The Return of ShadowsDraven's POVNyra's footsteps sounded too hard like war drums, it pounded through the hallway even before I saw her. By the time she got to my office, the door was slammed back so hard on the wall that the dir frame shook.Her eyes were wild. Flames and storms at once. For a moment, I thought she might shift right here just to bite my head off."Is it true?" she demanded. No greeting. No warm-up. "Selene is coming back to Crescent Moon?"The air between us felt tight enough to snap. I leaned on my chair back, slowly and intentionally, to keep myself from reacting to her anger and my own. "That is what the reports say."Her hands settled down, and she placed them by her sides. "And you did not think to tell me?"I breathed out through my nose. "I was going to.""When? When she is already in my living room? When she is sitting on the Luna throne she never earned?" Her voice was sharp enough to cut glass."She is not going to sit on anything," I growled, my temper s
Storms of DeceptionNyra's POV I did not sleep that night.I could not.Every time I close my eyes, I always hear Zaira's voice in my head. Not the same mocking laugh from the darkness, but a low whisper, as if she left some part of herself stuck in my mind just to remind me that she could reach me anytime she wanted. The words were not even clear half the time. Just pieces, threats, the echo of her command that made my skin crawl.Bring me the boy.Every time those four words played again in my mind, a sick weight pressed harder in my chest. My own will had been bent once already. The memory of it was like acid. How my body had moved without my permission, how my thoughts had been pushed aside like they meant nothing. If she could do it again... I did not want to think about what might happen. What if next time I can't fight back at all?So when the first light of dawn came into my room, I was already dressed and walking back and forth, my mind was running in wild loops. The floor c
The Claimant QueenNyra’s POVI hadn’t even begun to think of a way out of the madness Zaira left me tangled in when the distant sound of footsteps and crunching gravel announced another intrusion. I barely had the strength to react. My chest still rose and fell too fast, my limbs too heavy, the aftershocks of the witch’s control still echoing in my bones.Auren was safe with Draven. That was all I could cling to right now.I was still standing in the clearing where Rowan and I once met, where I’d been dumped by Zaira’s spell, cold and alone and afraid, when a shrill, too-familiar voice rang out like claws across glass.“Nyra!” The name wasn’t a greeting. It was a challenge.I turned slowly, my fingers twitching at my sides, and saw her. Selene.She stood flanked by a group of wolves, none from Crescent Moon. These were unfamiliar. Lavishly dressed, heavily armed, and, from their scent, barely loyal. Hired warriors, most likely.But it wasn’t the troops that startled me most. It was
Fractured ResolveNyra POVI did not cry.Not once.Not even when I came back to Crescent Moon in the dead of night, with my bare feet and my shaking body, my mouth was filled with the bitter taste of fear. Everything else hurts worse. I did not make a sound when I walked past the guards who nodded at me with confused looks, their faces showing questions they were too nice to ask. I did not blink when Draven stormed out of the front door like he had been waiting there the whole time, anger and relief spinning behind his eyes like twin storms.Nyra, where the hell have you been?I held up my hand before he could touch me. It was not anger. It was not hate. It was not even distrust.It was numb.The kind that sits in your bones when your mind cannot handle anymore. When feeling anything at all might break you completely.I am fine, I said.Fine? You have been missing for... His voice cracked, it was from the emotions he was not able to hold back. You vanished just like that, and you exp
The Strange Voice Nyra's POVI woke up to laughter.Not just any kind of laughter. This one was deep and rough, moving like smoke through the shadows, pushing against my skin like hands I could not see. I sat straight up fast with a sharp gasp, my head was still hurting, even my arms and legs were shaking. The cold cave floor cut into my palms as I tried to stay steady. My eyes were looking everywhere in the dark to see signs of who was out there.But there was no face. Just the voice.A woman speaking.Mean, slow, too sure of herself to be normal.Who is there? My voice came out rough and broken, either from fear or how dry my throat felt. Show yourself!Nothing.Then, again, that laugh. She moved closer now, like she was walking in circles around me.I spun around, my heart was beating so hard, but I did not see anything other than the weak light of the single oil lamp that was still burning on the wall. Shadows went out long and bent. I could not really tell where the walls ended
The Forest That ChangedNyra’s POV I told them I needed some air.That was my excuse. Simple and easy to believe. A midnight walk in the garden was not weird, not when the moon hung low like a watching eye, not when I had been restless all evening. I did not think Draven would ask questions. He had seen how quiet I had become these past few days, and he had not pushed. I think he knows that something inside me has changed, or maybe he was just giving me space to figure things out on my own.But I was not just going for air.I needed answers. Quietly. Carefully. Without making fear show in Draven eyes or making the pack wonder what was going on. I was going to see her again. My old friend. The rogue. The only one who had dared to cross the line between my past life and this one now. She knew something. Something I had not been ready to hear the first time. But now? After the letter, the warning, the whispers that seemed to follow me everywhere?I was ready.I grabbed my old leather ja