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"Absolutely not," Rhys said, the moment I finished relaying what Dave had told me, his voice sharp with a fear I recognized instantly, the same protective edge that had curdled into something suffocating weeks ago. "You're going somewhere safe. Away from the estate entirely, if I can arrange it in time.""No," I said, just as firm, standing my ground in the middle of his study while the late afternoon light slanted long and gold through the windows. "I'm not hiding somewhere safe while this entire crisis is aimed partly at the child I'm carrying. I want to be part of defending this pack, not tucked away where I can't help at all.""Matteo, a force is massing at our border that specifically wants our child as either a legal weapon or an actual prize to be taken," he said, his voice rising, desperation threading through the careful control he usually maintained. "I can't risk you being anywhere near the estate if this turns into open conflict.""And I can't sit somewhere use

‎POV: Matteo"Tell me what that laugh meant," I said, pulling a chair close to the bars, close enough that Dave had to actually look at me instead of staring past me at the wall. "You weren't surprised. I need to understand why.""Rhys already asked me that," Dave said, flexing his bandaged hand slowly, wincing as the movement pulled at his wound. "I don't owe either of you anything more than what I've already given this council.""You owe this pack the truth," I said. "Whatever you think you still owe anyone else, a force is massing at our border right now, and if you have information that could save lives, withholding it makes you complicit in whatever happens next, on top of everything you've already done."Something flickered behind his eyes at that, guilt maybe, or exhaustion finally outweighing whatever careful self-preservation he'd been clinging to since the trial."I have nothing left to protect," he said quietly, more to himself than to me. "No title. No position. Your broth

POV: Rhys"Show me," I said, the moment the scout reached my study, still catching his breath from the hard ride back from the northern border.He spread a hastily sketched map across my desk, marks showing clustered positions along the tree line, far more organized than anything a handful of rogue scouts testing our patience would manage."Three formations," he said, tracing his finger along the marked positions. "Spaced evenly, moving in coordination with each other. Not random. Not opportunistic skirmishers looking for an easy target. This is staging, Alpha. I've seen enough border movement in my years to know the difference.""Staging for what," I said, though dread was already answering the question before he could finish forming it."An advance," he said. "A full force, by the look of their positioning. Whoever's leading this, they know exactly how to organize a pack for a real assault. This isn't the first time they've done this."I pressed my palm flat against the desk, my rib

POV: Matteo"Drink this," I said, pressing a cup of tea into Rhys's hands where he sat propped against a mountain of pillows, three days after the trial, the worst of his wounds finally closing under Sofia's careful attention. "All of it. She said you need the fluids.""Yes, healer," he said, a faint, teasing smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, the first real lightness I'd seen from him since before the ambush weeks ago.I sat down on the edge of the bed beside him, watching him drink, the quiet of the room settling around us in a way that felt almost foreign after everything the last month had demanded from both of us. No council waiting. No summons. No secrets pressing behind either of our teeth."How are you feeling," I asked."Sore," he admitted. "Alive. Grateful, mostly, though I haven't quite let myself feel that fully yet.""Take your time with it," I said. "There's no rush anymore."He set the cup down and reached for my hand instead, his thumb tracing slow, familiar pat

POV: Rhys"Stop," Matteo's brother said, his hand locked around Dave's wrist, the blade frozen inches above my chest, the entire clearing suspended in a silence so complete I could hear my own ragged breathing. "This isn't the man you think you're protecting anymore, Dave. Look at what you're doing."Dave's arm trembled under his grip, torn between the momentum of the killing blow and the sudden, unbearable weight of the one person he'd built his entire betrayal around standing in front of him, begging him to stop."Let go," Dave said, his voice raw, desperate. "This is the only way I can still fix this.""There's nothing left to fix," Matteo's brother said. "Not like this. Not with his blood."The elder's voice cracked across the clearing, sharp with authority. "The trial pauses. No blow lands while a third party holds the circle. Step back, both of you, and let this resolve as the old law demands."Dave's grip loosened, slow, reluctant, and I used the opening the moment it came, rol

POV: Matteo "Begin," the elder called, and the word cracked across the frost-covered clearing like a whip. I stood pressed against the ropes marking the circle's edge, Sofia gripping one of my hands, my brother the other, the three of us huddled together in the gray dawn light while the two men I'd spent the night with, one confessing everything, the other explaining decades of buried grief, now faced each other with blades drawn. "You don't have to do this," I whispered, uselessly, too far away for either of them to hear me, the words meant more for my own breaking heart than for anyone on that frozen ground. Dave moved first, fast, precise, years of trained combat evident in every controlled step he took across the circle. Rhys met him, blade raised, but I saw it immediately, the slight hitch in his movement, the way his ribs, still healing from the ambush weeks ago, cost him half a second he didn't have to spare. "Come on," my brother muttered beside me, his hand crushing