MasukArya's POVThree weeks passed before I finally felt like myself again. My shoulder healed slowly, the way wounds from silver sometimes did, but every day I grew a little stronger, a little steadier on my feet, until one morning I woke up and realized the ache had finally settled into something manageable instead of something that ruled my whole day.Chase had been careful with me during those weeks, more careful than I think he knew how to be with anyone. He checked on me every morning before he started his work, sat with me most evenings even when I could tell he was exhausted from everything he still had to manage after the fighting. Rebuilding trust with the packs who had helped us. Settling matters with Anastasia's family, who mourned her in their own quiet way even after everything she had done. Making sure Amanda had somewhere safe to go once she was well enough to travel.Kelsi visited often, and slowly things between us returned to the easy comfort we used to share before every
Arya's POVI woke up slowly, the way a person wakes when they have been pulled back from somewhere very far away. White walls. A soft beeping sound somewhere nearby. The smell of clean linen and something faintly medicinal underneath it. For a moment I did not know where I was, and my heart started to race before a familiar voice cut through the fog."Arya."I turned my head, and there was Chase, sitting in a chair pulled close to the bed, dark circles under his eyes, his shirt still stained with dirt and blood that was not his own. He looked like a man who had not slept in days, and something in his face when he saw my eyes open made my chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with the wound in my shoulder."Chase," I said, my voice raspy and unfamiliar to my own ears.He reached for my hand, holding it carefully, like he was afraid I might break if he squeezed too hard. "You are safe," he said. "You are both safe. Chamberlin is fine. He has barely left this room since we brought y
Chase's POVAmanda's directions led us through a passage so narrow I had to turn sideways in places, my shoulders scraping against rough stone walls that had not seen daylight in years. Angus followed close behind me, and two other men trailed him, though I barely registered their presence. My whole focus had narrowed down to the sounds ahead of us, faint at first, then growing clearer with every step. Voices. A struggle. Something breaking. Every muscle in my body wanted to run, but the passage was too tight and too dark to risk it, so I forced myself to move quickly but carefully, one hand trailing along the wall to keep my balance in the near total blackness.I pushed forward faster, ignoring the pain still radiating from my side where Jake's blade had caught me earlier. That wound felt distant now, unimportant compared to what waited somewhere ahead in the dark. I kept thinking about the lock of hair sitting on that cloth back at the palace, about how many hours had passed since I
Arya's POVI did not think. I did not have time to think. The moment Anastasia raised that blade toward Chamberlin, something inside me broke loose, something I had never felt before in my entire life, not even during the full moon parties when the other wolves shifted around me and I stood there feeling like the only ordinary person in a room full of extraordinary ones. All those years of watching from the sidelines, believing I was the plain one, the weak one, the daughter who did not have anything special hiding under her skin.Heat spread through my body, starting somewhere deep in my chest and moving outward through my arms and legs until my skin felt too tight to hold whatever was happening inside me, like something long asleep had finally opened its eyes. I pushed Chamberlin behind me, my hands moving on instinct rather than thought, and I heard myself make a sound that did not belong to the woman I had always believed myself to be. Low. Fierce. Nothing like the quiet, careful
Anastacia's POVI pushed Arya and her son into a small storage room at the end of the hidden passage, bare except for a few old crates and a single lantern hanging from a hook on the wall. I lit it with shaking hands, more from the effort of dragging them this far than from any fear, though I would not have admitted that to anyone watching.Arya sat down slowly against the far wall, pulling her son onto her lap, wrapping her arms around him the way our mother used to hold me when I was small enough to still want that kind of comfort. I remembered that feeling, distant now, buried under years of being told I was not the daughter who mattered most."You do not have to do this," Arya said, watching me from across the room. "Whatever you are feeling, whatever happened between you and Jake, this is not going to fix it.""You do not know anything about what I am feeling," I snapped, pacing near the door, the blade still clutched in my hand though I had not decided yet what I actually planne
Chase's POVJake ran through a set of doors that led out onto a wide stone balcony overlooking what used to be a garden, though most of it was trampled now, crushed under the boots of men fighting somewhere below us. Smoke rose up from parts of the lodge already burning, thick and gray against the early morning sky, and for a moment neither of us moved, both catching our breath, both watching the other with the kind of focus that comes right before something ends. The sounds of the fighting below seemed to fade into the background, like the whole world had narrowed down to just the two of us standing there in the wreckage of a place that used to belong to his family.I could feel the wolf pressing against the edges of my control, closer to the surface than it had been in years. Part of me wanted to hold it back, to finish this as a man rather than as the beast people whispered about behind my back. But another part of me, the part that kept thinking about Arya chained somewhere in thi
Chase's POVI paced my study like a manic. My hands were shaking like crazy, and my nostrils flared.If this was not an insult, I don't know what else it could be. Right under my nose, someone came in and kidnapped Arya and my son. Like how could that be possible.The frantic search had begun at
Arya's POV " Wine?" I glanced down at the glass and back at Chase. What was he planning? Was he going to make me drunk. I took in a deep breath and looked into his eyes."You are staring" he muttered as he stepped closer. This time I didn't run. For whatsoever reason, I stood my ground "I know"
Chase's POVI followed her to kitchen and pretended to get something from the fridge.I noticed she didn't want to look at me. That was weird. I moved closer to her and she in turn moved back. Hmm that was strange. Where did this come from? I needed to know why." I have never seen you this angry a
Chase’s POVI woke up to voices arguing. I got out of bed, my little feet barely making it to the floor and I jump down. Everywhere is so dark that I can’t even see my hands or my next step. The darkness is so thick that it can be halved in two.Where is mum and dad? Where is everybody?I walked do







