LOGINAlfredo's POVThe way Fred laid the folded paper on the table told me this wasn’t routine. “Dare’s mate came to me this morning,” he said. “Not about Dare.”I reached for the paper, feeling heat in my palms.“Sefia?” I asked, keeping my voice steady but low.“She’s distributing the letters,” Fred said. He’d kept his tone even, but I caught the tension buried underneath. “She’s targeting specific hallways, specific pack members who are still uneasy about the Luna. Never out in the open. Always just slippery enough that no one can pin it on her directly.” He stopped a beat. “She didn’t write the letters herself. But she’s using them. Very deliberately.”I let the paper fall back to the table, the edges crisp and white against the wood. The windows beckoned, so I walked over and stared out. On the surface, the pack grounds looked normal...maybe even cheerful. Warriors drilling in practiced formations, kids ducking between the buildings, sunlight polishing every blade of grass. The pictur
Mabella's POV"Two for two," Sera said from her doorway. She stepped back to let me in before I could say a thing.I walked inside. Her house felt snug and familiar, the same way it had before. She closed the door and gestured to the table. We sat across from each other, morning light streaming in through the one window, those carved wooden figures lined up quietly along the far wall.Two cups were already on the table.She’d been waiting for me."You knew I'd come," I said.She poured tea from a clay pot, still warm from the stove. "I figured you’d show up eventually. Wasn’t sure if it’d be today or tomorrow." She nudged a cup in my direction. "Drink. You look like you haven’t slept properly in three days.""Two," I admitted.She shrugged. "Close enough."I wrapped my hands around the cup and looked at her."Tell me everything," I said. "Not what you told Fred. The whole story."Sera held my gaze. Her eyes always reminded me that she’d seen a lot in forty years."I wasn’t the only on
Mabella's POV"Sera Kade lives down in the southern residential block," Fred told me in the hallway outside the Luna quarters the next morning, keeping his voice low. "It's the third house from the east end. She should be home ... she works the dispute table at the morning market on odd days, and today's even.""You already checked her schedule," I said."I check everyone's schedule," Fred said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.I just gave him a look."Three steps back," I reminded him.He started to protest. "I wasn't planning...""Fred," I interrupted.That shut him up. His mouth pressed into a line."I’ll be at the market," he finally said. "In case anything...""Just the market," I said. "Stay away from Sera's door."He nodded, once. And that was settled.When I left, Alfredo was sitting in his mother's room ... same as he did every morning now. He just talked to her about nothing important, filling the air because sometimes that's what someone needs when they're tr
Mabella’s POV“She burned water,” I told Alfredo that night, my head on his chest, tucked into the dark.He went quiet for a bit.“How?” he asked.“Vida didn’t explain,” I said. “And honestly, I don’t think the details matter so much. She managed it more than once, apparently.”He repeated, “More than once.”I nodded. “Catastrophically bad. Her words, not mine.”He laughed at that, low and real, and I felt it through his chest. I kept it stashed away where I keep everything important.“She sounds like she was something else,” he said softly.“She burned water,” I pointed out again.“People like that...remarkable people...they can’t cook. It’s kind of the rule,” he said.I squinted up at him, just barely able to make out his face in the dark.“Can you cook?”He paused. “No,” he said.I let my head settle back down. “Remarkable.”“I can make tea, though,” he said, almost hopeful.“Boiling water? That’s your specialty? Because my mother couldn’t manage even that.”He shrugged under me. “
Mabella's POV“Tonight,” I said quietly. “The east garden wall.”She let out an uneven breath.“Tonight,” she said.I left the healer’s hall, stepping into the afternoon corridor. I stood there for a second, letter in hand, Wolflina steady inside me, the pack moving past at the end of the corridor, not noticing their Luna pressed up against the wall, trying to make sense of everything all over again.My mom had two sisters.Maren...she brought the box, kept the secret for twenty-five years.Vida...she’d been here seven years now. She’d spent all that time teaching me how to heal, always watching me with an expression I’d gotten wrong until today.It wasn’t an assessment.It was a woman just looking at her sister’s daughter.I pushed off the wall and started walking.I needed Alfredo. Not to explain everything. Just to sit in the same room as him for ten minutes while I tried to catch up with myself.He was in the war room with Fred, the two of them hunched over border reports, talking
Mabella's POV“So you know who P is.” I almost whispered it.Vida didn't flinch. She just looked back at me, steady as ever across that cramped little table.“I do,” she said.“Then tell me,” I pushed, not even trying to hide the urgency.“It’s…it’s not that simple, Mabella.” Her words came carefully, each one measured. “P had reasons for staying behind the scenes. If they’d stepped forward too soon, before you were ready, it could’ve changed everything...and not in ways we could fix.” Her gaze never left mine. “P needed you to get here, to be who you are now. Then it would be safe.”“Safe for who?” My voice edged up, impatient.“For both of you.”I stared at her, trying to read past her calm. No luck.“You’ve been here all along,” I said slowly. “Watching me train. Watching every step.”“Watching over you,” Vida corrected, more forcefully. “Not spying. Never reporting. P wanted someone to make sure you were safe. That was the job. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it.”“What job?” I as
Alfredo's POV To my father-in-law—but at the same time, I couldn’t bring myself to do so, especially not before the other betas who were like him. That would be my own undoing, as all of them would join together to destroy me. Yet, I couldn’t shake off the thoughts that made me suspect him. I want
Mabella's POV I stood before the council as Alfredo had sent for. It was days after I had settled in the pack, days after I had planned to remain in the pack and behave like one of them. Days after I had already made up my mind to stay beside him. After all, he was my fated mate.Many elders were
Mabella's POV “Do you think your play will last long?” Annabella’s voice shot at me from the doorway, filled with bitterness and mockery.I didn’t say anything at first. I just watched her as she slowly approached my room, her eyes roaming around every corner.From the marble floor, the huge space
Mabella's POV"We move in an hour."The rogue said it to Annabella like I wasn't sitting three feet away. Like I was furniture. Like the blindfold they'd tied over my eyes had also switched off my ears.I filed that away.People got careless around things they didn't consider threats.The blindfold







