by W. J. May
Everlasting
The Queen's Alpha Series, Volume 2
W.J. May
Published by Dark Shadow Publishing, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
EVERLASTING
First edition. February 1, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 W.J. May.
ISBN: 978-1386135760
Written by W.J. May.
Also by W.J. May
Bit-Lit Series
Lost Vampire
Cost of Blood
Price of Death
Blood Red Series
Courage Runs Red
The Night Watch
Marked by Courage
Forever Night
Daughters of Darkness: Victoria's Journey
Victoria
Huntress
Coveted (A Vampire & Paranormal Romance)
Twisted
Daughter of Darkness - Victoria - Box Set
Hidden Secrets Saga
Seventh Mark - Part 1
Seventh Mark - Part 2
Marked By Destiny
Compelled
Fate's Intervention
Chosen Three
The Hidden Secrets Saga:The Complete Series
Kerrigan Chronicles
Stopping Time
A Passage of Time
Ticking Clock
Secrets in Time
Time in the City (Coming Soon)
Mending Magic Series
Lost Souls
Illusion of Power (Coming Soon)
Challenging the Dark (Coming Soon)
Paranormal Huntress Series
Never Look Back
Coven Master
Alpha's Permission
Blood Bonding
Oracle of Nightmares
Shadows in the Night
Paranormal Huntress BOX SET #1-3
Prophecy Series
Only the Beginning
White Winter
Secrets of Destiny
The Chronicles of Kerrigan
Rae of Hope
Dark Nebula
House of Cards
Royal Tea
Under Fire
End in Sight
Hidden Darkness
Twisted Together
Mark of Fate
Strength & Power
Last One Standing
Rae of Light
The Chronicles of Kerrigan Box Set Books # 1 - 6
The Chronicles of Kerrigan: Gabriel
Living in the Past
Present For Today
Staring at the Future
The Chronicles of Kerrigan Prequel
Christmas Before the Magic
Question the Darkness
Into the Darkness
Fight the Darkness
Alone in the Darkness
Lost in Darkness
The Chronicles of Kerrigan Prequel Series Books #1-3
The Chronicles of Kerrigan Sequel
A Matter of Time
Time Piece
Second Chance
Glitch in Time
Our Time
Precious Time
The Hidden Secrets Saga
Seventh Mark (part 1 & 2)
The Queen's Alpha Series
Eternal
Everlasting
Unceasing
Evermore
Forever
Boundless
Prophecy
Protected
Foretelling
Revelation (Coming Soon)
Betrayal (Coming Soon)
Resolved (Coming Soon)
The Senseless Series
Radium Halos
Radium Halos - Part 2
Nonsense
Standalone
Shadow of Doubt (Part 1 & 2)
Five Shades of Fantasy
Shadow of Doubt - Part 1
Shadow of Doubt - Part 2
Four and a Half Shades of Fantasy
Dream Fighter
What Creeps in the Night
Forest of the Forbidden
Arcane Forest: A Fantasy Anthology
The First Fantasy Box Set
Watch for more at W.J. May’s site.
Copyright 2018 by W.J. May
THIS E-BOOK IS LICENSED for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2018 by W.J. May
Cover design by: Book Cover by Design
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
Have You Read the C.o.K Series?
The Chronicles of Kerrigan
Book I - Rae of Hope is FREE!
BOOK TRAILER:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gILAwXxx8MU
How hard do you have to shake the family tree to find the truth about the past?
Fifteen year-old Rae Kerrigan never really knew her family's history. Her mother and father died when she was young and it is only when she accepts a scholarship to the prestigious Guilder Boarding School in England that a mysterious family secret is revealed.
Will the sins of the father be the sins of the daughter?
As Rae struggles with new friends, a new school and a star-struck forbidden love, she must also face the ultimate challenge: receive a tattoo on her sixteenth birthday with specific powers that may bind her to an unspeakable darkness. It's up to Rae to undo the dark evil in her family's past and have a ray of hope for her future.
Find W.J. May
Website:
http://www.wanitamay.yolasite.com
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EVERLASTING Blurb:
When the crown prince puts a bounty on her head, Katerina and her friends find themselves facing trouble at every turn. It’s a race to get to the safe house in time, but will they pull together to work as a team, or will their differences pull them apart?
Strengths and weaknesses are put to the test as Katerina is plunged headfirst into a magical world she never knew existed. Fiction becomes reality as the char
acters from her childhood fairytales come to life, bringing with them secrets she could never have imagined.
Her bloodline gives her the right to call herself their queen, but is the division between the royal family and the magical kingdom too great? How can she mend the damage of the past?
More importantly...can she be the one to unite her people?
The Queen’s Alpha Series
Eternal
Everlasting
Unceasing
Evermore
Forever
Boundless
Contents
Have You Read the C.o.K Series?
Find W.J. May
EVERLASTING Blurb:
The Queen’s Alpha Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
UNCEASING Blurb
The Queen’s Alpha Series
Find W.J. May
More books by W.J. May
The Chronicles of Kerrigan
Chapter 1
“Dylan, is that you?”
The wolf met her eyes for a moment before dropping its head with yet another frustrated sigh. A sigh that Katerina had heard many times before. A sigh that promised a furious lecture soon to come.
There aren’t many things you can utter when the guy you’ve been travelling around with for the last month and a half suddenly turns into a wolf. And he failed to tell you.
Katerina wracked her brain. Trying to come up with anything remotely appropriate.
She bypassed the standard exclamations of shock. The cheesy one-liners designed to hide her bug-eyed surprise. She even avoided all her defense-mechanistic jokes—resisting the urge to throw a large stick and see whether or not he would fetch it back. In the end, she opted for a strange sort of comradery. She’d held a secret from him—even though he’d known all along—but that wasn’t the point. She thought about how he’d reacted when she told him she was the missing princess. A bizarre empathetic response she happened to think was both kind and comforting, while others, historically, did not. All this was running through her head as those blue eyes stared—or possibly glared—at her.
Tell him something about yourself. Something weird. Fair is fair.
Her confidence soared, and she was about to confide a story about how she, too, used to run around pretending to be a creature of the forest. Back with Kailas when they were both still children and he hadn’t yet tried to kill her. But before she could get a chance to speak, the image in front of her changed.
A loud voice rang angrily through the clearing. “You STUPID girl!”
It turned out Dylan had enough words for them both.
Gone was the chocolate fur. Gone were the razor claws. Replaced instead with a guy so beside himself she’d be surprised if he didn’t lift right off the ground. He didn’t. He stormed across it instead. Coming to a stop just inches away from her.
Completely naked.
“What the heck were you thinking?!”
The birds cringed away from his voice. Taking to the skies and leaving the volatile scene in the little clearing far behind them. The princess was not so lucky.
“There was this kid,” she started to say, although by now it seemed a rather transparent deception. “He was crying, and I was trying to—”
“I don’t care about some KID!” Dylan thundered, completely oblivious to the rays of sunlight glinting off his bare chest. “WHAT did you DO?!”
She had wandered off. Left Tanya behind. Disobeyed his direct orders. The anger was understandable. His choice of words, however, was not.
“What did I do?” she repeated, trying her best to understand whilst forbidding her eyes to stray anywhere beneath his neck. There was enough going on right now without adding on the first naked body she’d ever seen. “I’m trying to tell you. Wait... What do you mean—”
“I couldn’t track you!” he shouted, eyes wide and feral. “I couldn’t find you!”
However impossible it seemed, she suddenly found herself more frightened than she’d been at any point during the fight. It was his voice that did it. And the look in his eyes.
She’d never seen this side of him. The loss of control. The panic. The only time she’d even seen him flustered was when they’d been in Bernie’s cave; to be fair, he’d thought there was a legitimate chance he was about to be turned into soup.
Then all at once, it clicked.
“Alwyn’s spell...” she murmured. Her eyes widened as they lifted to the forest trees, but before she could gather her thoughts she was abruptly grounded by that angry voice.
“What?”
Dylan had kept a firm hand on her ever since the paws had disappeared and he had hands to use. Even now, with both her attackers lying in pieces, he seemed incredibly reluctant to let go.
“I had a spell put on me when I left the palace,” she was quick to explain. “A spell to make me impossible to track.” Her eyes flickered down to his hand and her cheeks flushed with guilt. “It was supposed to have worn off by now. I didn’t think—”
“No, you DIDN’T think!” he thundered. “You NEVER do!”
The words echoed violently among the trees, but even as he shouted them he pulled her closer. Searching her over for damages. Combing his fingers through her hair. Lifting her chin to check her eyes for a concussion. Running his hands along the base of her skull, the top of her collarbone. Down her arms and all the way to her wrists. It was there that he stopped. Breathing heavily. Holding her tight against his bare chest.
She closed her eyes and leaned against him. Trying to stop shaking. Taking a strange sort of comfort in the proximity, no matter how enraged he’d become.
“You just go wandering off in the woods, chasing after crying children. Picking fights with vampires. Stumbling upon giants and bands of assassins! No matter how many times I tell you not to! No matter how many times it comes back to BITE US IN THE ARSE!”
Katerina flinched, and her eyes filled with tears. In her periphery she saw Cassiel and Tanya rush into the clearing, weapons drawn. They took one look at the carnage and stopped short, staring warily at the couple standing in the middle of it all.
“Why should I have expected anything different from you?” Dylan released her in a single motion, spitting on the ground as he paced to the other side of the clearing. Little streams of crimson were dripping down his back, like he’d wandered out of some macabre portrait, but Katerina didn’t think any of the blood was his. The only wounds Dylan had sustained in the fight were internal. Though he was doing his best to exorcise them now.
“Chasing after some kid...” He paced and cursed, muttering furiously to himself for another moment, before whirling back around and focusing all that rage on her. “It doesn’t matter how many squirrels you eat, how many bogs you sleep in—you’re just a stupid, spoiled little princess.”
Their eyes met and something between them died.
“That’s all you’ll ever be.” He stormed away without another word. Without a glance behind him. Without addressing the fact that he still wasn’t wearing any pants. He left Katerina standing behind him, feeling like a hole had been stabbed right through her chest. If he’d used a blade, it couldn’t have cut any deeper.
...because he’s right.
A feeling of hopelessness settled over her. One that had very little to do with the attack, and far more to do with the reprimand afterwards. She’d been expecting some degree of sympathy. A hint of concern. Or perhaps even a casual explanation for how the hell the man she’d been travelling around with had suddenly turned into a giant dog.
What she hadn’t expected was the truth. But Dylan Aires didn’t shy away from the truth.
It didn’t matter how hard she tried to fit
in. It didn’t matter what skills she learned, or what sacrifices she made, or what lengths she’d gone to adjust to her new reality.
She was just a princess. A scared, sheltered little princess whose tragic naivety was bound to get either herself or someone around her killed.
Tanya would never have wandered off like that. Cassiel would never have believed the boy. Dylan would have been able to defend himself. What the heck was I thinking?
She didn’t know how long she stood there. It must have been a while, because some of the birds had ventured back to their overhead perch by the time Tanya placed a sudden hand on her shoulder. Katerina jumped, then glanced over in surprise. She’d almost forgotten the others were still standing there. Waiting. Just as she realized she was waiting herself.
The shifter flashed her a sympathetic smile, gazed out towards the trees, then broached the subject with all the grace of a battering ram. “So...he can turn into a wolf, huh?”
IF THE MORNING HAD started badly, the rest of the day wasn’t looking to be any better.
The booze and medical supplies were wrapped in blankets and tucked safely into Tanya’s pack. The rooms were closed out, and the bar tabs were settled. They hit the forest trail an hour later than expected and started moving at a near frantic place to make up the lost time. According to the men, who had apparently made the journey before, it was a virtual nightmare. The more ground they could cover each day, the better chance they stood.
But it wasn’t the logistics that had Katerina concerned. It wasn’t the grueling pace, or the treacherous journey, or the fact that it seemed frightfully cold for the middle of summer.
Dylan didn’t speak to her. Not a single word. For the next eleven hours.
At first, it was scary. Then it became depressing. Then it grew almost impressive as hour eleven stretched into hour twelve. The man may have come from nothing, but he’d certainly mastered the art of holding a grudge. No matter how many times Katerina tried to catch his attention, he kept his eyes locked firmly on the horizon. No matter how many times she tried to prompt him with a soft question or a quiet observation, he acted as though she wasn’t even there. When she tripped over a log and went tumbling down the side of a ravine, he motioned to Tanya to help.
