Callista.The crunch of Ruelle’s nose breaking under my punch is so, so satisfying.I’ve never been a violent person, hell, I've never even liked violence, which is kind of contradictory to what I’ve witnessed all my life. When you’re a werewolf, violence is an inherent part of life. So are blood and death. If a wolf wants to challenge their Alpha, they will challenge the Alpha to fight till the death. Then, the one who lives gets to be the next Alpha. The punishment for most crimes here is death or a gruesome beating. Or, if you’re really unlucky, a whipping. Jail is really a privilege for a crime, wolves weep in relief when they get life sentence with hard labor. The worst of it all is being exiled. I’ve actually heard some wolves say they’d rather be killed than be exiled. It’s a matter of honor. Personally, I prefer the latter option. Being without a pack doesn’t seem all that bad to me, especially when being in a pack is proving to be such a disaster these days.But I digress.“Y

Callista.I look at my face in the mirror, hours after the assault, and realize that yeah, I do look as horrible as I feel.My face is swollen with purple bruises, and my eye which got hit was blackened. My eyes are tinged with red from all that crying, and my white t-shirt is white no longer. I look like I’d gone a few rounds in a boxing ring and lost the fight at the end.I have no one but myself to blame for this whole thing. If only I had controlled my temper and not fallen into Ruelle’s ploy... A knock comes from my door, and boy, I’ve had enough human interaction for the day.“Go away,” I reply petulantly, cringing at how wounded my voice sounds. Ugh, it’s going to take a while for me to heal, given how I was still wolfless.“Yeah, not doing that.” The friendly guard says as he opens the door. I turn to him, only to see him holding a Ziploc bag in one hand and my dinner in the other. I didn’t even realize it was nighttime already, and I don’t particularly feel hungry, but the

Theon.She’s in the hospital, having lost too much blood. As a result, her healing had slowed down, so we had no choice but to take her to meet the head doctor of the Rexellen Hospital. As werewolves, we rarely ever visit hospitals, as our natural healing factor takes care of most of our scrapes and sicknesses before they can become problematic. When a wolf goes to a hospital, it could mean only one thing. They’d caught an unnatural sickness, had a mental ailment, or had been grievously injured.More often than not, the case is the latter.“She’s going to be okay.” Says Dr. Haeger, “At first, she was in a critical condition, and her body had slowed down healing to keep her alive But her natural healing accelerated as soon as we did a blood transfusion. She’d passed out from the mixture of blood loss, pain, and shock, I believe. She might possibly have a brain concussion, albeit a mild one. Other than that, Ruelle is steady and out of the danger zone for now.”“What about the stealer?”

Ruelle.Theon is not an idiot.By now I’ve realized that much. While he did believe I was his mate, he had his suspicions about Callista too. The only thing that kept him from actually believing a word that came from Callista was that he did not want her to be his mate. He even doubted his supposed knowledge about the stealer when it came to her. I suppose that was a perk of trying to be the mate of a King. Thank the Goddess for that.I mean, how can he ever pursue her? She is the stealer. He is the Alpha King of all of the Lycan Kingdom of North America. His very blood demanded respect, and he would do nothing to jeopardize the standing of his family. Callista and Theon is the most absurd combination to ever exist. Imagine how the masses under him would react if they thought the stealer of all people is his mate? They wouldn’t even care for the sacredness of the mate bond or whatever, they would only believe that the stealer is manipulating him with her abilities.No, I am the safer

Callista.When J comes for me, I am in so much pain. The numbness from the first time had long gone, and I’d passed out and come back to consciousness a few times. Whenever I passed out, I was given a reprieve but when my traitorous body decided to wake up, I was shown a preview of hell again.In the past unforgettable several hours, I’ve been physically assaulted, whipped, beaten with batons, and waterboarded. That last one made me think I would really die, thankfully it hadn’t gone for long. I had a feeling I was going to be really careful around water for a long while to come. If I thought breathing was a labor before, now it feels like torture itself.When J comes, I’ve been moved to another room and strapped into a chair from my wrists and ankles. I feel like every bone in my body has been broken, and a keening voice, filled with whimpers and pathetic moans leaves my lips, accompanied occasionally by a dribble of blood. The dungeon master is in the process of binding my eyes when