MasukArtemis’s POV"Sit down," I ordered.Cassian blinked. "That sounded suspiciously like a royal command.""It is. Sit."To my surprise, he actually obeyed, lowering himself onto the bench slowly, with just enough dramatic flair to suggest he considered himself nobility among the wounded. I crouched down in front of him, actively ignoring the fact that several nearby healers had paused their duties to watch us. I told myself to ignore them.One of the senior healers stepped forward in alarm. "Princess, you're not meant to use your—""I know," I interrupted smoothly."But the King specifically said—""I know.""The crescent power boundaries—""I said, I know."That successfully shut everyone up. Nobody needed to keep reminding me that my father had strictly forbidden me from using my unique crescent powers for casual healing unless it was an absolute emergency. He always claimed it dangerously blurred the boundaries between emotion and royal responsibility. He said I used the magic too
Artemis's POVI was beginning to suspect the universe thoroughly enjoyed embarrassing me. Not in a poetic, grandly dramatic way, but in a deeply personal, entirely malicious way.It all started during afternoon combat training, which already felt fundamentally unfair because mandatory military drilling should not be allowed to double as public entertainment. Yet somehow it did, mostly because half the palace staff and visiting nobility always seemed to mysteriously gather around the upper gallery whenever Cassian showed up. Or, maybe that was just my own hyper-fixated problem. He was ridiculous enough to attract a crowd without even trying. It was deeply, profoundly annoying.I stood with my arms tightly crossed over my chest on the upper stone gallery, trying very hard to pretend I was only there because I happened to enjoy analyzing advanced martial tactics. It was a lie, a very bad one.Cassian was below in the dusty arena, sparring against a massive eastern warrior while several
Cassian's POVMost people thought they knew me. That was the most amusing part of my existence.To the world, I was the future Alpha of the Southern Territories — charming, reckless. I was the rogue prince who flirted too much, laughed too loudly, and took absolutely nothing seriously. I had spent years carefully constructing that effortless reputation, and I knew the best lies were always the ones people desperately wanted to believe. So, they saw the easy confidence and the perpetual smile. They never bothered to look beneath the surface. They never asked why the mask existed, or what a person might be hiding behind it.And I preferred it that way.Well… most days, at least. Today wasn't one of those days.The letter arrived shortly after sunrise. I knew exactly who it was from before I even broke the wax. The sharp, rigid handwriting alone told me everything I needed to know.Alpha Darius, my beloved father.He was a man who had never once looked at me and simply seen his son. To
Selena's POVFor the third time that week, I found myself thinking about Lucian. It wasn’t because he had done something particularly interesting or said something remarkably profound. It wasn't even because he was the future King and the entire kingdom revolved around him. No, the reality of the situation was much worse.I couldn't stop thinking about the look on his face by the lake two nights ago. Which was ridiculous. Lucian always looked exactly the same: calm, controlled, and annoyingly composed. Yet something had shifted that night. For a fleeting moment, when we were sitting together beneath the silver moonlight, all those formidable walls he’d spent his entire life building had seemed just a little thinner.Ever since then, my thoughts had become increasingly difficult to manage. Which was precisely why I currently found myself glaring at a leather training dummy as though it were personally responsible for my psychological crisis."You look disturbed."I groaned loudly with
Lucian's POVThe palace felt noticeably quieter after the Festival of Moon. The frantic energy had finally dissolved. The endless stream of visiting alphas, fierce warriors, pompous nobles, and allied pack leaders that had choked every grand hallway for weeks had finally begun to disappear.By sunrise, the grand delegations were already departing in droves. Carriages painted with foreign crests rolled through the iron gates, warriors mounted restless horses, and pack representatives exchanged their final formal farewells. The kingdom was slowly returning to its usual rigid rhythm.From my position atop the high stone battlements of the western wall, I watched the massive procession snake its way out of the valley. The crisp morning wind tugged at my hair and cooled my skin. It should have felt entirely normal.Instead, a strange sensation pricked at the back of my mind. Something felt fundamentally off, though I couldn't explain or identify what it was. It was the exact same feeling th
Artemis’s POVI was having a perfectly reasonable, thoroughly enjoyable evening. Until Cassian found me. Once again.At this point, I was beginning to suspect he possessed some sort of illegal, supernatural tracking ability to locate me regardless of where I hid in this massive palace. It was a highly disturbing possibility."You look absolutely lovely tonight, Artemis," he said, stepping into my line of sight with a devastatingly handsome smile.I groaned immediately, rolling my eyes. "No."Cassian appeared genuinely offended, pressing a hand to his chest. "No?""No."His grin only widened, flashing straight, white teeth. "That isn't how compliments are supposed to work.""It is when they're coming from you," I retorted.Several nearby guests overheard the exchange and laughed softly. I marked them all as traitors in my mind. Cassian placed his hand dramatically over his heart, tilting his head. "You wound me deeply, engineering such cruelty on a night like this.""Good. I aim to pl
Alara’s POVThe courtyard had always been one of my favorite places in the palace — open sky, moon-washed stones, the hum of pack energy threading through the air. But that evening, the very air felt wrong. Or maybe it was me who was wrong.I had begun avoiding Xavier’s gaze more deliberately with e
Xavier’s POVThe scent hit me first — wrong, oily, metallic, and slithering through the corridors like a smear of rot. It didn’t belong anywhere in my wing, not in the guarded heart of the palace, not within twenty steps of where Alara slept.My Lycan surged to the surface before my mind could fully
Xavier’s POVI hadn’t slept properly in days — not since the argument in my office, not since the moment Alara’s eyes had gone cold and she turned her back on me. My lycan hadn’t stopped snarling at me since then, pacing relentlessly under my skin, demanding that I fix what I had broken.But she had
Alara’s POVThe moment Xavier tore his mouth from mine, grabbing my wrist — the one with the pulsing crescent mark — I knew the charade was over. My breath hitched as he pulled me hard against his side, turning instantly toward the main doors.“Rylan,” Xavier’s voice was a low, guttural growl that r







