Shattered (Sample Only!)

3 - The Alpha and Luna

CeCe

Sleep was impossible to come by last night. Another piece of my life that I thought I was used to that has changed dramatically in only the space of hours.

Years of uneasy sleep have plagued me my entire life. Nightmares of my mother abandoning me in the pack. Of being a barely-tolerated orphan who said too much. Of finally learning to fall silent when the Knowing comes until I believed my packmates forgot all about it. My she-wolf helped, after a fashion. She would nip at me when I was about to spill secrets I had no business knowing. Suppressing it hurt, and I would wake up in the middle of the night, the Knowing laying thick on me like an unwelcome blanket.

Then Tivo shifted and rejected me and my sleep became nearly nonexistent. I would lie awake for hours, weeping, praying futilely. My she-wolf no longer helped, so I stopped speaking almost entirely. I was acting even stranger and the pack noticed. Tivo's mother would stare at me in hatred after years of ignoring my existence. My life was in shambles.

Goddess. My dreams... broken things filled with teeth and fur as black as midnight. My pack on fire. The dark beast stalking me in the dark. My she-wolf trembling and howling in fear. I would wake up in tears, sweating and screaming, just as the dark beast was about to devour me.

I stare at a peaceful Crown Prince, his head on the pillow next to mine, and realize... during the infinitesimal snatches of sleep I claimed last night, I didn't dream once.

"Dark beast, hmm?" he smiles a slow, languid stretching of his lips that hide his sharp canines. He still hasn't washed the scent of my blood from his lips. He hasn't washed... any part of himself. He reeks of me and I of him.

"My princess," he breathes. "My mate." He strokes his thumb over my lips as I freeze. I am an open book to him. His Mark on my neck shivers and pulses.

"Did you see me in these dreams, Princess?" he asks. He's still smiling.

I nod. "Not dreams," I croak. I wish they were so easily dismissed. Pretend as I might, there is no escaping the Knowing once it's sunk its claws into me.

"They are nightmares," I whisper. At first, I flinch as his smile falls. Stupid female, this is not the time to start speaking without thinking, first.

"Tell me what haunts your nightmares, then," he demands in a colder voice enthused with alpha command. My she-wolf flops over, terrified and not at all capable of mounting any sort of defense.

Shaking my head, I'm mute for a moment. A low warning rumbles from the Crown Prince's chest and it frees my words. "A dark beast. Flames. He eats my pack. His horde of black wolves hunt them down and eat them all. I run and run, but I'm not fast enough and I don't know where I'm going," I inhale on a small sob. The words tumble from my lips, finally free after years of this nightmare stalking my dreams. "I'm lost and they're chasing me. I see my village, my pack, burning to ash."

"Black wolves?" The Crown Prince asks. He's smiling again as if the nightmare that has haunted me for years is nothing more than an amusing pup's tale.

"Dark as night," I confirm as he gently wipes the tears from my cheeks.

"When did you start dreaming of this dark beast, my love?"

"I'm not sure..." I whisper, but he can hear the lie in my voice. I ignore his scolding glare. Swallowing back more tears, I reply softly, "years. Seven years."

He laughs. Tosses his head back and laughs bitterly. Now, it's my turn to stare at him. He's beautiful, this male, but so powerful that his beauty just adds to my intimidation.