MasukMy gaze sweeps across the courtyard, taking in the faces, the laughter, and the sense of peace that still feels surreal.And then my eyes find her.Xena.I can’t bring myself to call her Lola, just as she can’t bring herself to call me Sadie. To everyone else, we are Lola and Sadie but to each other
“Sadie?” Alec murmurs gently beside me, voice low and coaxing. “You ready?”I turn, and he’s there, exactly where he’s always been. Tall, steady, eyes soft in a way I once thought I’d never be on the receiving end of. He’s holding our son in his arms, swaddled in a light silver blanket that shimmers
He already knows. He always does.“Ready?” I say quietly, though everyone hears me.“Definitely… Been waiting to make you officially mine for months,” he says, earning a chuckle from everyone.Slowly, he puts Aspen down, who is smiling from ear to ear.We told her the truth, that Alec is her dad, an
The night is quiet. Not the tense quiet that comes before war, not the brittle silence of grief but a living stillness, deep and steady, like the world has finally exhaled.It has been a month since the battle. A month since blood stained this land. A month since Kaden fell. A month since I learned
Kaden sees it too late. He lunges, but we are faster.I raise my hand and time stops and light pours from me in radiant waves. Lola steps forward, shadows trailing her like smoke. Light and shadow coil around us, not fighting, but circling, choosing. The air thickens, charged, every particle vibrat
The guilt is suffocating. It crawls up my throat like it wants to rip me apart from the inside.This isn’t how it was meant to be. This isn’t how it was meant to end. Kaden wasn’t supposed to win.I wipe away the tears. No! I refuse to let her die.I feel something crack open in my chest at my deter
“Are you ready to go home?” Alec asks softly, his voice breaking through the calm of the cabin’s warm interior.I look around once, then down at my hands. This small cabin has been my sanctuary for the past three days. In it, with Alec by my side, I’ve felt safe. I was in pain, yes, but I felt at pe
I went about my morning routine in a daze, my mind buzzing with questions that refused to quiet down no matter how hard I tried. All I wanted was the damn answers to my questions and yet I got nothing.How is it possible for two sisters to drift so far apart that they’d willingly try to kill each ot
The silence that followed breakfast wasn’t awkward—it was peaceful, like the quiet that came after a long, devastating storm. The kind of silence that didn’t demand to be filled. Alec sat across from me, chewing slowly, eyes occasionally flicking in my direction. I caught him once, and he looked awa
The suspense in the room is thick. You can feel it. You can almost taste it.What Raven is suggesting sounds almost impossible. After what she’s told us about the spell, could it really be this simple? Just find a way to stop the spell without releasing Kaden?“Is that even possible?” Jason murmurs,







