LOGIN{Liam’s POV}Loud voices guided me toward the western battlements long before I reached them.The Palace had abandoned every trace of its usual composure. Generals crossed courtyards at a run, shouting fresh orders before disappearing into different formations. Stable hands struggled to calm restless warhorses while servants hurried frightened citizens away from the outer walls. Everywhere I looked, discipline fought a losing battle against urgency.Beyond the gates, thousands of warriors were already assembling.Rows upon rows of armored males stretched across the Palace grounds as standards bearing the crest of the Reigns snapped violently in the afternoon wind. Generals rode along the formations issuing final instructions while captains adjusted ranks with clipped, impatient commands. Brutality flashed beneath the sun as countless claws extended and retracted in restless anticipation.The army was enormous.It should have been reassuring.Instead, the mood surrounding it bordered o
{Liam’s POV}My Father needed the truth.Whether he accepted it… That was his business.Mine was making sure Mother remained alive.I left him standing inside the council chamber with enough revelations to dismantle a lifetime of certainty and quietly closed the door behind me. Whatever conclusions he reached from there would belong to him. I had given him every piece required to understand what stood outside these walls, why Sir Hagari had betrayed him, and why the prophecy everyone believed had ended decades ago had, in reality, merely waited.The rest was no longer my responsibility.Unfortunately, I had acquired another.I crossed the Palace at an unhurried pace, though the building itself seemed incapable of remaining still. Messengers hurried through corridors carrying sealed reports beneath their arms, servants disappeared around corners with expressions that suggested they knew very little and feared considerably more, while guards moved in organized formations toward the oute
{Ragna's POV}I was staring at Milena now and I wasn’t sure I had exactly heard well.In fact, I seriously doubted that I had heard well, so I kept staring intensely, waiting for her to expatiate, while dropping another prompt.“What?” I said and then she smiled.“I’m just messing with you.” She said and then laughed. “Look at the seriousness on your face!” Her finger arrowed at me as she continued laughing.I shook my head then at her silliness and hated that I fell for it. But then there was something with how she said it. Still, it was my fault for falling for it. “You’re unserious.” I muttered now.“I know.” She responded and then shifted closer to me like she had been pulled. “But the Prince is really gorgeous, Ragna!”I looked at her.“Nah.”“Come on. I personally think he’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. He looks like freaking god! Did you see his build?”I sighed. “Now you’re just being weird.” I said and Milena stared at me as though she genuinely expected me to re
{Ragna’s POV}The dungeon somehow felt emptier after Liam left.Not quieter. That would have been impossible.Somewhere beyond our cell, a prisoner was loudly insisting that he had been wrongly imprisoned for the fifteenth time since I’d arrived. Iron doors continued opening and slamming shut at uneven intervals while guards barked orders through the corridors, and every now and then another voice joined the endless chorus of complaints echoing beneath the Palace.The noise hadn’t changed.We had.The conversation Liam left behind still sat inside the cell with us, heavy enough that neither Milena nor I seemed particularly eager to disturb it.Your chances of escaping persecution this time are worse than zero…It was an unpleasant sentence.Not because it frightened me. But because I believed him.Liam wasn’t the sort of person who dressed ugly truths in prettier words. If anything, he seemed determined to strip away whatever hope people managed to invent for themselves. It was an irr
{Liam’s POV}The heavy door closed behind us, muting the arguments from the council chamber until they became nothing more than distant echoes swallowed by stone.For a few moments, my father simply stood there with his back against the door, breathing as though he had walked far more than a handful of corridors. His eyes swept across the chamber once, reassuring himself that we were truly alone before finally settling on me again.“Now,” he said quietly, “tell me why we’re speaking about this.”I regarded him for a moment before answering.“Because it determines everything I’ve told you so far.”A crease appeared between his brows.“I don’t understand.”“I know.”I folded my hands behind my back and leaned lightly against one of the stone pillars lining the chamber.“Which is why I’d like to make a proposal before I continue.”His expression shifted.“A proposal?”“A deal.”Silence settled between us.Then he exhaled slowly.“…What deal?”I studied him for a moment before answering.
{Liam’s POV}My father didn’t speak.For perhaps five full seconds, he simply stood there staring at me, and I allowed the silence to remain exactly as it was. There was no point filling it. Some truths demanded room after they were spoken, and this was one of them.Eventually, he laughed.Not because he found anything amusing.Because disbelief often disguised itself as laughter before surrendering to reality.“…What?”His brows pulled together as though the word itself had refused to cooperate.“What do you mean Sir Hagari is the culprit female’s father?”His eyes searched mine, looking for the smallest sign that I had decided to entertain myself at his expense.“That isn’t possible.”He shook his head almost immediately.“No. Hagari has served beside me for years. He has been one of the most loyal men in this Kingdom.”His voice grew firmer as he continued, convincing himself more than he was convincing me.“He cannot betray me.”I waited until he finished.“It’s the truth,” I said
{Ragna’s POV}For a moment, nobody moved.The corridor seemed to shrink around us as the King’s gaze settled on our little group, drifting from my father to me and then back again. The shock on his face lasted only a second, but it was enough. It was enough for me to understand that he had recogniz
{Ragna’s POV}The Blood Gate opened with a long, dragging groan that sounded less like machinery and more like something being forced into agreement.Which felt appropriate, considering what it was about to witness.Light spilled into the tunnel first, sharp and the noise followed a heartbeat later
{Ragna’s POV}For a moment after the elder spoke, the entire square seemed to hold its breath.“Non-fertile.”The words echoed across the space like they had weight and around me the murmuring began immediately. People shifted, whispered, stared. And many sympathetic looks drifted in my direction,
{Ragna’s POV}The night before Selection smelled like rain and nerves.Well, mostly nerves.Girls across the Werewolf Reigns were probably doing the same thing I was doing— lying awake in their beds, staring at the ceiling, praying that tomorrow the elders would say the word ‘fertile’.Because if t







