LOGINThe door creaked open.The sound cut through the silence like a blade through silk, sudden and sharp and completely unexpected.My breath froze in my chest, trapped there as though my lungs had forgotten their function. The heavy wood swung wide on well-oiled hinges that nonetheless groaned with the weight, and Kael stepped through.My heart stopped. Actually stopped, missing several beats before resuming with painful force, hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape.The door swung open with a force that made the hinges groan despite their careful maintenance, the sudden intrusion slicing through the silence like a blade through exposed flesh. My body went rigid, every muscle locking into place. My feet were still planted on the floor where I’d been about to take my first step toward escape, the sheet pooled loosely around my hips from where I’d pushed it aside.Kael filled the doorway.Not just occupied it—filled it
Mira had been gone for hours.The moment she slipped from the room with the folded message hidden carefully against her skirts, tucked beneath layers of fabric where prying eyes couldn’t reach, silence fell around me like a noose tightening by the minute. Each passing second seemed to draw the rope tighter around my throat, making it harder to breathe, harder to think, harder to do anything but spiral into scenarios of disaster.I hadn’t moved from the bed since then. My knees were drawn to my chest in a defensive curl, the heavy silk sheet wrapped tightly around my legs and waist as if its weight could anchor me to reality, could keep me from unraveling completely into the panic that clawed at the edges of my consciousness.Every tick of time scraped against my nerves like nails on stone, each second an eternity of waiting and wondering and imagining all the ways this could go wrong. I kept seeing Mira’s face when she bowed and promised to return—her chin lifted with quiet determinat
I let my shoulders sink back into the bed, exhaling a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. The tension that had coiled through my muscles began to loosen, just slightly, just enough to let me breathe properly for the first time in what felt like hours.For the first time since waking up in Kael’s room, since being trapped in this impossible situation, I felt the faintest sliver of control slide back into my hands.And God, I clung to it with everything I had.“Bring me paper,” I whispered, my voice emerging raspy like brittle parchment itself, worn thin by emotion and exhaustion. “And ink. A pen.”Mira tilted her head ever so slightly, studying me as though trying to read the hidden meanings beneath my calm exterior, searching for the plan forming behind my eyes. Then, without a word of question or protest, she stood. Her steps were noiseless across the floor, soft soles brushing against the expensive rug with practiced silence.When she returned, her hands carried a simple tray
Vale. My blood. My curse. My prison and my origin all tangled into one impossible knot.Why would Kael’s precious Elira, the woman he’d loved enough to break every rule for, have been tied so closely to the place that had produced me? To the pack that had tortured her, if the stories were true? To the people who had ultimately killed her?The coincidence was too great to be coincidence. The universe didn’t work that way—not in my experience.I frowned, suspicion etching itself deeper into my thoughts, twisting like a knife I couldn’t shake free. “Friends…” I muttered, tasting the word like ash on my tongue, rolling it around to test its truth. “What kind of friends?”Mira hesitated, and I caught the subtle movement as she chewed faintly at her lip—a rare crack in her perfect composure, a tell that said she was uncertain, uncomfortable, venturing into territory she’d rather avoid.“She never said,” Mira admitted finally, her voice dropping lower. “She was private with her letters, neve
Mira lowered her gaze—not out of guilt, I realized, but out of respect. The kind of deference you show when speaking of the dead, of ghosts that still haunt the living.“It wasn’t Alpha who first trusted me,” she admitted, her voice quiet but steady, each word carefully placed. “It was Lady Elira.”The name cut the air between us like a blade drawn in the dark.My chest tightened, suddenly heavy with the echo of a ghost I’d never met but whose shadow lingered over every hall, every whisper, every stone in this cursed estate. Elira. The name was everywhere and nowhere, spoken in hushed tones or reverential whispers, a saint who’d left behind a religion of mourning.Mira went on, her voice softening with memory, tinged with something that might have been affection or grief—perhaps both. “She often asked me to deliver letters for her—to her relatives, her acquaintances, people she trusted beyond these walls. At first, I always had to seek Alpha’s permission, every single time. He was str
The room had fallen into a strange kind of silence, the sort that felt alive somehow, breathing around us with invisible weight. I sat on the bed—his bed, though I tried not to think about that too much—my knees drawn slightly together, my fingers still pressed against the fabric of the blanket as though anchoring myself there.Mira had been quiet too, but not absent. I could feel her eyes on me, steady and searching, the way only she dared to look at me—without judgment, without the cruel assessment I’d grown accustomed to from others in this place. Without the weight of their whispers about the rejected mate who somehow still lingered in their Alpha’s chambers.And then, when the silence stretched too long, when it began to feel less like peace and more like the calm before a storm, her voice broke through. Low and cautious, each word carefully chosen.“My lady…” she began, and already I heard the weight in her tone, the carefulness that told me she’d been thinking about this for a
The maid’s eyes met mine, and I recognized her. Elira’s shadow. One of her handmaidens, who had trailed her like a wraith, who had witnessed her every bruise, her every scar. She knew the truth of what Roran Vale had done. Had seen Elira’s suffering firsthand.And now
“Alpha,” one of the generals said carefully, his voice breaking through the suffocating tension. He was young, newer to my ranks, and the fear in his voice was palpable. “We had reports of movement near the southern border. It may be the Vale scouts testing our patrols again.&rd
His mouth tore lower, from the hollow of my throat to the slope of my shoulder, leaving a trail of heat and bruises in his wake. Each kiss was a claim, each bite a punishment. I could map his path across my skin, every place his mouth had been burned into my memory like brands. Like I'd carry the
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark and burning, his lips red and swollen from the kiss. There was something wild in his gaze, something that looked both triumphant and tortured. Like he hated what he was doing as much as he couldn't stop himself from doing it."You







