LOGINZane's Point Of View "What do you mean by that, Miles?!" I demanded, my voice cracking through the quiet room as I pulled back slightly from his embrace, my eyes locked on his with frantic disbelief. Before Miles could answer, Ronan pushed himself up from the medical couch, his broad frame towering over us. His golden eyes flared with a dangerous, predatory intensity, his jaw clenched tight as he stalked forward, every muscle in his body coiled with barely restrained fury. I could practically feel the heat radiating off him, that familiar possessive energy that always seemed to fill a room the moment he decided someone had crossed a line. "Yes, Miles..." Ronan growled, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling alpha tone that vibrated through the floorboards. "What do you mean? You can't just disappear for a year, show up out of nowhere, and start dropping cryptic, half-baked riddles on us in the middle of a royal medical wing." Miles didn't even flinch. He just slanted a cool, unim
Zane's Point Of View My vision blurred as hot, frantic tears stung the corners of my eyes. My heart hammered violently against my bandaged ribcage, every thump echoing like thunder in my ears. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Part of me was certain my mind had finally cracked under the weight of everything, conjuring ghosts out of desperation, stitching together a fantasy my shattered heart desperately needed. "Miles...?" I whispered again, my breath hitching in my throat. "Is it... is it really you?" Miles stood at the threshold, his frame illuminated by the pale morning light streaming through the arched windows. Dust motes drifted lazily through the beams around him, as if the room itself had slowed down to let the moment sink in. A soft, weary smile touched his lips, his dark eyes brimming with a quiet, overwhelming warmth. He gave a single, slow nod, as though he, too, needed a moment to steady himself before speaking, as though the weight of twelve long months presse
Zane's Point Of View The heavy scent of antiseptic herbs and fresh linen drifted through the quiet room. Sunlight poured softly through arched stone windows, casting long, golden beams across the royal medical wing. Dust motes drifted lazily through the light, and somewhere beyond the walls, birdsong filtered in, faint and distant, as if the world outside had continued on without me, indifferent to whatever battle I'd fought to return to it. The silence pressed in close, broken only by the occasional creak of settling stone and the distant murmur of voices too far away to make out. My eyelids fluttered open. A dull, throbbing ache echoed through every bone in my body, making even breathing feel like lifting lead. My chest was wrapped tight in fresh white bandages, clean cotton covering the jagged cuts and deep bruises left behind by the lower realm's raw magic. I blinked against the harsh morning light, my vision clearing slowly, each heartbeat pulsing dull and heavy behind my eyes
Blood on Alpha King Torin's broadsword had already dried sticky and black by the time the next wave of wraiths crashed against the royal shield line. His arms ached with a deep, bone-weary exhaustion that settled into his very marrow, and his shoulders screamed with every swing, yet he could not afford to feel any of it… not now, not while his son's life hung somewhere beyond the veil, in a realm he could not reach, could not protect. "Hold the line steady!" Torin roared, his voice shredded from hours of nonstop battle as he cleaved a shadow-beast from skull to chest. "The prince and his mate are still in the Siren realm! Buy them enough time! Give them every second they need!" Beside him, General Vane shoved a massive tower shield forward, locking steel with three charging Siren spearmen. Sweat mixed with blood ran down the general's weathered face, carving pale tracks through the grime, and his arms trembled from the strain of holding the line. He had fought beside Torin for thirt
Ronan's Point Of ViewI got to my feet, then pulled Zane up alongside me. He was grey in the face and cooked down both arms, the skin raw and shining in the dim light, but he smiled at me anyway, the kind of smile a man gives when he's got nothing left but stubbornness. "Told you. I'm fine." "You're a liar." "I'm your liar." The floor cracked under us. I felt it through my boots before I heard it, and the whole summit lurched, stone grinding against stone like the mountain itself was groaning its last breath. Dust sifted down from somewhere above, fine as ash, settling on Zane's hair and shoulders, and for one terrible second I thought the ceiling itself might come down on top of us. Zane took a step, and the step took everything he had left. His legs stopped belonging to him and he went down. I caught him before he hit the stone, my ruined hands screaming at the weight of him, and eased us both to the floor, my heart hammering somewhere up in my throat. For a moment I couldn't m
Zane's Point Of ViewA cornered man should not smile. I have seen enough cornered men to know the faces they make, and none of them smile, and the Sigen Lord smiled at me from the edge of his own escape like a man arriving somewhere instead of leaving.So I looked for what he was looking at. And I found it.His gauntlet. The left one, raised half into the light of the seam behind him, and the black plate of it was wet. Dark and wet, smeared across the knuckles and into the joints, and my eye followed it down to my own leg before my mind caught up, to the gash along my thigh that had been bleeding freely since the fight went bad, the one I'd stopped noticing because there had been no time to notice anything.I had been bleeding this whole time. Onto the floor. Onto him, in the moments we'd spent tearing at each other.He had my blood on his hand. And the rift behind him was wider than it had been a minute ago, and it was drinking."You think you can defeat me?" The Sigen Lord laughed.







