MasukMarcel:The room was finally quiet.Not the kind of silence that comes before battle.The kind that comes after something survives.Lia lay pale against the pillows, her hair damp against her temples, her breathing steady but fragile. She hadn’t woken yet. The healer had said exhaustion. Blood loss. That her body had simply shut down after giving everything it had.I hadn’t left her side.Two bassinets stood beside the bed.Our children…I kept looking at them like they might disappear if I blinked.Our son slept on his back, one tiny fist curled beside his face. The second bassinet held the smaller one, wrapped tighter, her breathing softer but steady.Across the room, my mother rested on a cot near the wall. Bandaged. Pale. But alive. Stable.I had barely processed that yet, but the fact that she was alive washed over me in ways that I couldn’t and would not be able to describe.The rogue man and woman stood near the doorway. “You never introduced yourselves.”“Ian,”“And Nina,” the
Lia:The pain didn’t come in waves anymore.I couldn’t even describe how it burned through every vein that I had in me.It came like something breaking through me.I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see clearly. The chamber blurred into torchlight and shadows and voices that sounded far away, even though they were right beside me.My body wasn’t mine, It was pressure, and it felt like it was splitting open.“Lia.”Marcel’s voice dragged me back from somewhere deep and dark.His hands were on my face, rough and shaking. I felt the tremor in them. He was trying to steady me, but he was trembling too.“I’m here,” he said, and his voice was hoarse. “I’m right here. Don’t look anywhere else. Just look at me. I am going to need you to breathe.”Another contraction ripped through me and I screamed, it wasn’t controlled. It wasn’t graceful. It was raw, torn out of my throat as my body arched against him.He caught me, one arm braced behind my back, the other gripping my hand. I squeezed his so tigh
Marcel:The moment I stepped into that chamber, the world narrowed.And everything in me seemed to stop completely.Smoke clung to my skin. Blood dried stiff across my hands. But none of it mattered.I saw my mother first.Stabbed, holding herself upright as she tried to fight something that I knew she didn’t want to admit.And then I saw Lia.Bent forward, water at her feet, her face pale with effort as another contraction tore through her.For half a second, I couldn’t move.“Marcel…” Lia gasped.I crossed the distance to her instinctively, but she grabbed my arm before I could even touch her.“Go,” she said through clenched teeth. “Luna Isobel, please…”Another wave of pain hit her and she sucked in a sharp breath, fighting it, squeezing my arm instinctively, as if hoisting herself through the pain.“Help her,” she whispered urgently. “Please. Please go to her.”Aria was already at her side, steady hands on her shoulders.“I’ve got her,” Aria said firmly, looking at me in a way tha
Lia:The footsteps stopped outside the door.“Lia, you are going to stay out of this.” Luna Isobel said, looking at me. I wanted to argue, but I also knew that right now was not the time to do this. “Everyone will protect you. No matter what the cost might be, you are going to protect her and the Alpha’s heirs.”For one second, the room held its breath, no one responded to Luna Isobel, but they reacted upon it.Then the door burst inward so hard it slammed against the stone wall.Elara stood there, and though others stood in front of me, she looked at me, a small smirk forming on her lips as if she was winning this.Smoke drifted in behind her, curling around her shoulders. Her hair was loose, wild around her face. And behind her, rogues.Not confused.Not panicked.Certain.For a split second, we just stared at each other.Then everything broke.“Attack.” Was the only thing that Elara said, smirking as she did.“Get behind me!” Aria snapped. “All of you attack back and don’t stop no
Marcel:We reached the outer gates far sooner than Katherine had planned.I saw it in her face.Shock.Pure, unmasked shock.She stood in the courtyard near the shattered west arch, smoke curling behind her like a crown of ruin. Rogues still clashed with our guards, but the line had already begun to break. The fire roared high along the wing she’d chosen, my mother’s wing.She hadn’t expected me back this fast.“Impossible,” she breathed when she saw me stride through the smoke. “You shouldn’t be back so soon.”Dominic was at my side, blood on his jaw, eyes colder than I had ever seen them.“You miscalculated,” he said calmly. “And it seems to me that you thought that you could take us for fools. Your little toy, Nathan, I believe, he is dead.”Katherine recovered quickly, raising an amused eyebrow.Her lips curled into something bitter and triumphant. “No. I adapted. And whether or not that happened… well, it doesn’t change the facts. Nathan was nothing more than a distraction, but n
Aria:By the time we reached the lower chamber, the air in the tunnel had turned damp and close, it wasn’t suffocating, but thick enough that every breath reminded you we were underground.It wasn’t the birthing chamber.That was further in.This was a holding room, stone walls, old benches carved from the rock, lantern hooks along the sides. A place meant for women and children during siege, not for delivery. But we couldn’t care at this point, as long we were safe, then it didn’t matter where we were.Most of the consorts were already there, some pale, some shaking.They all looked up when we entered.Relief washed over their faces at the sight of Luna Isobel, and then shifted to alarm when they saw Lia. She was still breathing heavily, and I knew that she was still far into the contractions, but it didn’t mean that it wouldn’t coming soon.“You need to breathe, Lia.” Maria urged gently.“She’s in labor,” one of them whispered.“Early,” I corrected. “But not active. We are going to







