Nobela ni L.M.Daveth

Sebastian’s POVThe sound of her voice still lingered in my head, stubborn as hell as she stood on that field with a brace on her leg and children clinging to her like ducklings. And gods help me, she had won. Nothing could compare to the immense joy I felt at that moment when I saw that the children had trusted her enough to stay with her till the end.But now, pacing the edge of the tents, I was seething with anger.Can't she see that she's putting herself in a lot of danger if she doesn't back out now? Nothing would change, she would still be my mate so there's really no need for all of this.She had no idea what she was doing to herself.I shoved open the flap of her tent without warning.She startled, clutching at the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The little basin of water in front of her steamed faintly, herbs floating in it. She had her brace half-peeled down, exposing her leg.Dark and ugly bruises marred her skin, blooming across her thigh. One especially large one pu

Cassandra’s POVI sat in my bed, staring at my crutches in the other end of the room. Sebastian had ordered that I get braces for my legs instead of hurling around in crutches. The elders said each segment would be like some sort of surprise, so I had no idea what we would be doing. I only knew it would be on the fields so I got myself something sporty. I hadn't seen or spoken to Sebastian in days. It was more like he was pissed at me and ignoring me and I can't lie, I was still angry at him. So the distance between us was widening.I sighed, getting off my bed and pulling my door open before stepping out.—One of the elders stepped forward, his robes swaying in the breeze. His voice carried easily across the field.“For a Luna to be accepted, she must be more than a partner to the Alpha. She must be a guide, a protector, a mother figure to the pack. What better way to test this ability than to see how well she safeguards our children?”Children.My breath hitched as a group of smal

Cassandra’s POVThe hall was suffocating.Every stare was sharp, every whisper like a knife against my skin. I sat as straight as I could on the chair they’d given me, my crutches leaning against its side, my hands locked together to hide their tremble.One of the elders, a tall man with a harsh jawline, took a step forward, his gaze dropping deliberately to my leg. His lip curled.“Tell me, girl,” he began, his voice loud enough to echo across the hall, “if a mere bruise takes you weeks to heal… how will you ever protect this pack as Luna?”A ripple of murmurs followed his words, sharp, cruel.Heat burned in my cheeks, shame wrapping around me like chains.Another elder, an older woman with thin lips, tilted her head. “Humans are fragile. A child could topple her, and she would fall. We saw it in the kitchen.”The words stung more because they were true. My palms still carried the sting of that fall.Laughter trickled in from the sides of the hall.My throat tightened. I wanted to de

Cassandra’s POVThe boy’s eyes welled, his small frame shaking as a loud wail tore out of his chest.“Mommy!” he cried, his little hands balled into fists.The maids stared at him and then back at me, not saying a word. What was wrong with them? From how they were looking at each other, I could tell they were communicating through the mindlink but why wasn't anyone comforting the child?Before I could even sit up, a woman burst in through the doorway, her eyes frantic until they landed on her son. She rushed to him, dropping to her knees.“My boy, what happened?” she asked, cupping his face, scanning his arms and legs.Meanwhile, Jessa bent down quickly, scooping up my crutches and slipping an arm under mine. “Up you go,” she muttered, pulling me upright with surprising strength.My leg screamed in protest, but I ignored it. The maids were still frozen and watching. Fine. Let them watch.I ignored the sting of my palms as I hobbled forward, grabbing two cookies from the cooling rack.

Cassandra’s POVSomeone knocked on my door.I dragged myself up with my crutches, muttering under my breath about whoever dared disturb my lazy morning. But when I pulled it open, an excited scream ripped out of me.“Jessa! What are you doing here?”I nearly toppled over from the force of hugging her, crutches and all, but I didn’t care. She was hereShe laughed, kissing my cheek before stepping back. “Oh my God, I missed you! I couldn't sleep all night when Ryan said he had to come back and this morning he asked why I hadn't gotten my bags ready either. Do you know how hard that was, packing up all my essentials? We got here later than he wanted. I think he hates me.”I laughed through the tears stinging my eyes. “No, he doesn’t. He’s just… Ryan. But I missed you too. So much.”We clung to each other for a moment longer, then she plopped onto my bed like she owned the place. “Okay, spill. You sound way too dramatic on the phone these days. What’s going on with you?”“Nothing much is

​Sebastian’s POV​“Sebastian,” Elder Harkins began, voice clipped and sharp. “It’s time you act like a true Alpha. You’re—” He paused, glancing at the cluster of Elders as if their presence alone could somehow strengthen his weak point, “—distracting yourself with… trivial matters. Human affairs.”​The sheer audacity of them made my blood run cold. Daring to speak of her like she was insignificant. My jaw tightened, the muscles along my neck coiling. Human affairs. As if she was a mere possession to be dismissed, a temporary whim instead of what she was—what she is.​“She is not a trivial matter,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. The room quieted slightly, but I could see the condescending glances darting between them. “She is my Luna.”​A beat of absolute silence, then the murmurs exploded. I could see the disbelief, the barely concealed smirks, the confusion flashing in their eyes. Luna. My Luna.​“She’s… human,” Elder Darron said, voice tight and controlled, forcing the word ou

Lena's POVThe first wave hit us at the two minute mark.Six soldiers from the northern approach, moving with the coordinated precision of people who had done this kind of thing many times and were not particularly worried about what they were going to find. They should have been more worried. Marcus took the lead position and Darion and Riven covered the flanks and I held the center and we stopped them, but stopping them cost something and the something it cost was time and the time we did not have to spend.Drea said three minutes remaining.The second wave came from the east before the first one was fully resolved. Larger, eight soldiers, and these ones were not moving with the standard approach pattern, they were moving with the specific formation of people who had been briefed on exactly what was in front of them and had adjusted their strategy accordingly. Someone had communicated what we were doing here. Someone had taken the information that a strike team was placing charges a

The MissionLena's POVWe spent two days preparing and it still did not feel like enough.It never felt like enough before something like this. Ronan had told me that once, back when we were planning the staging point operation, that the feeling of not being ready was not information, it was just fear wearing the clothing of caution, and you had to learn to tell the difference. I had been practicing that distinction ever since and I was getting better at it but I was not all the way there yet.The strike team ended up at eleven people after the full planning process filtered out who had the specific skills the approach required and who did not. Eleven felt small for what we were walking into and large for a group that needed to move quietly through Fae controlled territory for six blocks without triggering an alert response. There was no number that solved both problems at once so we settled on the number the mission required and accepted the rest.Lena. Me. Marcus, who we had tried t

Darion's POVRonan put the map on the table on a Wednesday morning with everyone present and said what he had to say without preamble because he had never been someone who built up to things."The gateway," he said, tapping the location. "We hit it directly."The room was quiet for a moment."Define directly," Marcus said."Iron charges built into the gateway's structural perimeter," Ronan said. "Not one, not two. Enough to destabilize the threshold architecture from the physical side. Enough that even if we cannot close it the way the ritual would have, we damage it badly enough that nothing else comes through." He looked around the table. "We stand whatever Fae are already on this side. Cut off the reinforcements. Stop the army from growing while we figure out the rest.""The gateway is the most heavily defended location in the city," Sable said. She was not dismissing the idea. She was doing what she always did, establishing the facts before the discussion went somewhere the facts

Lena's POVWe found out because of a dog.An actual dog, small and brown and belonging to a child named Sera who had come in with the Ashford evacuation six weeks ago. The dog had gotten into the habit of sleeping near different people each night, rotating through the warehouse like it was conducting its own quiet census, and on the night of the fourteenth it refused to go near the east corridor where a man named Fedric slept.Sat at the entrance to the corridor and would not move forward. Sera tried to coax it. It would not go.Marcus noticed because Marcus noticed everything. He did not act on it immediately. He just filed it and started watching Frederic more carefully and two days later he came to me with three things that individually meant nothing and together meant everything.Fedric had known about the Cael situation before we announced it internally. He had been seen near the east perimeter window twice between midnight and four in the morning on nights when no patrol shift r

Darion's POVThe first attempt came on a Tuesday.Two Fae soldiers, not in patrol formation, moving through the eastern district with the specific kind of purpose that was different from routine coverage. Ronan spotted them three blocks from the warehouse and got word back fast enough that we had forty seconds of warning before they reached the perimeter.Forty seconds was enough. Barely, but enough.We lost nobody that night. The iron laced boundary slowed them and Sable's ward layer did the rest and they pulled back without breaching the building. But the fact that they had come directly, not sweeping the area in a standard patrol pattern but moving toward our specific location with intention, told me everything I needed to know about what had changed.Kieran knew where we were.I did not tell everyone immediately. I told Lena and Marcus and Sable and we spent two hours sitting with the information before we decided what to do with it. Moving the entire operation was not fast or sim

Lena's POVCassia was the one who figured out the iron thing first.She came to me on the fourth day after the staging point with a small notebook and the expression of someone who had been sitting on information long enough that they needed to say it out loud before they burst."I tested it three nights ago," she said, opening the notebook to a page of neat handwriting. "One of the Fae scouts came through the eastern perimeter alone. I had iron filings mixed into the ward boundary. Experimental, I was not expecting much." She paused. "It stopped him completely. Not slowed. Stopped. Like hitting a wall he could not see."I stared at her. "Iron.""Iron," she confirmed. "Pure iron, not steel. The old kind. There is a reason the folklore existed, we just collectively decided at some point that folklore was not operational intelligence." She tapped the notebook. "I think we were wrong about that."We tested it over the next week systematically, the way Sable insisted everything be tested