Novels by Travis

The water wasn't cold. It wasn't warm either. It felt like nothing and everything at once, and the moment I touched it, the world fell away.I was no longer in the temple. I was standing in the same chamber, but it was different. The walls were brighter, the carvings fresh and sharp, and the pool before me glowed with a light that came from somewhere deep beneath the earth. A woman knelt at the water's edge, her white hair loose around her shoulders, her hands submerged in the glowing pool. She was chanting, low and steady, and the words vibrated through the stone like a heartbeat."I swear to protect the Book of Blood with my life," the woman said, and her voice echoed in the chamber. "To carry its knowledge through the ages, to defend it from those who would misuse it, and to pass it on to the one who comes after me. This I vow, before the Luminara and the ancestors. This I vow, as the first Guardian."The woman lifted her hands from the water, and the light clung to her fingers lik

The building wasn't a building. It was a temple—or had been, once. The stones were covered in carvings, the same symbols from the Book of Blood, worn by centuries of wind and water.I stopped at the threshold and let my eyes adjust to the dimness. The structure was larger than it had looked from the ridge, its walls rising higher than I'd expected, its entrance framed by pillars that leaned like old men. Moss and ivy crawled over every surface, and the air inside smelled of stone and water and something older. Something sacred.Papa Caelum stood beside me, his breath slow and even. I could feel his awe through the bond web, but also his wariness. He had dreamed of this place for thirty years, and now that he was finally here, he didn't know what to do with himself."It's real," he murmured, and his voice echoed in the stillness. "The carvings. The symbols. It's all real."Mirren moved past us, her spirit-wolf glowing faintly in the gloom. She reached out and touched one of the carving

The forest changed the further east we went. The trees grew taller, older, their roots twisted into shapes that looked like faces. And the deeper we rode, the more I felt like something was watching.I kept my hand near the Book of Blood, which I had wrapped in oilcloth and strapped to my saddle. It had been quiet since the vision, but I could feel it stirring now, like a wolf waking from a long sleep. The pull was stronger here, closer to the source, and it made my skin prickle.Papa Caelum rode beside me, his amber-gold eyes scanning the treeline. He had been quiet since we left Silver Hollow, lost in memories he still hadn't fully shared. I didn't push him. The dream had been his secret for thirty years, and he needed time to process what it meant to finally see it with his own eyes.Mirren rode on my other side, her spirit-wolf flowing through the underbrush like a silver shadow. The wolf had been appearing more and more as we traveled, as if the landscape itself was calling to he

"When I was nineteen, before I met your fathers, I had a dream about a lake," I said. "A lake with a stone building on its shore. And a woman singing in a language I didn't know."The study was quiet. The fire had burned down to embers, and the morning light was still pale through the windows. My children sat around me—Theron in the chair by the desk, Mirren on the floor with her spirit-wolf curled beside her, Sable perched on the arm of the sofa with her legs tucked under her. They were all watching me with the same expression: a mix of confusion and something that might have been fear.I didn't blame them. I had kept this secret for thirty years, and now it was spilling out of me like water through a cracked dam."I was nineteen," I said again, and my voice was distant. "The pack had just sent me into the snow to die. I was burning with heat serum, and I was sure I was going to freeze to death. But before Bastian found me, I dreamed." I paused, and the memory rose up like smoke. "A

Sable perched on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs. "So we're going on an adventure? Finally. I was getting bored."I sat at the table with a cup of tea that had long gone cold, the morning light filtering through the window. Mirren was beside me, her spirit-wolf a faint shimmer at the edge of my vision. Sable looked from me to Mirren and back again, her amber-gold eyes bright with excitement. She was thirteen now, all elbows and knees and wild energy, and she had been complaining for weeks that nothing interesting ever happened."It's not an adventure," I said. "It's a mission. The Book showed me something. A place called Kaelen's Rest."Sable stopped swinging her legs. "Kaelen's Rest? I've never heard of it.""Neither have we," Mirren said quietly. "Theron saw it in a vision. A lake, ancient trees, a stone structure half-sunk in the shore. And a voice, chanting a song he almost recognized."Sable leaned forward, and her grin faded into something more serious. "That sounds like

The Book didn't speak in words. It spoke in feelings—a pull beneath my ribs, a warmth that spread through my chest, a whisper that sounded like my own voice but older.I woke in the deepest dark, the room cold and still, my heart already pounding. The Book was on my desk where I'd left it, but it was open now, its pages turning without wind. I sat up slowly, my breath misting in the air, and I watched the silver script shift and rearrange itself like water finding a new path.Three months. For three months the Book had been quiet, resting in my care, its pages showing only the genealogies I had already read a hundred times. But tonight it was awake. Tonight it wanted something.I swung my legs out of bed and crossed the room on bare feet. The floor was freezing, but I didn't care. The pull was too strong. The Book glowed faintly, and as I drew closer, I saw that the pages were no longer filled with names. They were filled with lines and shapes. A map.The lines formed coastlines and r

POV: Matteo"Can we talk," my brother said, finding me in the empty garden an hour after the session, the chaos of the chamber still ringing in my ears. "Just the two of us. Please.""I don't know what there is to say," I said, though I sat down on the stone bench anyway, making room for him beside me.He sat, quiet for a moment, the morning light catching the lines on his face that hadn't been there two years ago, evidence of whatever hiding he'd endured all this time."I keep thinking about what I said in there," he said finally. "You never had to do this. I meant it. But I've been sitting with it since, and I don't think it was fair of me to say it like that. Like it was simple.""It wasn't simple," I said, my voice quiet."No," he agreed. "I don't think it was."I looked out at the garden, the same one I'd decorated years ago for a life I thought I'd never get, and felt something in my chest finally loosen, some old, exhausted pressure I'd been carrying since I was a child."I nee

POV: Matteo"This session is called to order," the elder said, her voice tight with exhaustion, dawn light spilling pale and gray through the chamber windows. "Beta Bane, you requested this hour. I trust you have good reason.""I do," Dave said, standing at the center of the floor, something in his posture different this morning, more deliberate, more final, like a man playing a card he'd been holding for years and had finally decided to spend."Before this council votes on tonight's leadership challenge," he said, "there is something you all deserve to know about the foundation this marriage was built on. Something far larger than Alpha Callahan's concealed memory.""Explain," the elder said.Dave turned toward the chamber doors and raised his hand.The doors opened.I felt the air leave the room before I understood why. A man stepped through the entrance, flanked by two of Dave's own household guard, and the entire chamber went utterly, impossibly silent.I knew that face. I had gri

‎POV: Rhys"Sit down," I said, closing the study door behind us, my hands unsteady in a way they hadn't been since the hospital bed. "Please. There's nothing left to protect by standing at the door like you're ready to leave."Matteo stood there anyway, arms crossed, exhaustion and fury both written plainly across his face after everything the council had put him through tonight. "Why now, Rhys. Why is it suddenly the moment for honesty, when an hour ago you still wouldn't look me in the eye and admit how long you'd known.""Because it doesn't cost me anything anymore," I said, and watched the words land, sharp and true, exactly as ugly as they sounded. "That's the honest answer. The council already knows. Dave already exposed it. There's nothing left for me to lose by finally telling you the truth, and that timing is its own kind of failure, and I know it."He didn't answer that. He just watched me, waiting, some of the fight draining out of his posture as exhaustion took its place.

POV: Matteo"Yes," I said.One word, and the entire chamber seemed to hold its breath around it."I knew," I said again, louder this time, steadier, because I'd decided somewhere in the space between the elder's question and my own answer that I wasn't going to soften this, wasn't going to perform the shame everyone in this room was clearly waiting to witness. "I've known for two weeks."Murmurs broke out immediately, sharp whispers rippling through the assembled council, but I kept my eyes fixed on the elder, refusing to look away, refusing to let this become something I endured rather than something I owned."You knew," the elder repeated, her voice carefully neutral, "and you said nothing. Not to this council. Not, it seems, even to your own husband directly.""That's correct.""Why," she asked, simply, the single word carrying the weight of everything the chamber wanted to understand.I felt Rhys go very still beside me, waiting, as uncertain of my answer as everyone else in the r

POV: Matteo"This session is called to order," the eldest councilwoman said, her voice carrying easily across the packed chamber, every seat filled, more faces than I'd ever seen crowded into that room at once. "On a matter of Alpha fitness."I sat beside Rhys at the front of the hall, my hands folded tight in my lap, the whole room feeling smaller and more dangerous than it had at our wedding two years ago. Rhys sat rigid beside me, his jaw set, every trace of the searching, gentle man from the hospital bed buried now beneath the same controlled stillness he'd worn the day I married him.Dave stood when the elder gestured for him to speak, calm, composed, his voice carrying the same easy warmth he'd used on me in his study weeks ago."I come before this council with information I wish I didn't have to share," he said, and the practiced regret in his voice made my skin crawl. "Information about our Alpha's recovery that concerns the fitness of his leadership, and the honesty of his ma

POV: Matteo"A messenger's here for you," the household steward said, appearing in the doorway of the sitting room with a folded parchment held out in careful hands. "Marked urgent. Council seal."I set down the correspondence I'd been sorting and took it from him, my stomach already tightening before I'd broken the wax. Council seals didn't arrive urgent for small matters.I read it twice before the words fully landed.An emergency session has been called for tomorrow evening, addressing matters of Alpha fitness following recent medical circumstances. Attendance required of Alpha Callahan and consort."Fitness," I said aloud, my voice tight, the word sitting wrong and dangerous in my mouth. "Medical circumstances.""Is something wrong, my lord," the steward asked, hovering uncertainly."I don't know yet," I said, though a cold, sinking dread was already answering the question for me.I found Rhys in the study minutes later, the parchment still clutched in my hand, and the moment I st