Novels by Cynthia Robert

Seraphina's POV “She howled,” I said, crying and laughing at the same time. Ezra was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Hilde was sobbing. Rena was crying into her cup. Greta was sitting on her bench with tears running down her wrinkled cheeks and the widest smile I’d ever seen on that old woman’s face. The feast lasted until sunset with wine and mead and food and music. Ezra cooked enough to feed five packs because Ezra always cooked enough. Wolves from different packs were sitting together at long tables sharing bread and telling stories. Somewhere in the middle of it Greta stood up on her bench leaning on her stick and raised her cup of dirt tea and said “to the Luna’s daughter. May she have her mother’s hands and her father’s stubbornness and may she never learn to waddle” and the whole gathering laughed and raised their cups. The grey-haired Alpha from the northern ridge found me near the end of the feast with Maren asleep on my shoulder and she looked at the baby and

Seraphina's POV “It’s smaller than I expected.” She looked at the eastern quarter with the new houses and the children playing in the yards. “But it’s alive. That counts for more.” By the morning of the ceremony the gathering ring was full again with garlands and torches and fresh flowers. Wolves from five different packs were eating together and trading stories and their children were playing together and for the first time in years the territory felt connected instead of scattered. I dressed Maren in a small white wrap that Elara had sewn with tiny gold threads along the edges to match my ceremony dress. She screamed through the entire dressing process, kicking her legs free every time I tucked them in and arching her back every time I tried to hold her still and turning red from the effort of making her opinion heard at full volume. “She’s going to scream through the whole ceremony,” I said. “Good,” Dax said. “Let them hear her. A Luna’s daughter should have strong lungs.” “S

Seraphina's POV “Maren Vaelorin.” The baby stopped crying for half a second like she was listening and then started again even louder and Hilde laughed and said “she knows her name and she’s already arguing about it” and Dax said “she gets that from her mother.” I held her against my chest and her screaming vibrated through my ribs and her fists were punching the air beside my collarbone. I looked down at her red scrunched face and thought about Maren of Willowbrook standing at her kitchen window watching the road, the woman who’d opened her door to a stranger in the rain and given her everything. The woman who’d said “go, run, don’t look back” while a burning beam fell toward her. This small furious girl would carry that name into the world and she would never know the woman it belonged to but I would tell her. Every story. Every remedy. Every cup of dirt tea. Rena arrived an hour later at a dead sprint. She burst through the door out of breath with her hair loose from its braid

Seraphina's POV "We do what I've been trained to do." I put my hand on his face and his jaw was tight under my palm. "I'm a healer. I've delivered babies. I know what's happening and I need you to breathe and help me walk to our room."He breathed and put his arm around my waist and we walked through the yard together and the pack parted around us like a river splitting around a stone. Wolves were running in every direction and Ezra was shouting orders and Hilde appeared with an armful of clean cloths and hot water already on the way.Greta was on her bench and she watched me walk past and said "finally" in a voice that was rough and wet and she gripped her stick with both hands. I reached out and squeezed her shoulder as I passed and she patted my hand once, quick and firm.The room was warm and the east-facing window was flooding the space with afternoon light and the crib was in the corner with the green blanket folded on the mattress and everything was ready because he'd been rea

Seraphina's POV Eight months after the ceremony I couldn't see my feet.I was standing in the healer's hut trying to reach a jar of chamomile on the second shelf and my belly was in the way and my arms were too short and the jar was too far back and I was about three seconds from climbing on the table when Dax walked in and reached over my head and grabbed it without a word."I could have gotten that," I said."You had one knee on the table.""That was a stretch.""That was climbing." He put the jar in my hand and looked down at my belly which was enormous and round and sitting low between my hips.His hand settled on the side of it and his thumb traced a slow circle through the fabric. The baby kicked against his palm and his whole face changed, soft and stunned like he'd never felt it before even though he'd felt it a hundred times."She's active today," he said."She's been active since four in the morning. She kicked me in the ribs so hard I thought I cracked one.""He.""She.""

Seraphina's POV "Good."We stood there for a while and the hot iron cooled in the grass around us and the smoke drifted through the trees and by the time we walked back to the trail the camp was nothing but lumps of metal and scorched earth and it would never hold anyone again.We reached Willowbrook in the afternoon. The foundations came first, stone walls with no houses on them, blackened and crumbling with grass and wildflowers growing up through the cracks. The forest had started reclaiming what was left, saplings pushing through collapsed roofs and ivy climbing the standing walls.The well was still standing in what used to be the square. I stopped in front of it and pulled up a bucket and drank and the water tasted the same, clean and cold and faintly sweet from the limestone underneath."Maren lived there," I said, pointing to a foundation on the eastern edge with a collapsed chimney and a stone path. "The kitchen was on the left. She'd stand at the window mixing herbs and wat

Delilah's POV"I do.""Dante Blackwell. Do you pledge yourself to Delilah Calloway as her bonded mate, to honor her choices, respect her strength, and stand beside her as an equal for as long as you both live?"Dante looked at me. His grey eyes held mine and his voice was rough and certain."I do.""Mateo Blackwell. Do you pledge the same?"Mateo's eyes were wet. His voice cracked on the first word and he didn't try to hide it."I do."Corbin looked at the three of us standing in the moonlight and his expression shifted into what I could only describe as respect."Then let the bond be formed."Dante moved first. He stepped close and his hand came up to my face and he tilted my chin and looked into my eyes for one long second. Then he lowered his mouth to the curve of my neck where it met my shoulder and I felt his teeth graze the skin and Storm surged inside my chest with a howl that shook my bones.His teeth broke through.The pain was sharp and bright and lasted half a second before

Delilah's POVThey held the rhythm. Mateo's mouth and Dante's fingers working in sync like they'd planned it and maybe they had because the two of them had always been able to read each other without speaking and right now that talent was being used to take me apart piece by piece.The second orgasm built slower, deeper. I could feel it in my stomach and my thighs and my chest, a full-body wave that grew every time Mateo's tongue hit the right spot and Dante's fingers curled inside me."I'm close," I said. "Don't stop. Harder. Both of you."Mateo sucked and Dante pressed deeper and I reached back and grabbed a fistful of Dante's hair with one hand and held Mateo's head with the other and I used them both exactly the way I wanted to because this was mine now. This moment, this pleasure, these two men on their knees and at my back giving me everything I asked for. Mine.The second orgasm tore through me and I screamed. I actually screamed and my legs gave out completely and Mateo caught

Delilah's POVHe made a sound low in his throat and his lips pressed against the curve of my neck and the warmth of his mouth sent a shiver down my spine that I didn't bother hiding. His musky scent wrapped around me and Storm hummed and my head tipped back without my permission.Dante's hand slid up my spine from behind. Slow, deliberate, his fingers tracing the line of my back like he was memorizing it."Higher," I said.His hand moved to the back of my neck and his thumb pressed into the tension there and a groan slipped out of me before I could catch it."Good," I said. "Keep doing that."Mateo's mouth trailed from my neck to my collarbone and his hands tightened on my waist. "Can I go lower?""Ask me again.""Can I go lower, Delilah?""Yes."His lips moved down my chest and his breath was hot against my skin and when his mouth closed over my nipple I gasped and grabbed a fistful of his hair and held him there. His tongue circled and flicked and I felt the pull of it all the way d

Delilah's POV I waited three days after the Council left before I went to them.Not because I needed the time. Because I wanted them to sweat. Because after everything they'd put me through, three days of wondering whether the woman who'd just saved their entire family was going to let them back in felt like the bare minimum of what they owed me.On the third evening I sent Stella to the barracks with a message for Dante and another to the main house for Mateo. Same message for both of them.My cabin. Nine o'clock. Come alone.Dante arrived first. He knocked once and waited. I opened the door and he walked in wearing a plain black shirt with his sleeves rolled up and his grey eyes careful like a man walking into a room where the floor might give out.Mateo came two minutes later. He didn't knock. He just stood in the open doorway until I nodded him inside. His amber eyes moved from me to Dante and back again and his jaw was tight with the effort of not speaking first.I closed the do

Delilah's POV"I've been through worse." I held his gaze. "Your daughter was a guest in this pack and I'm sorry her mating didn't work out. But Dante Blackwell rejected Celeste of his own free will as an adult member of this pack. Mateo did the same with Thalia. Those were their choices and they made them publicly and legally through the proper rites."I sat back. "If you're looking for someone to blame for your broken alliances, the men who broke them are right outside this building. I'm just the healer.""The healer they're both now pursuing," Crest said."Yes. As an independent wolf with my own rank and my own standing, I've chosen to explore a relationship with both of them. That decision was made recently and openly. There's nothing forbidden about it. I'm not their stepsister in any legal sense. I'm an independent member of this pack and the choices I make about my personal life are exactly that. Personal."Thorne looked at Crest. Crest looked at the elders. The elders looked at

Delilah's POVI dressed carefully the next morning, for me and not for them. I braided my hair back tight like Helena had taught me, pulled on a clean shirt and trousers, and looked at myself in the small mirror until the woman staring back had no cracks showing. Just the flat steady gaze of a healer who had work to do and a pack to protect.Storm was quiet inside my chest but not dormant like she'd been after Jaxon's rejection. She was alert and waiting, crouched low and watching for the moment to move."You ready?" she asked."No. But that's never stopped me before."The main hall was full when I walked in.Corbin sat at the head of the long table with Ryker to his right. Alpha Thorne sat across from them, a broad silver-haired man with cold blue eyes and a jaw that looked like it had been carved from the same stone as his reputation.Beta Crest sat beside him, smaller and sharper, with the watchful energy of a man who counted every slight and forgot none of them. The two council el