Novels by Valerie snow

QUEENETH’S POVI found Success where I least expected her.The old training grounds had been abandoned since the eastern attack. Grass had grown between the cracked stones, and the wooden posts stood crooked beneath the trees.She was sitting on one of them.Waiting.I stopped several feet away.She didn’t look surprised.“You took your time.”My fingers curled.“You knew I was coming?”Success smiled.“I knew you’d come eventually.”There was no weapon in her hands. No guards nearby. No sign she intended to run.“Why are you here?”“Waiting for you.”“Then you know what I want.”Her smile faded.“Who was your master?”For a moment, she looked amused.Then she laughed.“You still think there was only one?”I stared at her.Success slid from the post and stood.“That’s your problem, Queeneth. You’re looking for one person behind all of this. One mastermind pulling every string.”She shook her head.“There wasn’t one.”“Then who gave you your orders?”“Different people.”My stomach tigh

QUEENETH’S POVI remembered the letter.It had been sitting in the back of my mind for years, tucked beneath everything else I had been too afraid to understand.Hilda’s letter.I remembered this letter. I had seen it once before, back when everything between Hilda and Collins had still been buried beneath secrets I didn’t understand.I had read enough to know it concerned Collins.Not enough to understand why.At the time, there had been too many things happening around us. Too many lies. Too many people hiding pieces of the truth.Now, every time I thought about it, one question kept returning.Why had Hilda written it?I found her old belongings in a locked storage room beneath the eastern wing.The room hadn’t been opened in years.Dust covered everything.Broken furniture.Old clothes.Boxes filled with documents that no one had bothered to sort.I searched until my fingers were gray.Then I found the box.My heart started beating faster before I even opened it.The same worn woo

QUEENETH’S POVI found Collins near the eastern wall just before sunset.He was alone.That was becoming unusual these days.There was always someone looking for him. A pack member needing an answer. An elder wanting to discuss the next patrol. A warrior waiting for orders.But tonight, he stood at the edge of the trees with his hands resting against the stone wall, staring into the forest.He didn’t hear me approach.Or maybe he did and simply didn’t turn around.“Collins.”His shoulders moved slightly.Then he looked over.For a moment, neither of us spoke.There had been a time when silence between us felt comfortable.Now it carried too many things we hadn’t said.I stopped a few steps away.“I need to ask you something.”His expression changed.“About the curse?”I nodded.He looked back toward the trees.“I wondered when you’d ask again.”“Then you knew I would.”“I hoped you wouldn’t have to.”I folded my arms.“I’m done accepting half-truths.”That made him look at me.Somethi

QUEENETH’S POVI couldn’t sleep.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Aurelia.Her wrists in chains.Her blood in the silver pool.The crown she never wanted.The people who had taken her story and twisted it until generations of wolves believed she had been chosen by the Moon to rule them.But there was something else I couldn’t stop thinking about.The bonds.Reuben.Collins.Dante.Three names.Three different bonds.Three different moments when my wolf had reacted as if something ancient had recognized them before I ever had the chance to decide for myself.I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at my hands.“How many times?”Amy stirred inside me.“What?”“How many times did they do this?”She didn’t answer.My stomach tightened.“Don’t.”“Queeneth…”“No. You don’t get to do that anymore.”I stood.“You told me about Aurelia. You told me about the bloodline. You told me people had been writing my destiny before I was even born.”My voice cracked.“And now I’m supposed to believe the

QUEENETH’S POVThe old archive smelled like ash.Not the fresh kind that still clung to clothes after a fire, but the stale scent left behind when something had burned so completely that even the walls seemed to remember it.I stood in the doorway, staring at the shelves.Most of the records were gone.The ones that remained had been damaged by time, water, or deliberate hands. Pages had been torn from books. Names had been scratched out. Whole sections of history had been reduced to loose pieces that no longer belonged to anything.And now I knew it had not happened by accident.Someone had been trying to make sure I never found the truth.I stepped inside.My fingers brushed over the spine of an old law book.Aurelia.The name still sat inside my head.Amy had said it like a warning.She was my Queen.Then she had told me the truth about my wolf.An ancient memory sealed inside me.A bloodline someone had tried to erase.The people who wrote my destiny.I pulled the book from the sh

CHAPTER 94QUEENETH’S POVAmy’s First LieI don’t speak to Amy for the rest of the afternoon.Not because I don’t have questions.I have too many.They crowd my head until I can’t focus on anything else.Aurelia was my Queen.The words keep circling.Every time I think I’ve finally understood something, another piece falls out from underneath it.I sit alone beneath the old oak tree behind the pack house, knees pulled against my chest.The painting is still in my mind.That crown.That woman.The way Amy reacted when I said her name.I close my eyes.“Amy.”Nothing.I wait.Still nothing.My jaw tightens.“You don’t get to hide from me now.”A breeze moves through the leaves.I almost laugh.“You’re really going to ignore me?”Silence.I press my palms against my eyes.“I trusted you.”That does it.Something shifts inside me.Not a voice at first.A feeling.Guilt.It rolls through my chest so suddenly that I sit straighter.Then I hear her.Very quietly.“I know.”My throat tightens