-VALEN'S POV- "Why should I sit and listen to this crap? If you want to rip my head off," I dared him, "Go ahead, but I'm not going anywhere." I yielded to the desire to smash something by lifting the wooden chair and throwing it into the wall and looking at my father square into his obstinate, unfazed green orbs. Something warped in my gut, dark and sinister. Dad leaned back into the large leather-grey executive chair with controlled calmness, folding his arms across his chest, silently allowing me to vent in front of the large black U-shaped office desk at the home base. With a frown, Devin rose from his chair to be away from me, his body tensed. Standing on the left side of the casement window that allowed most of the newly radiant morning light into the circular-shaped office of pine-green, blue-gray, and champagne-silver colored schemes. There was no need for Dad to come to Wolkrane Fortress. My assignment to manage Alpha Camp, where I was training the future Alphas from aroun

-RAINA'S POV- "Why is this happening?" I croaked as my eyes misted, getting blurry. I cringed away from Valen with my back against the wall, I slid to the floor, falling into hysteria. It was like my leg had been incapacitated and a lightning bolt had zapped my body from head to toe. The kiss had been unexpected but welcomed. What began as a dull sting on my face soon intensified, twisting into a barrage of jabs. At first, it was the shock of it which changed without warning to a painful burn converting such an intimate moment into a kiss of death. My hands touched my peppery, swollen crimson-red lips. They were so big, like I'd gotten liposuction and required healing. Stick them with a needle and they might pop like a balloon. My splotchy cheeks shriveled like a raisin. Shit! The sacred stone did not rectify the issues with our mate bond. My first kiss was absolutely horrendous. It felt like a whirring blade was slicing me up. It would scorch my memory forever. How sad. The moon

-VALEN'S POV- “Uhm.” In a repetitive rhythm, I kept the rapid strokes going with my hand coiled around my stiff elongated shaft. My dick was so hard with a raging pulse that I could not be around anyone right now. With my left hand bracing on a birch tree, my pants half-down, I pump my cock now in a twisting and pulling motion. The sun could not scald me because the shadows of the trees danced over my physique as I stood under their shade, self-pleasuring. My erection required handling. I fled to the forest to get away from Raina and beat up a tree until my fist eroded the bark and it tumbled over. "Agh." The flaming attraction I had for her was going out of control with the proximity of her. Even now, her scent has settled in my nostrils like a high chemical being sprayed throughout the air, only sweet and refreshing. The simple touch of her lips had sent me into overdrive. The hard boner was maddening. My restraint had snapped. The taste of her full lips was like a donut glazed

-RAINA’S POV- “Is that why you came here?” Valen asked, roaming his emerald eyes on me, which flickered into black for a moment, letting me know that Zeus wanted to come out. They crudely undress me. Hera was lured enough to attempt to push open the doors of my mind. “No. I came here to see you.” I frowned that he had the wrong impression all this time. “But it seemed like you’d rather be around Mercedes than me.” A fierce jealousy gnawed at me. I turned and walked down the pathway, passing two recreational buildings. The voice from the brief phone call that we had yesterday replayed in my head. It was definitely Mercedes. “Don’t listen to rumors,” Valen said, trailing me. “You ran away from me. You always avoid me. Why?” I kicked up a fuss with my hands gesticulating my frustration in the air. “Some things are hard to explain, Raina.” It was a painful whisper that aggravated me. “I’m your mate. Try me.” I stopped at an intersection where the utility structure and maintenance an

-RAINA'S POV- Tears. Only my heat made me cry. Other than that, I've never bawled like this. Well, there was that time at the hospital when I thought I would lose Valen because we were unfortunate soulmates, and right now that familiar despair dwelled like a house filled with rodents in my gut. Unwanted but hard to get rid of. Hyperventilate-crying, I sniveled miserably, wiping my face countless times with the back of my hand. Surrounded by various trees and the noisy inhabitants of the forest, I blocked the mind-link. I'll lay my back on the green grassy floor of nature for about five minutes to stop the flow of tears and recompose myself. Wispy clouds in the sky produced a soft golden filter. As though rooted to heaven's ether, the sun grounds itself in the blue. Around me, the world was vibrant due to the light of the sun, which accentuated the forest's most vivid hues. Like the pink carnation, the typically large, spectacular, and brightly colored tulips, and the elderberry sh