Mila’s POVThe city never slept, but that night it felt like it was holding its breath. Every honk, every flash of headlights, every pair of footsteps behind me set my nerves on edge. Jayden walked close, his arm brushing mine, but even his presence couldn’t silence the storm in my chest.The envelope from Daya was still in my bag. The photos burned in my mind. Staged, cruel, calculated. I couldn’t shake the thought of Logan’s name tangled in all of it. Logan—the man who shared Jayden’s blood. The man who now wants mine.We reached Jayden’s apartment in silence. He held the door open for me, his eyes never leaving my face. I knew he wanted me to talk, to spill everything I had learned at the café, but the words clung stubbornly to my throat.Inside, the quiet was almost unbearable. Jayden dropped his keys on the counter, watching me like he could see the battle raging inside my head.“You’ve been on edge since you left the studio,” he said finally. His voice was calm, steady, but ther
MILA’S POVThe words echoed like a curse.“You were never supposed to make it this far.”The hooded figures stood in a half-circle, blades glinting under the fractured moonlight. Their presence carried the weight of something ancient, as if the earth itself recoiled from their steps.Kael’s hand shot out, shoving me behind him with more force than gentleness. “Stay back.” His tone was low, commanding, edged with a lethal promise.But even from where I stood, I could feel the heat rolling from his body, the controlled violence in his stance. He was ready to kill, and they knew it.The leader lowered his hood. His scarred face was pale, almost luminous against the shadows coiling around him. “The girl carries power she doesn’t even understand. Power that was meant to die before she could awaken it.”My stomach twisted, but I clenched my fists. “You’ll have to get through us first.” The words flew out before I could second-guess them. My voice didn’t waver, and that scared me more than a
Jayden’s POVThe night pressed down heavily, like the air itself knew something was wrong. I hadn’t seen Mila since the incident with Aurora earlier, and the silence between us felt louder than any argument. She had shut me out not with words, but with the quiet kind of distance that burned worse than anger.I paced my room, the walls closing in with each turn. My mind replayed Aurora’s collapse, the way her power had flared like an uncontrollable storm. But what gnawed at me wasn’t only Aurora’s outburst. It was Mila’s face afterward. Pale. Guarded. As if she was holding something she couldn’t tell me.I ran a hand through my hair, frustration sparking at my chest. Mila had never hidden from me before. Not like this.A knock sounded faintly down the corridor. Voices followed—muffled, low. I froze, listening. The walls in this place carried sound if you knew where to stand. I moved closer to the door, pressing myself against the wood until the words sharpened.“…she’s not stable,” Cai
Mila’s POVAurora’s body trembled in my arms like a fragile leaf caught in a storm. Her head rested against my chest, her breathing shallow, uneven. My heart thudded painfully as if trying to shield her from whatever had nearly consumed her. The stranger’s words still echoed in the back of my mind, chilling me with their finality.“Not everyone survives what comes next.”I swallowed hard, brushing Aurora’s hair back from her damp forehead. Around us, silence stretched, broken only by the distant howl of wolves outside the training grounds. Caiden’s footsteps approached, each one heavy with restrained fury.“What was that?” he demanded, his voice low, sharp, controlled. He crouched near us, eyes locked on Aurora’s face. His jaw clenched, muscles tight, like he was one second away from snapping.“She almost lost control,” I whispered, not daring to meet his eyes. “But she didn’t. I stopped her.”“You shouldn’t have had to,” Maddox cut in, stepping closer, his presence radiating calm but
Mila’s POVThe moment the stranger stepped into the clearing, my wolf went still. Not out of the calm. Out of instinct. Out of dread. His power rolled across us in waves, pressing down on the air until it hurt to breathe.I’d felt dominance before. Caiden’s presence could command a room, Maddox’s fury could shatter stone. But this man wasn’t like them. His energy wasn’t born from a wolf. It was older. Hungrier. It clawed down my spine like cold steel.And when his silver eyes landed on Aurora, my stomach dropped.“That one,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried, sliding into every corner of the gathering like poison. “She is the fire-blood girl. You should have destroyed her before she became what she is.”I felt Aurora stiffen beside me. My hand twitched at my side, aching to reach for her, but Maddox was already in front of her, blocking the stranger’s path with a growl that shook the trees.“Who are you?” Maddox’s voice was pure venom.The man’s smile was cruel. “A shadow
Jayden’s POVThe name had been buried for years, yet hearing it again sent an old chill crawling down my spine.Cassiel.The syllables struck like a blade pressed to my throat. My memories of him weren’t vague shadows, they were sharp, raw. His smile was carved with arrogance. His voice dripped with venom. His betrayal cut deeper than any wound I had suffered before.And now, after all this time, his ghost was alive again.I stood in my study, the blinds drawn, the low hum of servers vibrating faintly beneath the floor. My phone lay facedown on the desk, but the message replayed in my head anyway. Cassiel is involved.The pen in my hand snapped clean in two. Ink bled across my palm, staining the lines of my skin.Logan had always been reckless, greedy, and manipulative. But Cassiel? He was different. Methodical. He didn’t chase chaos, he built it. He wasn’t satisfied with simple victories. He wanted annihilation. And the fact that he was working with Logan meant this wasn’t some rival