LOGINTHIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW Midnight brought a sudden shift in the weather. Soft rain began to fall, pattering gently against the ground.Ace sat slumped on the dirty pavement, back leaning against the cold metal of his car. One arm rested on his bent knee as he held the last soggy cigarette between his fingers, its tip long extinguished by the rain.An umbrella suddenly appeared above his head. He looked up to find Austin squatting in front of him, a fresh cigarette glowing between his own lips.“What are you doing here?” Ace asked, stiffening in surprise.Austin tilted his head, studying him with unnerving intensity. “It’s annoying whenever you look this pitiful.”Ace’s heart stuttered. “What?”Austin reached out and brushed his fingers along Ace’s wet cheek. “Why are you sitting here like a stray dog in the rain? Why not go home?”Ace jerked his face away and scooted back, though there was nowhere left to go. “Why do you care? Just go home and leave me alone. You already had enough
THIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW “Now if you’ve provoked the pack members enough, you may leave,” Ace stated coldly to Jeff, Basil’s younger brother.Jeff’s muscles bulged as he growled, eyes blazing with fury. “That bitch killed my brother and now rules this pack as his widow!” He glared at Ace, voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “The pack members leaving one by one is just the beginning. Let’s see how long she can hide inside that packhouse. Soon enough, she’ll get her karma.” With that venomous promise, Jeff stormed away.Ace turned back toward the packhouse to inform Vivica, but he had barely covered a hundred meters when a suffocating, deadly energy slammed into him. His wolf recoiled in warning, instinctively sensing a powerful claim over the entire packhouse. Ace held his breath, staring at the closed front door of the packhouse. The mind-link had gone completely silent, and an unnatural chill hung in the air around the house.He took several cautious steps back, a cold sweat brea
THIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW His woman?!“What are you—” Vivica twisted in his grasp, trying to pull away, but Finn only tightened his arm around her, pressing her firmly against the solid warmth of his body.“Want your Beta back right now?” he murmured against her ear, his hot breath sending a shiver down her spine. Both Magnus and Evran watched their intimate proximity with sharp, assessing eyes. “Then pretend,” Finn continued, sliding both arms around her waist and turning her fully to face him, “and get what you want.”Their eyes locked in a charged silence. A slow, calculated smile curved Vivica’s lips. In the next breath, she yanked herself free and slapped him hard across the face.The sharp sound echoed through the room.Both fathers froze, stunned. Their gazes snapped to Finn, who stood motionless with his head turned slightly to the side from the force of the blow. Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face.“You keep breaking my heart again and again,” Vivica cried, her voice
THIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW Ace’s lips twisted into a bitter smile as he stared coldly at Austin, who sat relaxed in the chair across from him. “Now that your purpose for capturing me is fulfilled, why don’t you let me go?” He pointedly lifted his bound hands.Austin’s gaze traveled slowly over Ace’s lean, athletic build. “It’s strange. How does a Beta to someone as powerful as Basil end up so… physically weak?”Ace’s expression flickered for a brief second before he let out a low groan. “Says the Council’s Serpent. If I had hit you back, wouldn’t I have been beheaded for raising a hand against someone like you?”Austin chuckled darkly and leaned forward to untie the ropes. “So you do know.” Once the bindings fell away, he warned, “You’re still not allowed to leave.”Ace rubbed his reddened wrists with a grimace, then gestured down the long corridor. “They’re already here.” In the distance, Finn and Vivica had just entered the building. “I don’t think I’m needed anymore. The Head of t
THIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW Vivica understood the true weight of the situation all too clearly.Being labeled a prime suspect in Basil’s murder while in the Council’s custody meant Ace would lose any right to defend her in the upcoming trial. Worse, he would likely become a convenient scapegoat. The Council had no solid proof against her and had no desire to prolong the trial. Yet Vivica could see that Finn had not seized Ace for any of those calculated reasons. He had not taken the Beta to pin Basil’s murder on him.He had simply removed Vivica’s groom before another man could so much as touch her soul, let alone taint or mark it.And now he expected her to follow him. Obediently.She read the raw threat blazing in his eyes. She had wanted him to reveal his hunger, and he was showing her something far more dangerous: his unhinged possessiveness.Without another word, Vivica strode back into the fitting room. When she emerged moments later, she had changed into a sleek black bodycon d
THIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW “We are so fucked,” Austin murmured under his breathe the moment he spotted Finn on the balcony. The Devil’s eyes burned blood-red while they were fixed on Vivica’s retreating back as she vanished from the chamber.They had foolishly assumed that if she couldn’t get close to the Alpha, she would be powerless. How wrong they had been. Her path to revenge was nothing like they had imagined, just like her true reason for appearing before the Council today. She hadn’t come for the trial. She had come to declare loud and clear that the game had only just begun.The soul the Devil so desperately craved was about to be tainted before their deal had even reached its conclusion.A sudden, oppressive blue aura flooded the Council Chamber, startling every wolf present. The air grew thick with raw power, so intense that many felt as though death itself might descend upon them in the next breath. All eyes darted upward to the balcony, where the Council Head stood shroud







