LucyI never pictured this moment unfolding quite like this. No flickering candlelight, no soft music drifting from a quartet. Not even a single ring glinted anywhere nearby. Instead, sunlight streamed through a partially opened window, spilling across the cool sheets tangled around us, while my heart pounded loud enough to break the quiet that stretched between us.I’d been longing for the moment he would ask me once more. To propose again. Not in secrecy or under false pretenses, nor wrapped in the pain of all we’d survived. I wanted it to be authentic this time. Official. Open. Ours.But I simply couldn’t wait any longer.Sitting up abruptly, ignoring how exposed I was in the morning light, I looked over at him resting there arms folded behind his head, eyes closed, a lazy smirk playing on his lips. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t spoken the words yet. I had to say it first.“I want to marry you,” I blurted out, heart hammering in my chest.His eyes opened slowly, catching the ligh
Lucy.By the time the buggy carrying me slowly ascended the long driveway toward the grand white palace, a heavy weariness had settled deep into my bones. The summer heat clung to my skin like a suffocating second layer, sticky and relentless. What I craved most was a long, steaming bath to cleanse away the dust and the tangled worry that had gripped my heart these past few days. I had already sent urgent messages to the elite agency in the neighboring pack, ordering them to dispatch detectives across the entire realm to search for Ellison. I hadn’t laid eyes on him since our last battle with Thorne, and I had personally told him to meet me at the palace. But where was he now? Had he perished in the fight? No, absolutely not! My mind refused to rest until I discovered his whereabouts, if he had truly left Death Valley with Nolan and Arielle, where could they be at this moment? That question gnawed relentlessly at my spirit. Deep down, I still felt their presence alive, somewhere out t
Lucy.The moment we returned to the palace, the news arrived. A scout, battered and gasping for breath, knelt at the base of the palace steps, pressing a scroll into my hand.“The ruins,” he managed to say. “Ivy’s there at the Moon Temple. They’re anchoring some dark power. It’s the final stronghold.”I didn’t pause for the stars to appear.Within the hour, I was standing at the palace gates, clad in armor etched with lunar runes, glowing silver just like the blade at my side. Ellison was at my left, sword resting casually on his shoulder, and Elizabeth stood to my right, tightening her bracers, ignoring the fresh gash along her arm from our last fight.Behind us, the warriors assembled werewolves, outcast Alphas, every soul scarred by Ivy’s poison. I saw fighters who’d lost their packs to flames, whose mates had been butchered, whose offspring had been twisted by cursed blood magic. Their eyes locked on me, not with hesitation, but burning with fierce determination.They were ready t
Lucy.For a fleeting moment, the world seemed to pause. The last remnants of the prior chaos had faded away, disappearing like morning fog under the heat of dawn. Yet, beneath that surface calm, I sensed the tension. It was a deceptive quiet, the eye of a raging storm waiting to burst again.Then the tempest returned, fiercer and more menacing than ever before. But I was no longer the hesitant, uncertain woman from moments ago. No. I had been tempered in the darkest hours, forged by shadows into something stronger, unyielding.I stood poised at the edge of the ridge, watching as Alpha Ellison raised his hand in command. A mighty howl swept through the valley, an anthem of battle. Warriors surged forward from every angle, their footsteps shaking the ground with the weight of their fury. Spears gleamed, blades clashed, and the cries of combat rose like a savage symphony echoing through the war-torn air.Next to me, Elizabeth took her place alongside Ellison. Her face bore bruises and st
Ivy.I stood alone before the Golden Blood Pack, every pair of eyes fixed on me, breaths held in fragile suspense. The sky above was bruised by the twilight’s fading hues, and beneath my boots, the snow cracked softly, fragile like breaking glass.Josh had failed. Weak, hesitant a pitiful shadow of the man I once believed he would become.So I stepped forward myself.Perched on my shoulder was my last remaining ally, Ira, the speaking bird. Her glossy black feathers gleamed like polished obsidian in the dim light, her eyes glowing with a strange, ancient wisdom. Her voice had long served as my own, the way I communicated when my own words were stolen by the curse of silence.“Pack of the Golden Blood!” Ira screeched sharply, sending a ripple of surprise through the wolves gathered outside the packhouse. “Ivy of the Ashen Moon demands one thing and that's a duel. Against Lucy!”A wave of murmurs rolled through the crowd like wind rustling through dry grass.From among them, Lucy steppe
Lucy.My breath hitched as reality snapped back into place. The illusion was gone, and I was back in my body, kneeling on the cold, uneven ground of Thorne’s cursed tunnels.I didn’t waste time.Shaking off the lingering haze of the vision, I turned and looked behind us one last time, the ruined stone passage yawning like a mouth full of rot. Then, pulling the worn and creased map from the pouch at my waist, I smoothed it over my thigh. The ink had smeared in places, the edges warped by damp, but the mark remained. A red X, faded but defiant, hovering over what we knew to be a sealed vault in the heart of Thorne’s territory.“That direction,” I said, pointing toward the skeletal remnants of what was once an underground barrack. “The vault’s beneath the northern ruins. Just beyond that collapsed dome.”Elizabeth stepped up beside me, nodding sharply. “Mila and I will hold your rear.”“No,” I interrupted. “You’re coming in with me.”She hesitated, eyebrows furrowing. “What? Lucy...”“Yo