LOGINLiz's povI rushed towards them. “What happened?”Melissa finally looked up, tears running down her face. “I think I killed him,” she cried. “He begged me to do a spell and I…” she cut herself off as sobs slipped from her mouth instead.Relief washed over me.Angelica hadn’t been here.But the relief didn’t last because Frank was lying there too still, his skin pale, Melissa’s hands shaking against his chest.Alice dropped beside him at the same time I did.“Frank?” I reached for his arm.His skin was cold.My fingers wrapped around his, pressing hard, searching for something. Anything. A beat. A twitch. A sign that Melissa was wrong.“Come on,” I begged, my thumb digging into his wrist. “Please.”Nothing.My blood ran cold. There was nothing there. I looked over at Alice, her eyes locked on mine, begging me to tell her it wasn't true.“No”, Alice leaned over him, her face pale. “There has to be something.”“I can’t feel it,” I said, panic rising too fast inside me. “No,” she said,
Liz’s POVI sound around, seeing the ridge explode with dust. Lumian, standing in the middle of it, a smile filled with pleasure plastered across his face as his hybrid rushed towards. Everything around me blurred, leaving nothing but the dust and Lumian smiling down on me. My heart raced in my chest.“Liz”, Alice said as she grabbed my arm, snapping me back.I looked around at everyone rushing and running for their lives. My stomach turned violently. Those weren’t just monsters rushing towards us.That was the part that made my body feel cold. Somewhere under the thirst for blood and the rage Lumian had poured into them, there could still be someone trapped inside. Someone’s son or daughter. Someone who had been stolen turned and twisted until all anyone could see was a thing Lumian had made.Arthur moved beside me. His voice tore through the courtyard, strong enough to drag everyone out of their panic.“Get the wounded and children out of here. Alphas, your armies now belong to me
Liz’s POVEveryone else had gone, but I stayed there, my eyes still on the place Lumian had just been. Guilt resting in my heart. I could stop all of this…I gasped, my hand flying to my heart as pain flashed through me so suddenly I stumbled back. The pain held me there, my hand pressed hard against my chest as I tried to understand what had just happened.It felt like a bond.Not a wound or magic burning through me. A bond.My eyes shot towards where Arthur had gone.‘Arthur?’ I called through the mind link. My hand is still gripping my chest.Nothing.My heart slammed against my ribs.‘Arthur, answer me.’Still nothing.Panic rushed up so fast it stole the air from my lungs.I didn’t think.I moved.My feet carried me across the courtyard, past guards and parents and Alphas shouting orders I couldn’t hear. My hand stayed pressed to my chest like I could hold whatever had just snapped inside me together.‘Arthur.’Nothing.My breath came faster.‘Arthur, please answer me.’Still no
Robert’s POVI kept my eyes on Lumian, not the hybrids around me. They were close enough that I could hear the wet sound of their breathing, but I didn’t look. If I looked, I would look scared, and my chance to do something good would be over before it started.Lumian’s eyes burned into mine.“Why are you here?”I took a step forward. The hybrids growled, the sound rolling around me so loud it nearly swallowed my words. “I came to see you.”His head tilted to one side as he studied me.I breathed in through my nose, trying to find the scent of the children, but there was nothing. No crying. No small bodies hidden close by. Nothing for my wolf to grab onto and follow.Lumian’s eyes dropped to my neck for a second.Then he nodded.Dust lifted around us as the hybrids vanished, leaving me alone with him.That should have made me feel better.It didn’t.His eyes were darker now, the veins in them shifting under the skin. Hunger crossed his face, quick and ugly. I stayed where I was.“They’
Frank’s POVI stared at the photo until the edges bent under my fingers. I could feel Melissa next to me, but I didn’t look at her. Every inch of me focused on the photo, trying to remember, but the harder I tried, the more something inside my head pushed back.A dull pain started behind my eyes.I ignored it.My eyes stayed on the younger version of myself, on Angelica’s hand wrapped around my arm, on Melissa standing on the other side of me with a look on her face I did not understand but felt somewhere deep in my chest.Why didn’t I remember this?The pain began to burn.My fingers dug harder into the photo as I tried to focus the memory to come. Pain tore through my skull so fast everything around me began to spin.“Frank,” Melissa said beside me.I barely heard her.The photo blurred in front of me, but I kept staring, trying to force the memory open. There was something there. Something hidden behind a wall I could feel but could not break through. My wolf clawed at it from the
Frank’s POVThe courtyard was still full of noise, but none of it stayed with me.Orders were being shouted. Warriors were moving. Parents were crying into each other while guards tried to clear a path through the mess Lumian had left behind, and I was meant to be helping. I was meant to be thinking about the army, the gates, the children, the hour we had been given before another life was ripped apart.But all I could see was gold.Liz’s hands glowing as that light poured out of her.I’d seen that magic before my heart knew that magic because it belonged to my bloodline.To my pack.The Sun Wolves.The noise in the courtyard disappeared completely, and I was no longer standing in the middle of a kingdom preparing for war. I was a boy again, watching my mother stand beneath the morning light with gold burning around her hands.She used to tell me our magic was not like witchcraft. It was not taken from the world. It was born from it. From the sun, from the wolf, from the blood that ran







