Novels by Favour Isaac

THELMA'S POVCold.That was the first thing I felt. Not the cold of ice or winter, but the cold of absolute nothingness. The temperature at the end of the universe, where even heat dies.I was aware, but I wasn't anywhere. I could think, but I had no body. I could remember, but time had no meaning here.This was the void. The space between life and death. The place where souls waited before being judged or reborn or simply ceasing to exist.And I was completely alone.No, wait. I could sense Sophie somewhere nearby. Her presence was small and terrified, like a candle flame in an infinite dark. She was panicking, I could feel it. Her consciousness was fracturing, unable to cope with the vastness of the nothingness.Sophie, I called, though I had no voice. Sophie, hold on. Don't let it consume you.It's too big, she whimpered back. There's too much of nothing. I can't, I can't…Yes, you can. Focus on something real. Something concrete. Your name. Your memories. Anything that ties you

Xavier's POVMy father was alive.The man I'd mourned for years, the man whose death had shaped my entire childhood, was clinging to a stone platform not ten feet from where I stood. Looking at me with eyes that held guilt and grief and something else. Relief?"You're dead," I said stupidly. "Mom killed you. She said she killed you.""I did kill him," my mother whispered. "I felt his heart stop. I buried him myself.""You buried a body," my father said, pulling himself onto the platform with difficulty. "But it wasn't mine. It was one of Victoria's wolves, altered by dark magic to look like me. I was already gone by then, in hiding. Victoria's idea, actually. She convinced me that the only way to protect you from your destiny was to disappear completely. To let you think I was dead so you'd never come looking for me.""Why?" The word came out as a growl. My wolf was surging forward, confused and angry and hurt all at once. "Why would you do that?""Because I was a coward." My father's

Thelma's POVThe ground beneath us split open.One moment, James, Elizabeth, and I were running through the cave system toward the old Alpha's mansion. Next, the floor cracked like an eggshell, and we were falling into darkness.I shifted mid-fall, my wolf's instincts taking over. I hit water, hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. When I surfaced, gasping, I realized we'd fallen into the same flooded cavern where Xavier was.But everything had changed.The water was rising rapidly, already chest-high and climbing. The walls were moving, stone grinding against stone as passages opened and closed at random. And the temperature had dropped so low I could see my breath, despite being partially submerged."Thelma!" Xavier's voice cut through the chaos. I spotted him on a stone platform twenty feet away, his mother beside him. Relief flooded through me so intensely it hurt."Xavier!" I tried to swim toward him, but the current was too strong. The water was flowing in a circular patter

Xavier's POVSixty seconds. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.Victoria's countdown echoed in my head as I stared at my mother. She was crying, but she'd also shifted into a fighting stance. Ready to defend herself. Or ready to attack me? I couldn't tell."I won't do it," I said. "I won't kill her.""Then Thelma dies," Victoria said simply. "I have wolves positioned at the healing center right now. One word from me, and they'll inject her with a toxin even Elder Thomas's antidote can't cure. She'll die screaming, Xavier. And it will be your fault for not making the hard choice.""You're bluffing.""Am I?" Victoria pulled out a phone, pressed a button. A video feed appeared, showing Thelma's room at the healing center. Three wolves I didn't recognize were standing around her bed, which was empty. "Oh dear. Where is she? Did someone help her escape? How unfortunate. I suppose I'll just have to kill everyone in the healing center until someone tells me where she went. Starting with the children in

Thelma's POVThe secret passage was narrower than I'd expected, barely wide enough for us to move single file. James led the way, with Elizabeth behind him and me bringing up the rear. My wolf was stronger now, but still not fully recovered. Every step was an effort."How much farther?" I gasped."Ten more minutes," James said. "Maybe fifteen. The passage opens into a natural cave system that runs beneath Silver Ridge. We'll come up right under the old Alpha's mansion, that's where Victoria will have taken Xavier.""Assuming we're not too late," Elizabeth muttered.I felt the mate bond twist, a sharp spike of pain that made me stumble. Xavier was hurt. No, not hurt, emotionally devastated. Something terrible had just happened."He's in pain," I said. "We need to move faster.""We're going as fast as we can," James snapped, then immediately looked apologetic. "Sorry. I just... if anything happens to him because of what I did...""Then you'll spend the rest of your life making it right,

Xavier's POVThe water was freezing, but that wasn't what made my blood run cold. It was the look in my mother's eyes, not triumph, not cruelty, but something worse. Resignation."I'm sorry it had to be this way," she said, and her voice cracked. "I truly am.""Sorry?" I treaded water, my wolf screaming at me to attack, to escape. But something held me back. "You poisoned Thelma. You've been manipulating my entire life. You faked your own death and let me grow up thinking you were gone!""I did what I had to do to keep you alive!" Her composure shattered. "You don't understand, Xavier. You've never understood. Everything I've done, every terrible choice, every sacrifice, it was all to protect you!"Victoria laid a hand on my mother's shoulder, silencing her. "How touching. But we're running out of time. Xavier, I'm going to give you a choice. A real one, not like the illusions of choice you've been living with your whole life.""I'm not interested in anything you have to offer.""Not