Kieran’s POVSince I’d come out of the medical centre, my wound stitched up and already on its way to being fully healed, I hadn’t been able to get close to Ames. Not that she’d wanted to get close to me, anyway.It was as though that night, when the gorge had opened up between us, had ended things for her. For me, though? The pining I felt had intensified a thousand fold. I didn’t know what to do with myself, like, ever. Night and day I dreamt of her, picturing myself doing simple, ordinary things with her – cooking dinner, laughing, running my hand down her back, waving to her as she walked away. This love was pure – and it hurt worse than stepping on a twig with a bare sole.If I thought about trying to see her, I could. If I said what I was planning to anyone, even Bo, it was like the whole world would suddenly turn against me. ‘Oh, woe is me,’ Bo muttered. ‘My poor little baby boy. Everything is so hard for you, isn’t it?’‘You’re grumpy today. Shouldn’t you be feeling a bit chi
Kieran’s POVThe rest of the journey to the Moon Chasm pack was torture. All I wanted to do was talk about Rhiannon – to Holly and the Omegas, to work out just how right my theory was, and to Ames, to make sure she knew who to stay the heck away from when we got back to Night Wind.Because even though the others were throwing around names in low voices as we walked, none of them rang as true as Rhiannon’s did. And, in the back of my mind, something else was nagging at me. I just couldn’t quite put the two pieces of the puzzle together. Not yet, anyway – but I vowed to keep trying until I did.The first night, when we set up a freezing camp beneath two gnarled, arching oak trees that had been missing their leaves for over a year, I tried to slip away with Amelia to talk to her. It was finally my chance. There was no way I could ever have pulled her aside while we’d been walking. She and Alpha Caleb had been together the whole time, and I doubted he’d take too kindly to some Warrior Wo
Kieran’s POVThe high-ups all disappeared into Moon Chasm together when we finally arrived. That left us Warrior Wolves and Omegas twiddling our thumbs and, with nothing else to do, no duties to attend to, I slipped away from the others and went to visit her.I’d told nobody about her. Since I’d left Moon Chasm, she’d been my guilty secret. Sometimes, I still couldn’t believe I’d left her behind. She was the only family I had left – and I’d abandoned her in the name of keeping Amelia safe. Amelia, my mate who didn’t even want me. I was a joke. No, I was worse than a joke. Nobody would laugh at me. They’d either scorn me or pity me, and I couldn’t decide which was worse.It felt so, so strange to be back. The familiar wooden structure of the pack house rose up into the sky – the blue, cloudless sky that, for the first time in months, didn’t look like it was brimming with snow waiting to fall. Huge trees, some still clinging to their autumn leaves, arched over the lowest parts of the pa
Kieran’s POV‘Just go in. You already know that’s what you’re going to do, so rip the plaster off and do it,’ said Bo. As he had a thousand times already. I’d been stood outside of my old home for what felt like hours, but had probably in actuality only been about ten minutes.I kept staring around, letting the present bleed into my memory. Everything was overlaid: years of following my parents inside, after training or breakfast or dinner, and my heart swelled with a sharp, pinching kind of agony that I preferred to forget.Everyone had lost someone in the war. That was what everyone said.But I’d lost more than most before that.I picked at my thumb nail. ‘I’m scared.’‘You’re a Warrior Wolf, boy.’‘That doesn’t mean I can’t feel fear, idiot. It just means I have to go on patrol and fight in battles.’‘This is no battle. This is your grandma. She’ll be happy to see you.’I stared at the door, at the faded green paint that was peeling at the door’s corners. The Warrior Wolves all liv
Amelia’s POV‘I know who poisoned you. It was the Omega, Rhiannon.’‘I – I’m sorry?’ I pursed my lips and blinked at nothing. I was exhausted from travelling and from playing nice with my parents all day, and now – this?I simply could not fathom it. Why on earth would she want to poison me? It didn’t make any sense.‘I’m sorry, Ames– Amelia.’ Kieran cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t want to tell you like this, I wanted to tell you in person. I…’‘Stop waffling on, Kieran.’ I glanced over nervously at Cal, who was thumbing through a well-read copy of The Beta’s Daughter that I’d left on my childhood nightstand and pulling amused faces at it. ‘I’ll come and meet you,’ I whispered, even though it made no odds to Caleb. He couldn’t hear my mindlink to Kieran – though he could feel every emotion Kieran’s words were making me feel.“Everything okay?” Caleb asked, dog-earing a page of my book and resting it flat across his knees, which made me wince.“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.” I couldn’t mak
Caleb‘s POVI kept tossing and turning in the bed. Don’t laugh – but I was too damned hot. I wasn’t used to sleeping in silk fucking sheets, either. Everything about this place was making me itch. I’d thought I’d be able to relax once we’d retired to the guest room – once we were finally away from the Alpha and Luna’s prying eyes – but I couldn’t settle. My need for Rhiannon was ever-present, and stronger now than it had been in the day. With nothing to distract myself from it, I was stuck missing someone I at once both craved intimately and barely knew.I woke up and reached for Ames, only to feel the cool, empty indent where her body had been.Sitting up, I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and sipped at it, rubbing one of my temples with one of my thumbs. A headache was blooming there. As I focused on it, it grew sharper. I winced. Then came the pain. Not my own physical pain, oh no. This was the spicy kind, the kind that I felt only from Amelia through our forced
Caleb’s POV“What the hell do you mean?” I stared at her like she’d grown another head.Amelia put her hands on her hips, as if this was all so obvious and I was an idiot for not being able to keep up. “Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think you do. Or maybe you simply don’t know her at all.” Her expression hardened. “Was it worth it, Caleb? Risking everything we’ve worked for, just for some Omega with her fingers in my things?”A muscle flexed in my jaw. Did she know Rhiannon had stolen from her, too? And did that mean she knew that I’d let her? I decided it was safest to change tack. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that you had a true mate?”“What good would it have done?” she hissed. “Now you’re looking at me like you pity me, and I am not a woman who likes to be pitied. It doesn’t change anything, Caleb.”The stab of disappointment I felt at that was so, so wrong. This was fucked up. Hell, I was fucked up.“Kieran is staying here. You’ll never have to deal with him again. Bes
Rhiannon’s POV“Hey.” Stephen leant down and kissed the crown of my head, before moving down to scratch behind my fox’s ears. The little creature came everywhere with me, now. I hadn’t named him, not properly – I just called him Foxy, which Cin had taken and morphed into Foxy Spangles, for some reason that I honestly doubted even made any sort of sense to her. I smiled up at him, tipping my head back so I could kiss him. “Hi,” I said against his lips, my smile growing wider as he grinned against my mouth. I dropped my book onto the sofa beside Foxy, who huffed softly at the disruption. “If I were any sort of mate, I would’ve had dinner ready for when you got back.”“I don’t think that’s on you, Rhi. I reckon you can blame the Eternal Winter for that one.” As if to punctuate his point, his belly growled with hunger.“How was your shift?” I asked, lifting up Foxy and heading through to the kitchen. I still expected to see Dad at the counter every time I went in there; I still felt the