Novels by Cynthia Robert

Delilah's POVThe Alpha Council came on a Tuesday.I was grinding feverfew at my herb station when Margaret walked in from outside with her face set in stone and her hands gripping the doorframe like she needed it to hold her up."Council wolves just came through the main gate," she said. "Four of them. Full formal delegation with Alpha Thorne leading."My hands stopped on the pestle. "Thorne is here personally?""He's not the only one. Beta Crest is with him. And two council elders I don't recognize from any of the local packs." She lowered her voice. "They're meeting with Corbin right now and Ryker was called in five minutes ago."Stella appeared behind Margaret with wide eyes and a face that had gone pale. "They brought a formal summons. I saw the seal on the paper when they walked past."I set the pestle down and wiped my hands on a cloth. "A summons for who?"Margaret looked at me and I already knew the answer before she said it."You."The summons reached me within the hour. A y

Delilah's POV The weeks after Jaxon left were the quietest the compound had been since I came back.The gossip didn't stop but it changed shape. People still stared when I walked through the kitchens and the whispers still followed me between the healing center and my cabin.But the word "deviant" showed up less and the word "healer" showed up more, and somewhere around the fifth week Goss came back to the healing center with a new gash and sat on my table without making a single comment about my personal life.Dante didn't miss a morning.Six weeks straight he was on that training field at dawn and I was there beside him and we fought hard enough that the rest of the world shut up for an hour. He hit back now, matching me strike for strike, and I'd started landing combinations Helena would have been proud of.After sessions we'd stand on the field catching our breath and sometimes we'd talk about the weather or a supply shipment or whether Margaret's new bone saw was better than the

Delilah's POVI asked to see him the next morning.Corbin arranged it in the small meeting room off the Alpha's house with Ryker standing outside the door as a witness that the conversation happened on Nightshade terms, not Riverbend's.Jaxon was already inside when I walked in. He stood up the second the door opened and his ice-blue eyes locked onto me with a hunger that made my skin crawl because I'd seen that look before on a different face in a different life and it had meant nothing then either.He looked worse up close. The scar on his jaw was raised and pink like it hadn't healed properly. His cheekbones cut sharper than they should have and the shadows under his eyes were deep enough to hold water. His hands were shaking at his sides and he kept clenching and unclenching them like he couldn't control the tremors.His wolf was dying. I could feel it through the old bond, a faint ragged pulse where there used to be a steady hum. Whatever connection had survived the rejection was

Delilah's POV Three days after Mateo's rejection, a runner came through the eastern gate at full speed during the morning shift.I was elbow-deep in a wound irrigation when Stella burst through the healing center door with her face white and her hands shaking."Delilah. You need to come outside.""I'm with a patient.""Now."Her voice made me look up. Margaret was already moving toward my station to take over and the look on her face told me she'd heard whatever Stella had heard.I peeled off my gloves, washed my hands, and walked to the door.The compound had that electric hum again, the same buzz it carried when Dante had rejected Celeste. Wolves clustered along the main path, all of them facing the front gate.I followed their eyes and my feet stopped moving before my brain caught up.Jaxon Sterling was walking through the gates of Nightshade territory with two Riverbend warriors behind him and a rolled paper in his hand.I hadn't seen him since the night he'd stood on a stage in

Delilah's POV The news reached me before breakfast.I was braiding my hair in front of the small mirror Helena had left when Storm lifted her head and a low hum spread through the bond from Mateo's side. It wasn't grief or guilt or the ragged mess I'd felt from him the night he'd knelt on my porch. This was calm and steady and sure, like a decision that had already been made."He did it," Storm said quietly.I didn't ask what. I already knew.Stella confirmed it when I walked into the healing center. She was practically bouncing behind the supply curtain and the words tumbled out before I'd set down my bag."Mateo rejected Thalia. This morning. On the main grounds in front of everyone. Full formal rite, old words, Corbin officiating. She screamed at him, Delilah. Like screamed. The whole compound heard it."Margaret was at the basin washing her hands slower than any pair of hands needed to be washed, her mouth set in a line that meant she was biting her tongue."Details," I said, pul

Delilah's POV Week two and Dante started fighting back.Not all at once. He didn't come swinging like I did every morning with everything I had. But on day eight his blocks got sharper and on day nine he started returning combinations instead of just absorbing them. Quick bursts, controlled, pulling every strike before it landed so I felt the air move past my face without the impact.Now I had to defend as well as attack, and the Silvermoon sense had to work twice as hard to track his movements while keeping my own guard tight. He was fast. Faster than I'd expected from a wolf his size, and his technique was clean in a way that told me somebody had trained him properly long before I showed up."Who taught you to fight?" I asked on day ten, breathing hard after a round that had pushed me further than any session so far."My mother."I blinked. "Your mother.""She was a warrior before she mated my father. Ranked third in her pack's fighting corps." He picked up his water and drank. "Sh

Seraphina's POV The tall one stepped forward and I could see him now in the moonlight, the same tall rogue who'd ridden in the cart with us months ago, the same one who'd said "bit Kessler's hand open" while I stood in the lineup with blood on my face. He looked at me for a long time and then he started laughing."The wild one," he said. "From the back pen. The one who curled up every time we tried to take her.""Look at the belly on her," Brask said. "She wasn't that big when she was with us. Looks like someone got to her before or after, doesn't matter which."I was pressing myself against the wall and my hands were flat on my belly and the baby was kicking hard against my palms, fast and panicked, matching my heartbeat the way it always did."Run," I said to Tessa without looking at her. "Take Orrin and run.""I'm not leaving you.""Tessa, take your son and go. Now."Brask glanced at Tessa and jerked his head toward the door. "Let the mother and the pup go. They're not worth anyth

Seraphina's POV"East. Away from here. Anywhere that isn't here."I nodded and turned and walked away from the walls of Blackthorn with the crowd of people who had nowhere to go and nothing left and the gate stayed closed behind us and the sun was going down and the road stretched east toward nothing.Tessa walked beside me with Orrin asleep on her shoulder and her face grey with tired and after a while she said "where do we go now?" and I said "east" because it was the only direction that wasn't behind us and it was the only word I had left.The crowd spread out along the road as the light faded. Some people set up camp in the fields beside the road, building small fires from dry grass and sitting around them with their families and eating whatever they'd brought.Others kept walking because stopping meant sitting and sitting meant thinking and none of us were ready for that yet.I kept walking. The baby was pressing down low in my belly and my back ached and my burned hands throbbed

Seraphina's POV "The borders are closed." Dax said it the same way he'd said it the first time, flat and cold and final, like he was reading words off a wall."We're not a threat to you. We're farmers and bakers and tradespeople. We've got nothing left. Look at us." The man waved his hand at the crowd behind him. "Look at the children. Look at the women. There's a girl back there who's eight months along and walking on burned hands. You'd turn her away?"My stomach dropped. He was talking about me. I pulled my hood lower and stepped behind a tall woman in front of me and pressed myself against her back and prayed that no one was pointing.Dax didn't look at the crowd. He looked at the man in front of him and his face didn't change, not a flicker of anything behind those dark eyes."The borders are closed. Turn east. There are settlements past the river that may take you in.""The river is two days' walk and half these people won't make it that far.""That is not my concern."The word

Seraphina's POVWe walked for two days and the road was packed with people carrying everything they owned on their backs. Pots and blankets and bundles of clothes tied with rope and children too small to walk riding on their parents' shoulders or tucked into the backs of carts.The old man whose cart I'd been riding on had picked up three more people by the second morning, a woman with twin boys and a man with a bandaged arm who couldn't walk straight, and the horse was struggling with the weight and the wheels were groaning on the dry road.I got off the cart on the second morning because the horse was sweating and the old man's face was tight with worry and I could walk if I went slow. Tessa stayed beside me with Orrin on her hip and her face set in the flat tired look of a woman who had stopped expecting good news and was just putting one foot in front of the other until her feet told her to stop."How much farther?" I asked."A few hours, maybe. We should see the walls before midd

Seraphina's POVThe blue door. The bread oven. The chair under the apple tree. The apple tree itself, the one growing over her son's grave, the one where she'd put her arm around me when the baby kicked for the first time. All of it gone and all of it burning.And Maren in the garden with a beam across her back telling me to run the same way Pria had told me to run and the same way I'd been running my whole life, away from the places that hurt me, away from the people who held me up, always away, always alone, always leaving behind the ones who deserved better than what I gave them.The crowd on the road grew as more people joined from side roads and farms and small houses along the way. I saw Hilde at one point, walking with her goats tied to a rope, and she saw me and her face crumbled and she said "Maren?" and I shook my head and she closed her eyes and pressed her fist against her mouth and kept walking.By the time the smoke thinned and the fire was behind us and the road opened

Seraphina's POVThe fire was climbing the beam toward her legs. The smoke was so thick I could barely see her face and my eyes were streaming and my lungs were burning and the heat was pressing in from all sides and the garden around us was a wall of orange and black."I can't leave you," I said and my voice broke and my burned hands were still on the beam and the blisters on my palms were splitting and I didn't let go.She reached out and grabbed my wrist and her grip was strong, so strong it surprised me, and she pulled my hand off the wood and held it between both of hers."Look at me."I looked at her. Her face in the dirt. Her hair singed. Her eyes wet and clear and steady and looking straight into mine with the fire reflected in them."You're going to go through that hedge. You're going to follow the creek. You're going to find the road. You're going to walk east with the others."Her voice was getting quieter but she didn't look away from my eyes. "And you're going to have that