LOGINI stayed in my room from the moment we returned to the pack. Skylar came to check on me, but I didn’t want to see anyone.The night was a disaster, filled with restless sleep and wrenching nightmares.By the time dawn crept through the curtains, I was already awake.When his footsteps came down the corridor, I knew them before he knocked. I’d always known them.Three raps. Firm.I opened the door without a second thought.He looked as intimidating as ever, filling the doorway with his imposing presence. Yet, when he stepped inside, something about him seemed different.His eyes looked tired. And when they settled on me, I caught a glimpse of something else beneath the usual coldness.Something I couldn’t quite name.I didn’t dare hold his gaze long enough to find out.He didn’t sit. Instead, he took a place near the window, arms crossed, the morning light cutting across his jaw. His icy blue eyes studied me.“Tell me what happened.”My fingers tightened around my dress.“I don’t know.
Damon The battle was over. He stood in the main courtyard, breathing through the aftermath as reports came in: casualties, perimeter status, missing fighters. His wolf was already quieting, the red-edged fury of battle receding beneath the surface where it lived His eyes searched for Aurora.The habit was automatic now. She wasn’t in the courtyard. He checked the archway, the lower grounds beyond it, and the faces moving through his pack.. Then he saw Skylar. She was looking back at him with an expression he had never seen on her before. His wolf, which had just settled, came fully alert in the space of a breath. “Where is she?” Skylar opened her mouth. Ralph appeared at her shoulder before she could speak, his usual composure strained by something he was trying not to show. “She’s been taken.” Damon moved before his beta’s words finished landing. “Ralph. Fen. Cole. With me.” “Damon—” Ralph fell into step behind him. “We should wait for a full unit. If Or
Three days. That was how long Slade had stayed in Silvercrest. He had never left the chamber he was given without permission. Even now, when he requested to stretch his legs, a guard followed him through the guest wing. From my room, I could hear them. The mansion walls carried sound strangely. Footsteps. Low voices. Doors opening and closing. I had been tracking Slade from afar for three days, the way I tracked everything – with senses that never learned to ignore what they noticed. I was waiting for something to feel familiar. Anything. But he was still a stranger. And yet, I wanted to know more. If he was my mate, well… Maybe I was supposed to feel something. There was no hum when he came near. No strange warmth beneath my skin. No pull that made the space between us feel smaller than it was. Nothing like the way I felt when you-know-who was close. Maybe that was the goddess’s bind. Maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t know. “I know you can hear me.” I gasped an
I lay in the dark, tracking the ceiling, and listened to the pack settle into its nighttime rhythms. My thoughts were about a man who had said my name like it belonged to a point in time I couldn’t reach. Aurora. The way Slade had said it. The relief in it. The years. I turned onto my side and looked at the window. The moon was high and full and doing the thing it did now – since the ceremony, since the bond locked – where it felt less like something distant and more like something aware. Watching. The way the goddess watched, apparently, when she had an interest in the outcome. I pressed my hand flat against the cloth against my ribs. My name. My past. Whoever I was before they made me nothing. What if someone was handing that back to me? What if the locked room had a key and Slade was holding it? What if he was telling the truth? My heart raced. What if he wasn’t? I sat up. My room felt too small for the questions in it. Shuffling my feet on the carpet, I f
This must be another nightmare.I thought I had misheard him.The silence around each second expanded, and nobody moved to fill it.Skylar had gone very still against the wall.Several guards had glanced toward Damon with the instinct of people checking whether the thing they were witnessing was about to require them to do something.Slade continued before anyone could interrupt.Somehow, I found it hard to breathe.He offered details. Small, specific. A river with a particular bend. A village set into the hillside. A field of yellow flowers that apparently appeared every spring on the slope above the houses.None of that awakened my memory. I simply stared, frozen.He went on.A colour I had supposedly loved as a child.A scar near my left shoulder that he described vividly.A nickname. Two words. Soft. The kind of name someone gives a child they are fond of.I pressed my fingers together at my sides and tried to feel something.Recognition. A surface memory. Anything at all.Nothing
The morning felt steady for the first time in weeks. Birds chirping, wind howling softly against a sunny day. If I were a day old, I’d say this was a lovely day. But I wasn’t and every day I remained in Silvercrest was a day of survival and far from lovely.Reports and supply disputes and patrol schedules had Skylar across the table from me. A cup of tonic in her hand and a clipboard in the other. She delivered on the pack bureaucracy that made the endless paperwork almost bearable.“This enforcer,” she said, holding up a report without looking at me, “has filed a complaint about the eastern rotation for the fourth consecutive week.”“Is he wrong?”“He’s completely right. That’s what’s annoying about it.” She set it down. “Write the adjustment.”I wrote the adjustment.The morning continued just like this. And honestly, it was my favorite part of the day. Spending time with Skylar and being useful.I threw myself into it with the focused energy of someone using work to avoid thinki
War never began on the battlefield. It began on paper. Numbers. Rations. Supplies. Lives were reduced to ink and decisions that had to be made before a single drop of blood was spilled. Damon dragged a hand through his face, eyes scanning the reports spread across his desk. Most of this should
“Hey. Wake up.” Claws screeched against iron. The sound tore through the dungeon. Prisoners scrambled awake. An enforcer was here, it was morning. I wasn’t asleep, but it was hard to notice the difference in the cage. This was how it always was: constant dim lights and the gothic stench of
They dragged her away, and Damon didn’t look back. Her voice didn’t follow him. Her scent didn’t linger. The bond he’d felt faded into the cold night. It was as if she had never existed. Good. He stepped into the empty hall, his expression unreadable, and his pace unhurried. The doors shut be
“Mate.” The word shouldn’t have meant anything to me. But my body refused to ignore it. I never had time for fantasies or romance - nothing like a first crush or a first kiss. Girls like me don’t get that. So at this moment, I had no idea what to do. “What’s your name?” His voice dropped







