you mad at me?”She appears to be more fascinated than scared of my anger. Her face is smudged in a smile that she is trying to hide.“Of course not, you can do whatever you wish. Don't have it in mind that you have one punishment waiting for you,” I smirk at her.She shivers at the sound of punishment but I doubt that she is scared to face it. The elevator opens and as we approach the door, it opens and the board members step out. They are startled to see Cora behind me, I let go of her hand immediately.“Who is she, sir?”“Someone who is not important to you,” I reply sarcastically.They nod and move on, I try to hold her again but she declines.“You denied me in front of everyone,” she scowled.“That’s not how it sounded to me,” I say flatly.She scoffs, “You still care about your point of view, selfish Alpha.”“You derive joy in calling me bad names,” I pout.“Because you are a bad person!”She storms off and Conrad follows her behind. Her words hurt me slightly, I thought that her mind about me was clear only for me to realize that she feels the same as every other person - that I’m the bad guy.She faces the window all through our journey back home and by the time we arrive at the pack house, she is already asleep. I lift her in a bridal style and take Cora to her room, laying her on the bed and using the sheets to cover her body.Then I retire to my room, my mother is standing at the window with her arms folded.“What now?” I snap at her.“You made her cry.”“She hurt my feelings first,” I mutter.My mother sighs, “You should learn to stop being selfish around the people you love.”“I don’t love her.”“The spark when you two touched…”“That’s just the chilliness of the air,” I cut off, getting pissed off already.“It is a sign of the mate bond and you lied to her about it.”“Mother, I need to rest. It’s been a long day already.”“You should be careful when you’re with her, goodnight.”As I doze off, all my mind replays is Cora calling me selfish and a bad person.My eyes flutter open as the rays of sunlight radiate on my face. I stretch my body and run a cold shower, my mind recaps that I had a fallout issue with Cora last night. I made up my mind to apologize to her for making her feel bad.I slightly open her door when I get to her room, Cora is sleeping peacefully on the bare floor. I carry up to the bed and she wakes up, her eyes slowly opening. She scowls when she sees my face.“What do you want?” She snaps.“Why are you sleeping on the floor?” I ask her instead, my apologies being swallowed up by pride.“I am used to it. Back at the pack, I slept on the cold floor in my narrow attic. Is that really why you came to my room this morning?” I ruffle my hair, now looking for a cover-up. Cora cocks her eyebrows at me, her eyes glimmering with a huge expectation for me to apologize. “I’ll be taking my leave then,” I reply instead.“Is that all?” She drawls.“Don’t sleep on the floor again so you don’t get a cold.”She scoffs behind me as I wa
CORAI pace around my room, still thinking about what I saw earlier. My mind is probably messed up by now, cussing Zane for being the cause. He never told her that he was dating someone, let alone that she was living under the same roof as them.I bite the bottom of my lips, this is very tempting. I have imagined that my life with Zane will be molded to perfection so that when the Alpha family of the Citadel pack comes to see me, they will be shocked.But Zane has given them every reason to scorn me over and over again. With his girlfriend looking at me dangerously, I am assured that a battle line has been drawn between us and we are left to fight for one man.Do I want to fight for Zane?I don’t like him because of his coldness and arrogance, but there is no one I can relate to except him. But when I am close to him, I feel immeasurably overwhelmed and when I felt that spark as our hands touched, I knew instantly that I was tied to him. Zane is the only person I have who gives me at
“Who are you?” I ask the woman standing behind me.She clears her throat before answering, “I am… Eleanor, one of the servants ordered to assist you.”“Oh…” is all I say.“So, are you in need of any special services… with the Alpha?”“I’m not sure if I should be needing one. Why would I need a special service with him?”Eleanor sits me on my bed and holds my hand, “Because you are his wife, the marriage should be consummated and then you prepare to give birth to pups!”Eleanor sounds more like a mother advising her child, the enthusiasm in her eyes gets me more confused.“Giving birth to pups?” She nods her head.I abruptly stand on my feet with a determined face, “I can do it on my own.”Eleanor sits me down again, her face looks amused by what I said.“How do you think you can have pups on your own?” She asks.I think for a while, I don’t have a suitable answer for this but I don’t want to look stupid or clueless.“I’ll simply sit and relax in my room, read a lot of books, and eat
My mind is in a haze, the thoughts that are running through my head are multiple and I hold my head up to control them. The spark that I felt with Zane is like a mystery that needs to be unraveled. If we were mates, Zane would have told me about it right?But he didn’t and should mean nothing. I relax myself, tonight is the coronation and I have to brace myself for what will happen. The Alpha family will be present and probably watching to see my downfall, I can’t give them that hope.The dining room is empty when I arrive there to eat breakfast. I do that hurriedly, I need to rest and probably feed my thoughts with more theories.“Cora, can I have a word with you?” Erika asks on my way back to my room.“Yes?”“Do you think that doing this will work out for you?”I recognize her question as a warning to remind me of failure, I will not let her break my walls down. I fold my arms and smile at her, she does not know my weakness yet so that gives me the upper hand.“Does it matter what a
The rest of the week was spent avoiding each other. The fire-blazing passion between us that night made me sleepless and uneasy. I wondered why Zane had pushed me away when it was obvious that we were both enjoying the kiss. There was no one to talk to, Eleanor did not show up again and I can not open up to Yuri.Tired of being alone and bored, I storm off to Zane’s room. On my way, I bump into his beta, Conrad.“Greetings, Luna Cora.”“Where is Zane?” I ask, allowing my curiosity to get the better of me.Conrad replies, “He went to the training ground.”“Take me there.” Conrad hesitated a bit before leading me to the car. If Zane will not come to me, then I am going to him. Either way, we are both going to talk about this maddening feelings that are attached to us.What I did not prepare myself for was the outcome of where I was going. The training ground is the largest I have ever seen, with a large capacity that can contain thousands of people.Conrad leads me to the main field w
My night is clouded with dreams of Zane and I am convinced that I am not alone in this, I felt his presence in my room probably in the middle of the night. His peonies fragrance had hit my nose but I was too sleepy to open my eyes. Now that I am awake, a refreshing sensation hits me.I stretch my body while Eleanor prepares my bath, she applies the same oil to my skin. I'm beginning to wonder how she was so sure that the oil would work, how was she even able to come up with such sentiment?Is this some sort of a love potion, because the last thing on my mind is attracting the wrong person?“This oil won't turn into a huge problem if another guy gets attracted to it, right?” I ask her, just to clear my doubt.Eleanor chuckles but shakes her head, “This is not a witch's potion or a fairytale oil, Luna Cora. Let's just say my mother was once a powerful herbalist and I learned some recipes from her.”I nod in understanding, but there is something in Eleanor’s demeanor that makes me think
“Brown Doe, are you okay?”My eyes hurt as I try to force them open, my head is spinning from constantly trying to stir from my deep sleep. His voice resonates in my head and I relax my nerves, my eyes open slowly. The environment is blurry at first but it soon clears, Zane’s worried face stares back at me.“W… what happened?” I stammer.“You were poisoned by the nightshade thorn,” he replies.“Nightshade…?”I gasp when I recall the thorn I had snatched from Conrad’s hand, If a single one could make me dizzy, what about the man that was plugged with so many of them?“What about the man?” I ask.Zane growls but replies to me anyway, “He’s fine now.”I sighed in relief that I had saved a soul. Zane holds my hands, his warmth creeps on my skin and I suddenly feel hot inside.“You scared me earlier, I thought I was going to lose you,” he lets out.“If you are scared of losing me, why do you keep pushing me away?”That question seems too hard for him to answer, his silence tells me so. “Y
Since I had nothing else planned for the morning, I decided to visit the man who was being punished yesterday by Zane. Eleanor had left to take care of her housework, promising to come back tonight with a special treat for my task.I follow Yuri’s lead to the hospital and she shows me where the man lies, his body is covered with bandages on the bruises. He is fully awake and panics when he sees me coming in.“My Luna, I’m sorry for implicating you in such a manner. It is my fault and I will accept your punishment wholeheartedly,” he says hastily.“I’m not here to punish you, I grabbed the nightshade without thinking about the consequences. I’m here to see how you are doing, I hope the remedy is taking immediate effect?”He seems to calm down and his voice softens, “It hurts a bit when I stir my body but the pains are bearable. My life was spared all thanks to you, Alpha Zane never shows any pity when he is punishing offenders.”I keep silent, not knowing what to say. I do not want to