Landons POV

Vance really had some nerve orchestrating all this bullshit. It sounded wrong, at first when Nadia told me, but now that I've actually thought about it, thought it's weird still, it's not unthinkable.


Vance has always been that bastard. Our lives, rather unfortunately, seemed to be really wound up together. Many times, so many fucking times, that I felt the last string had broken, and something just shows up, and we both have that one thing in common. After Talia's death, I swear I was done with Vance. I was prepared to strip him off everything that belonged to him. Apparently, the bastard was way ahead of me.

Amd now again, I've just been him pawn, albeit a stubborn one. He's playing Nadia and I around on his board till he's ready to do what he actually has in mind to, whether or not what he believes is true.

I'm not going to deny that I'm a little scared that he's already suspecting me. If Karl wasn't such a big bastard with a large appetite for good things that he couldn't work to earn. I was forced to do what I did, paying on of his own servants against him. The poisoned wine I instructed him to serve his Alpha Karl should have done the work by now. It's really effective, but slower that the one Nadia used on Talia.


It strikes suddenly a few hours after consumption, causing confusion as the victim would have appeared to be well all along.

I'll be going back to see if he's alive, because even if he died, news about him might not travel here fast. He's definitely not a popular Alpha, and people could only care less if he lived or died.


That would make me one less target of another jealous overrated man-child with an Alpha title.

'You're not saying anything, Landon." Nadia's worried voice rudely interrupted my chain of thoughts.

I wished I could be mad at her for being in on it the whole time with advance but I knew I couldn't. She did what anyone else would have, played both of while enjoying herself.

'I'm sorry. I just going through it all in my head."if she felt I didn't mean the first part, there's a high percentage of her being correct, but I did mean the last.

She's the one who told me this, and I know deep within me that she's still got my back, but I like to think that I'm all alone in this struggle for survival. She could easily decide she's gotten tired of me and my antics and does not want a living ball of all her secrets walking around alive and surrendering me into Vance's wicked hands.

'You don't have to think about it alone. That's why I shared it with you, so I won't too. We're together in this." Nadia sounded like a voice of reason. But this is also the same Nadia who has been under Vance for quite a couple of months now. I'd love to take everything she says with a pinch of salt.

'What did you think you could do?" I asked her. Maybe we could pick up from there. She must have had a game plan, since if not for Vance's sudden deadline, she would have been able to play both he and I that nothing foul would have happened and the matter would be tightly tucked under the carpet.

'Now that's interesting." She said, tarrying. My heart did a little flip-flop. Nadia I knew was never without a plan. 'I did have a plan, more like how to generally build up one, but I kinda quitted it since he had very little interest in what I was doing and just seemed to be enjoying my absence. He stopped asking, I stopped telling. That's how it has been, well, up until today. The strange thing is how he was enjoying it. Vance is a bastard." She blurted, exhausted. I could not help the smile that was already creeping on my face. She deserved all she got, that's the best way to teach her not to mess with me.

'Am I being a bastard if I said you deserve what you're getting?" I asked rhetorically. She got the message and didn't reply. 'Either way, that isn't the way forward. How about you tell him that all the while I kept asking you back and frustrated everything?" I suggested it to her. 'Make sure to add that I was being evasive."

'Is this your ego or common sense speaking?" I don't know what about her or how she asked the question made me laugh, but it was really hilarious.

'It's both. I'm done pretending like I don't want what he has. He knows that, which is why he decided to add you to the list of things I'm trying to get back from him." I saw that she did not appreciate my honesty, but I had nothing to lose with Nadia, might as well be as blunt as I could.

'Why did you involve Moonlily?" Nadia asked out of the blue. My head went red hot instantly. She had no freaking right whatsoever. How the fuck did she even know about that? Who was the stupid rat feeding her more than she should know?

Has she known this all along? Or did she actually find out while she was on her secret agent job?

We were staring ourselves dead. She was quite expressionless, knowing she had hit her mark, but I was struggling to see if she really had facts or wanted to set bait and watch me spurt out everything I know and have done.

I hated Nadia. And I loved her. My violent, sexy mate. At that moment, I took her in. She's always been my Nadia all along.

'What did you ask?" I responded finally.

Nadia broke into a long throaty laughter. I knew she knew she had caught me. It was intense, but it did feel like those moments in the past which I had come to want only so many times these days.

'Were you that desperate? Hiring a whole pack to act as rogues?" She was beginning to get touchy and I didn't like it.

I knew Nadia. If she was hurt at all, it'd be because I didn't tell her about it, not because I did it in the first case.

'I want to surprise him by getting back earlier that I normally do. Of course, I don't have to report anything to him." She announced, getting on her feet. 'Think about it. We have two days left." With that, Nadia walked out the way we came. I didn't even get to feel her skin at all.

I felt a little disappointed in myself. To be frank with myself, all Nadia has spent the part of her life she's known me for doing is