MasukRagnar's POVWhere the hell was Lisa? Maren's note was on my desk when I got back from the morning briefing.One folded sheet. I read it once, read it again, then tucked it into my pocket and went to find Lisa.She was coming from the kitchen with an apple in her hand and her eyes somewhere ahead of her feet. She would have walked straight past me if I had not stepped into her path."Maren flagged something about the baby."The apple stopped mid-toss."What kind of something?" She asked, pale silver eyes glowing."Walk with me."She fell into step without argument, which told me the word baby had done exactly what I knew it would do.I took the chair across from her rather than behind the desk. She sat without being asked, turned the apple over in her hands and waited."The baby's heartbeat is stronger than it should be at this stage," I told her. "Significantly.""Significantly." She repeated the word back slowly, tasting it."Maren is not alarmed. She is curious.""What is the diff
Seraphine's POV"The bolts of fabric go to the east wing storage," I told Mira, watching the women unload the last of the crates from the cart. "The spiced oils are for Maren, she will know what to do with them. And the toys—those go to the children's ward directly, do not leave them in the corridor."Mira nodded, already moving. She was efficient as always. I had trained her myself three years ago when she was seventeen and still dropped things when she was nervous. Thank God she did not drop things anymore, then we'd have to replace a lot of items.I watched them work for a moment, the quiet satisfaction of a task completed settling briefly in my chest. Two months in the eastern territories.Rogue wolves pushing at the borders, three settlements disrupted, supply lines cut at the midpoint. We had handled all of it. The pack was safe, the borders were clean, and I had come home with gifts for everyone because that was what you did when you led a campaign. You remembered the people
I was halfway through breakfast when the guard outside my window changed.Not unusual on its own. But this one was standing differently—shoulders back, spine straight, the kind of posture nobody maintained for an hour unless someone had told them to look sharp.I set my bread down.Three wolves I did not recognize were moving along the eastern path below. What the hell was going on? And why did those it seems they're preparing for a ceremonial?I pushed back from the window and went to find out what was happening.The corridor outside was busier than usual. A woman I had seen twice before in kitchen clothes was now in a clean pressed uniform, hair pinned tight. Two young pack members carried fresh flowers toward the main hall.Fresh flowers… On a Tuesday?I caught the arm of the nearest person, a young man with ink stains on his fingers. "What is going on?"He blinked at me like I had asked him what rain was. "Lady Seraphine arrived at dawn," he said, and kept walking like that explai
I had expected something cold.A clinical room, metal instruments lined up in a row, someone who would prod at me with the detached efficiency of a person doing a job they stopped caring about years ago. That was what pack physicians were like in SilverMoon. You went in, they told you what was wrong, you left feeling worse than when you arrived.Maren's room was the opposite of all of that.It was warm and slightly overwhelming— bundles of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, stacks of books with cracked spines, small glass jars lined up along the windowsill catching the morning light. It smelled like jasmine and something earthy underneath, like soil after rain.A fat orange cat was asleep on the examination table when I walked in and Maren scooped it off without breaking her sentence, depositing it onto a chair where it rearranged itself and went back to sleep with the dignity of someone who had not just been moved against their will."Sit, sit," she said, patting the table. She
I woke up before the sun did and lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling.What was I doing here? Where was…. Then it all came back. The forest. The guards. Ragnar.I sat up slowly and put my hand on my stomach. The baby shifted and to be quite frank I had gotten used to it during the weeks of walking alone through forests with nowhere to go."I know," I whispered. "I don't know where we are either."I took stock of the room the way I had learned to take stock of every unfamiliar space.I crossed to the window first and checked if it opened. It did. I noted that and turned back.That was when I saw my shoes.I had kicked them off the night before without thinking, too exhausted to care that they were caked with mud from a week of walking. They sat by the door now, clean. The white canvas restored to something close to what it had been before everything fell apart, set neatly side by side like someone had taken actual care doing it.Someone had come into this room while I slept.
Lisa's POV My breath caught in my throat.The stranger from the bar. The man I had spent one reckless night with. The father of my child.He stood before me now, not in the dim lighting of some seedy bar, but in an opulent office, dressed in a black dress shirt that hugged his frame perfectly. His golden eyes locked onto mine, and that same unsettling calm I remembered washed over me."Hello, sweetheart. It's been a while."I couldn't speak. My mouth opened, but no words came out. My heart pounded so loudly I was sure everyone in the room could hear it.The warriors who had dragged me here exchanged confused glances, clearly sensing the tension between us."You…" I finally managed, my voice barely a whisper. "You're the Beta?"A slow smile spread across his lips, the kind that made my stomach flip. "Not quite."Before I could process his words, one of the warriors stepped forward. "Beta Grayson is away on pack business, Alpha. We thought you'd want to handle this personally."Alpha.







