로그인Frank’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
Lumian’s POVI paced along the broken edge of the old watchtower, the horn still in my hand, my eyes locked on the courtyard below. Guards rushed through the royal city like ants, small and useless from where I stood, but Arthur was nowhere to be seen.Neither was Liz.My grip tightened around the horn.She should have been coming by now.I had seen her face when the boy changed. I had felt the way her horror reached across the distance and fed something deep inside me. But most of all, I saw the longing in her eyes when she looked at me. “I told you it wouldn’t work,” I snapped, turning as Angelica stepped into the doorway.“It will,” she said.Her calm voice scraped against the hunger moving under my skin. The part of me that wanted to go back down there, tear through the gates and drag Liz out myself. The part that wanted Arthur’s blood.Angelica walked towards me.“You know she won’t be able to sit there and do nothing,” she said. “And once she is away from Arthur…” She stopped b
Robert’s POVThe second the words left my mouth, every eye in the courtyard turned on me. I had known they would.I had stepped out of the shadows, knowing exactly what they would see when they looked at me. Not a man trying to help or someone who had once tried to protect Liz in the only weak, useless ways I had known how.They saw Blackthorn.They saw Lumian.They saw the Beta who had stood beside him for years.I would have hated me too. Arthur's eyes filled with rage the second they saw me, his wolf flashing through them. I swallowed deep, forcing my heart to stay steady. I looked past Arthur, seeing Liz standing there, pale and shaking, her eyes locked on me like she didn’t understand how I could be here. Or maybe she did. Maybe she had already guessed the army had dragged me back from the punishment barracks, the second Lumian showed his face.“Robert,” Hearing her say my name still hurt.Not because there was hope in it.There wasn’t.It hurt because I remembered every time s
Liz’s POVThe world blurred until there was nothing left but Lumian’s face, the mother’s screams, and the beating of my own heart. “Let the boy go,” Arthur said.Lumian laughed and stepped closer to Kai. The hybrid holding him moved aside the second Lumian reached for him, like it had been trained to obey without thought.My stomach turned. The monsters were dangerous because they had no control, only the need for hunger. But Lumian's army was controlled and powerful; I could feel it. Lumian gripped the boy, his fingers curling around the back of Kai’s neck as his eyes stayed on Arthur.“Hand her over,” Lumian said slowly, “or one dies every hour.”Kai whimpered, his small hands grabbing at Lumian’s wrist. “Mum.”His mother screamed harder, fighting her mate as he held her back. “Please! Please, don’t hurt him!”Arthur took one step down.“Careful,” Lumian warned.Arthur stopped, but I felt what it cost him.“You kill that child,” Arthur said, “and I will make sure death is the kinde
Liz’s POVI told myself not to follow them. I knew in my heart that there was nothing I could say or do that would take their pain away or bring their child back to them. But my feet began to move before I could stop them. My wolves need to go after them was strong, and I was too tired to fight her, because I knew what it was like to lose a child. Sure, I never got to hold mine, but it didn't mean its life was any less important. I knew what it felt like to have love ripped away from you.Arthur’s hand closed around my arm.I stopped, but I didn’t look at him. My eyes stayed on the doors the Alpha had carried her through, on the empty space they left behind, and the guilt inside me twisted harder. Their son was dead because Lumian wanted to hurt Arthur.No.Their child was dead because Lumian wanted me. “Liz,” Arthur said quietly.I finally looked at him.His face was calm, but I could feel the truth through the bond. He was holding himself together in front of everyone, forcing hims







