LOGINDamien’s POVThe gray, pale light of pre-dawn hung over the ancient grove like a shroud of wet wool as I stood at the perimeter with every enforcer in Silverpine lined up at my back.My wolf was bristling aggressively right beneath my skin, scratching at my ribs with a restless panic that made my hands twitch against the hilt of my blade. The fissure in the earth, which should have been locked tight after Evans paid the debt, was glowing with a blinding, ethereal silver radiance. A tall, gaunt figure staggered out of the rising mist, its skin as pale as polished bone and its eyes burning with the soft, endless gold of the founders’ spirit wolf.It moved with the clumsy, careful uncertainty of a newborn deer learning how to use its legs for the very first time. Each step seemed to demand an effort it barely understood, as though its body had forgotten the simple act of walking during centuries of confinement.My animal instincts screamed that it was a threat, a parasite crawling out
Lucas's POVThe doors of the infirmary slammed against the wall as I rushed inside with Amelia right beside me, holding Marianne's trembling, ashen frame between us.My surgeon's hands remained entirely steady out of sheer habit, even as a cold band of terror tightened around my chest at the sight of the woman who had given my mate life. She looked so fragile and broken, clutching the open leather journal like a drowning sailor holding a spar.I lowered her onto the examination table with practiced efficiency, stripped off my jacket and reached for the saline drips and emergency monitors while Mabel hurried over with fresh towels. I stabilized her vitals within minutes, forcing a steady rhythm back into her shallow breathing, but the moment her eyes fluttered open, she batted my hands away and refused to rest.“Don't waste medicine on an old debt,” Marianne rasped, her voice catching on a wet cough as she gripped my wrist with surprising strength. “Listen to me, Lucas. I have to say
Amelia's POVAfternoon sunlight pooled across the rumpled sheets of the safehouse bed, casting long, golden bars of light over the blankets while our daughter finally drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep against the pillows.I sat on the edge of the mattress, staring down at my hands and trying to reach inward for the familiar, comforting presence that had lived under my skin since the night of my very first shift.There was nothing there.No low growl at the edge of my consciousness, no sudden spike of instinct when the wind shifted outside the window, not even a faint hum of energy. There was only a smooth, aching quiet where my wolf used to be, a vast, hollow emptiness that felt entirely wrong.Mabel had examined me for hours inside the infirmary, running her fingers over my arms and checking my pulse with a furrowed brow, but she found no physical wound, no hidden curse and no trace of biological damage. Her final conclusion came with quiet, devastating certainty: the Hollow had ta
Lucas's POVI stood frozen in the center of the cavern, staring at the man who had given me half my blood and none of my childhood, watching Dr. Evans stand at the mouth of the chamber with his shoulders squared like a soldier walking into a war he had already lost.I hadn’t forgiven him. Maybe I never would. But the cold, protective numbness that had walled off my heart for thirty years had finally shattered and for the first time in my life, I felt everything at once: white-hot rage, blinding grief and underneath both, a terrible, unwanted ache for the father I had spent my entire life wishing for.I had imagined meeting him a thousand times. In some versions, I struck him until he understood what his absence had cost me. In others, I walked away without giving him a single word. Never once had I imagined standing before him in a place like this, knowing that the next few minutes might be all we had left.“Turn around and go back through that tunnel,” I said, my voice cracking with
Amelia's POVThe cold air of the Hollow tasted like wet stone and crushed lavender, heavy and ancient, pressing against my skin with the weight of a physical presence.I stood in the center of the subterranean chamber with Lucas’s hand locked tightly in mine, the cold, echoing promise of the voice still vibrating deep inside my bones. Time didn’t behave normally down here, stretching and twisting like taffy in the dark. When I glanced sideways at Lucas, I noticed with a sudden shock that the hair curling over his collar had grown at least an inch since I first tumbled into the silver tunnel, yet I couldn’t remember a single hour or minute passing. My wolf paced restlessly at the edge of my consciousness, but instead of the frantic terror that usually accompanied our battles, she felt strangely steady, calm and grounded. The spirit of the First brushed against the edges of my mind, feeling less like an intruder and more like a warm, heavy paw resting reassuringly across my shoulders.
Damien’s POVI knelt in the dirt beside my father’s broken body while Mabel worked quickly with a roll of gauze and a jar of healing salve, trying to keep him breathing.The council of elders had already ruled on it: Victor did not get the luxury of dying in a ditch. He had to answer for every crime, every betrayal and every life he had broken before the entire pack assembled in the square. But looking down at him now, revenge felt completely hollow. The man lying in the grass looked eighty years old, his hair stark white and his cheeks so hollowed out that his skull seemed ready to push through his skin. His wolf was so thin and starved that I could barely catch his scent, even when I leaned right over him.He didn’t fight the leather restraints around his wrists, nor did he offer me a sneer. He simply stared at the closed fissure in the earth where the ground had sealed itself shut. Whatever arrogance had once made him terrifying seemed to have withered alongside his body.“The Hol







