Novels by Kendra Velune

Amara's POVThe next few weeks became a masterclass in torture.I hadn't known Valerie was capable of such creativity. In the old days, when we were all children running through pack territory with scraped knees and wild hair, she'd been simply mean, the kind of casual cruelty that came naturally to a girl who'd never been told no. But this? This was artistry. This was a deliberate, calculated dismantling of whatever peace I'd managed to patch together for myself.It started small.The first pack run after the claiming ceremony, I arrived early. I always arrived early now, having learned that arriving on time meant watching Valerie drape herself over Damon like a second skin. I stood at the edge of the clearing, my white coat still hanging in my office at the clinic, dressed instead in the simple running clothes I'd worn a hundred times before. The moon hung low and fat over the pines, and for a moment, just a moment, I let myself breathe.Then I heard her laugh.That particular

The bathroom door clicks open.I don’t move from the window and don’t turn around. My reflection stares back at me from the dark glass, my jaw locked, my hands shoved deep into my pockets so Valerie won’t see them shaking.She padded across the room in that deliberate, soft way of hers. The way she always does when she knows she’s done something and wants to manage my reaction before it happens.“Damon.” Her voice was honey over broken glass. “You’re upset with me.”I let the silence stretch. Outside, the pack house grounds lay still under a bruised twilight sky. Somewhere beyond those trees, Amara was driving away. Or maybe she’d already reached the highway. Maybe she was already gone.The thought carved something out of my chest.“I’m not upset,” I said finally. My own voice sounded foreign. Flat. “I’m trying to understand.”Valerie came up behind me. I felt her hand on my shoulder blade, light, tentative, the touch of someone who knew exactly how much pressure to apply. Two

I didn’t know how I made it through the next ten minutes.My body moved on autopilot, shake this hand, smile at that face, nod along to words I couldn’t hear. My mother’s arm was looped through mine, a warm and steady presence, but even she couldn’t anchor me. Not when the room was spinning. Not when I could still feel his eyes on my back.Damon.I’d seen him. Across the room, on that worn leather couch, with her draped over him like a trophy. For one perfect second, our eyes had met, and I’d felt the bond roar to life between us, electric and undeniable and cruel.The bathroom. I just had to make it to the bathroom. Then I could fall apart but the pack house was a labyrinth of old memories and new tortures, and every person who stopped me was another nail in the coffin of my composure.“Amara! Look at you, all grown up!”“Dr. Chen now, I heard! Your mother must be so proud.”“Five years is a long time. Did you miss us?”Did I miss you? I wanted to laugh. I’d missed one person

The pack house was too loud.It was always too loud these days. Someone's kid was shrieking in the corner. A group of young wolves were arguing about patrol rotations. The ancient floorboards creaked under the weight of too many bodies, too much history, too many expectations I'd never asked for.I sat on the worn leather couch, a beer bottle sweating in my hand, and tried to remember the last time I'd felt quiet inside my own head.Valerie pressed herself against my side, her perfume thick enough to choke on. She was laughing at something Lydia had said, her sharp nails tracing lazy patterns on my forearm. To anyone watching, we probably looked like a picture. The strong soon to be Alpha and his beautiful mate. The envy of the pack.They didn't know that her touch felt like sandpaper on my skin.“…and then he said he'd never seen a wolf shift that fast, can you believe it?" Valerie's voice cut through my thoughts. She tilted her chin up, waiting for my reaction.I grunted. Nonc

The car rolled out of the parking garage and into the grey afternoon, but I wasn’t seeing any of it.He has a girlfriend.The words echoed inside my skull, bouncing off the walls of everything I’d built over the last five years. Every all-nighter. Every textbook. Every moment I’d told myself that the sacrifice would be worth it, that he’d be there when I got back, that absence would make the bond stronger.Maya drove with both hands on the wheel, her knuckles still white. She kept glancing at me like I was a bomb waiting to go off. Maybe I was.“Amara,” she said carefully, “I know this isn’t how you pictured today going.”I let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and wasn’t quite a sob. “You think?”We hit a red light. The rain streaked across the windshield in rivulets, distorting the familiar streets of my hometown into something unrecognizable. I’d dreamed about this drive so many times. The way the trees would arch over the road. The way the pack territory would feel like

The plane’s wheels hit the tarmac with a jolt that rattled my bones, but it was nothing compared to the earthquake happening in my chest.Home.I pressed my forehead to the cold window, watching the familiar grey drizzle streak across the glass. Five years. Five years of anatomy textbooks, sleepless nights in residency, and the sterile scent of antiseptic. I’d left at eighteen, a gangly, heartbroken girl with a chip on her shoulder and a suitcase full of ambition. Now, at twenty-three, I was Dr. Amara Chen. Board-certified, accomplished and whole.Or so I kept telling myself.The woman staring back at me in the dark reflection of the window wasn’t the same one who’d sobbed through airport security half a decade ago. That girl had been all sharp elbows and sharper insecurities, desperate to prove she was more than just the pack’s healer’s daughter. She’d wanted to escape the shadow of her mother’s reputation, the weight of everyone’s expectations, the suffocating smallness of a tow