MasukSeems like Alara has decided to give Xavier another chance... At least she's not pushing him away
Rylan's POVDeath didn’t end a pattern. It revealed it.Kael’s body lay where we had placed it — on the cold stone table in the lower chamber, far from the main corridors, far from prying eyes. The room was sealed. It was a tomb of clinical precision. Exactly how I needed it.I stood at the edge of the table, sleeves rolled, my attention a fixed point. Ronan leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, watching with that heavy stillness that usually preceded violence.Xavier stood closer. I could feel it in the air radiating off him — the way Marcus hovered just beneath the surface, unsettled and reactive.“You’re looking for something specific,” Ronan said. It wasn't a question.I didn’t look up. “I already found it.”That pulled both their attention.Xavier stepped forward, his eyes tracking the lines of the body. “Where?”I gestured toward Kael’s chest, the skin pale and waxen under the lamplight. “Under the surface.”Ronan frowned, his patience thinning. “That’s not helpful.”“No,”
Xavier's POVI moved through the corridor, my pace a steady, rhythmic thrum against the floorboards. I reached the doors to my chambers and pushed them open. No knock. No warning.She was already inside.Alara stood near the far window. She was still, a statue of marble and tension, but she wasn’t unaware. She felt me the moment I crossed the threshold, the air between us humming with a familiar energy.The door shut behind me with a quiet, final thud.For a moment, neither of us spoke. I watched the way her hand rested on the sill, fingers curled just enough to betray the storm inside her. She didn’t turn right away. “You sent them away,” I said, my voice cutting through the silence like a blade.Her response came after a deliberate pause. “They needed rest, Xavier.”My jaw tightened, the muscle jumping in my cheek. My Lycan was pacing again, his claws scraping against the back of my mind. “They’re under the Seer’s wards.”“No one goes in,” she said quietly, finally turning her hea
Xavier’s POVNo one spoke on the way back to the palace. The clearing had changed us. Not just our strategy, not just the outcome of the night, but something fundamental in the air between us.I walked ahead of the others, my pace controlled and measured. It was a mask for the violence coiling in my gut. Marcus wasn’t calm. He was circling the edges of my consciousness, pacing with a restless, feral energy that I could barely keep beneath the surface.“I know,” I muttered under my breath.The words were for him, too low for the others to catch, but enough to acknowledge the truth. Ignoring the beast wasn’t an option anymore. Not after tonight. Not after it had reached for her.My jaw tightened instinctively. I didn’t turn around, but I knew exactly where Alara was. The palace gates came into view, the stone looming large against the night sky. The guards straightened as we approached, their faces set in the same masks of duty we’d seen a thousand times.The moment we crossed the thre
Alara's POVThe moment Kael’s lifeless body hit the ground, something changed. It wasn’t a shift in the wind or the settling of the dust. It happened through me. It wasn't a sound I could hear or a movement I could track with my eyes. It was a visceral, immediate pull, like a cord had been yanked taut in the dark, and for the first time, something on the other end was pulling back.My breath hitched in awareness. Behind me, I felt the air sharpen. Ronan moved first; I didn’t need to look to feel the predatory tension radiating off him. Rylan stayed still, a quiet shadow, but he was there. And Xavier… I knew exactly where he was — close and ready. A storm held in check.But all of them began to fade into the background.Something else was stepping forward. It didn't emerge from the trees or crawl out of the dark. It seemed to manifest from everywhere at once. The shadows at the edge of my vision didn't move with the light; they deepened. They thickened, pulling inward, coiling toward
Ronan's POVThe moment stretched, then snapped.It started with a ripple of movement. Not from the shadows, not from the monsters waiting beyond the tree line, but from within the clearing itself.Kael stepped forward.He didn’t emerge from concealment. He didn't creep through the brush. He appeared from behind her, as if he had been woven into the very fabric of the air, waiting for the exact second the atmosphere shifted to reveal himself.My body tensed, every instinct I possessed locked onto him with lethal intent. Alara didn’t turn right away. But I saw the awareness hit her in the way her shoulders went rigid.“You shouldn’t have come alone,” Kael said.His voice was steady. It had a controlled, hollow ring to it that no longer felt human. It felt like a recording being played through a corpse.I didn’t move right away. This had to play out. I needed him to commit, to step so far past the line of no return that there would be no retreat, no escape.Alara turned slowly, her hazel
Xavier's POVBy the time the plan was finalized, it no longer felt like a trap. It felt like a line drawn in the dirt of a dark room, and we were stepping over it willingly.I stood over the central map table once more. This time, the variations were gone. No false routes, no layered misdirection, no safety nets.There was only one path. One location. One outcome we were forcing into existence.“The northern clearing,” Ronan said, his voice a low rumble as he traced the marked point with a calloused finger. “It’s too open. We’re exposed.”“It’s controlled,” Rylan corrected, his voice like a cooling blade.“It works both ways,” Ronan countered.“Yes,” Rylan agreed calmly. “That’s the entire point.”I didn’t intervene. They were both right. The clearing sat just beyond the forest line, far enough from the palace to isolate the violence, but close enough for a rapid response if the world ended today. “He won’t expect containment there,” Ronan muttered, looking for a flaw he couldn't find
Alara’s POVSeven days.Seven days since the night the palace had erupted into chaos.Seven days since the beds of my children had been found empty.Seven days since the hunt had begun.And still… there was no sign of them.The war room smelled like exhaustion.Maps covered the long oak table in ov
Xavier’s POVThe ride back to the palace felt longer than the journey out. No one spoke. Not Rylan. Not Ronan. Not the warriors who had followed me into the ruins with the same burning hope that we would return with the twins.Hope had a strange way of dying quietly. No dramatic moments. No loud re
Xavier’s POVPeace was louder than war. That had been the strangest discovery of the past year.War had been chaos — noise, blood, decisions made in seconds. It filled every waking moment with purpose. There had always been something to fight, something to fix, something to survive.Peace, however,
Xavier’s POVThe next wave of council warriors did not wait for dawn. It came before it.The second assault began in darkness so complete it felt deliberate, as if even the sky refused to be a witness.Scouts had barely returned from their rotation when the northern wards detonated in a cascade of







