LOGIN(Rene)"He's still not eating."Cole's been on the spare-room door for two days and it's wearing on him."Doesn't pace. Doesn't ask for anything. Just sits there like he's already won the part he came for.""He has."I don't look up from the documents I'm not reading."He stopped the rejection ceremony and told everyone Angelique and the brat are his. I’m not sure what else he wants, but he succeeded at sowing those seeds.""So we make him talk.""You want to torture a consecrated Alpha under my roof?"I let that sit. Because god knows, I want that too, but I know the consequences."Tell me how that goes, Cole. Walk me through the morning after."He doesn't. He knows the shape of it as well as I do."Then what?" he says, frustration plain in his voice.“He can’t stay down there forever. I’m sick of waiting outside his door, and the Myr are circling him like he’s a stain they haven’t decided how to scrub out.”“They are. Maliyah’s a houseguest who behaves like she owns the walls.”“So
(Brynn)"I had to learn about the boy’s parentage from a stranger's mouth. In a hall full of people. While I sat there like a fool who doesn't know what’s happening around her."My mother doesn't knock. She never has. The door just opens and the temperature drops.I don't turn from the mirror. Turning is losing. She taught me that before I could read."I told you there was a child.""You told me there was a bastard."She crosses the room, and in the glass she's still beautiful.Beautiful and cold all the way through.I notice again that we have exactly the same mouth.I've hated it my whole life."You told me the father was some random human, not that a fugitive Alpha would walk into Rene's hall and lay claim to Angelique and the brat.""Because I didn't know he would. I would have stopped him from interrupting if I’d been expecting him."True, for once."I'm not responsible for every stray Angelique left behind in whatever truck stop she was rotting in.""Parker Frey."My mother says
(Angelique)The herbs go in his juice before he's fully awake.Crushed fine, an extra pinch today, just in case."Tastes yucky," Zack says, same as every morning of his life, and drinks it anyway."I know, bug. Big gulps."He drains the cup and I finally let myself breathe.One more day bought.My body's still sulking about last night.Sore where his hands were, wound tight where he made sure not to finish me.The bond still humming a low note I can't shut off.I shove it down with everything else and get up.The house woke up wrong.I felt it before I even opened my eyes.The air's gone thick with wolves who don't belong here, a dozen new scents stacked over the ones I'd learned to live around.The Myr stayed.All of them, Brynn hissed through my door last night, like it’s my fault.I had no idea Parker was coming, and naming him as Zack’s father was Brynn’s idea.She can’t lay any of it at my door.It doesn’t change the fact that I'm a mouse in a house that went from one cat to twen
(Rene)"He’s not asking for anything."Cole stands in my doorway like he'd rather be down a mineshaft."No food. No demands. We put an Alpha in a bare bedroom and he's sitting on the cot like he's waiting to be called to dinner.""His scent?""Still banked. He’s caged, cornered, and we can't get a clean read off him. I've never seen control hold like that."Of course it holds.Parker Frey spent years pretending to be nobody.A cell doesn't rattle a man who made himself vanish.What I need to find out is why.And where he’s originally from.The answer to the second question should answer the first as well."Leave him there," I say."If he doesn’t want to eat that’s his business, but make sure there’s bread and water available. Aside from that don't touch him, don't talk to him, and make sure he stays put."Cole's gone before I finish.I didn't sleep.I tell myself it's the houseful of Myr wolves and the Alpha under my roof.It isn't.It's the bond, scraping me raw, chafing at me to go
(Angelique)His rooms smell like him and it affects me immediately.That's the first cruelty, and he's not even here yet.Cole put me inside, shut the door and left.Now it's me and the bond and the dark, and every breath I drag in is full of Rene.Zack's in our room, asleep, alone behind a door I'm not standing on the other side of.Nobody’s watching him.I should have been back with him by now. Broken by the rejection, but still able to fight for him.Parker's locked up somewhere, alive on borrowed time, because of a lie that's chewing through all three of us.And my body won’t stop reminding me that it’s been worked up for days and not allowed release.As if none of the rest of it matters, as long as I get to orgasm.You built this, my wolf says, quiet and vicious. Lie down in it.I wish she’d offer options instead of anger.What else am I supposed to do?When every option I have is terrible, I have to pick the one I can live with.That’s the one where Zack isn’t hurt.When I first
(Rene)Angelique's mouth opens.Nothing comes out, because Parker answers for her."She doesn't have to say it."His tone is flat and almost bored. "I already did. The boy's mine. So is she."The hall takes a breath it doesn't let back out.There it is.The words the dark thing in my chest has been hissing since Brynn came to my office and tossed the words at me so casually.Confirmed by the male who did it.He had her. He put a pup in her. He kept her while I-I shut that thought down before it finishes.The rage that comes up instead is clean and simple, and I let it in like an old friend."Cole."I don't raise my voice."Take him to the dungeons. Perhaps some time alone will teach him better manners."My men move.Parker doesn't."I wouldn't."He says it the way you'd tell a man his shoe's untied.Cole stops, eyes on me, waiting for confirmation."You can open my throat right here," Parker goes on."But people know where I am tonight. People who'd come asking your pack the kind of
(Angelique)Gold.His eyes have gone gold.Wolf-gold, the color the eye turns when the animal comes up to the surface to look out.The exact thing I've spent years making sure mine never do where a human can see.So either Parker isn't human.Or I've finally lost it."Quiet," he says, before I can
(Angelique)The bell over the door is still swinging when my knees give out.I catch the edge of the booth before I hit the floor.There's broken glass and debris everywhere.The pitcher, two plates, the tray. Damaged stock comes out of my wages. That's the thought my brain hands me.Not he's here.
(Rene)The Murphys are already on their feet when I close the distance to her."Get out," I say without turning my head. "Now."The bell rings, leaving us alone in the room.She is shaking.Mine. Protect. Claim. Take her. Mark her.I push my wolf down, warning him to be quiet. Angelique is shaking
(Angelique) Five years ago, I ran away from my mate.I was pregnant, terrified, and convinced leaving was the only way to protect my child.Now I'm twenty-six years old, living in a rundown trailer in a human town that doesn't know werewolves exist. I work double shifts at a diner, hide my scent w







