LOGINANGELA’S POVI left Aaron’s room with the sharp bite of antiseptic clinging to my clothes and turned for the stairs. I did not slow. If I stopped, I knew I would not start again.The pack prison lay beneath the clinic like a thought buried on purpose. The air cooled with every step, warmth thinning out until each breath pressed tight against my ribs. Stone walls closed in, damp under my fingers, carrying a smell that had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with age. My footsteps rang too loud, each one stretching the corridor longer than it was.James had offered to come. Rylan had already posted guards outside the cell, silent and ready if I wavered. I waved them off. This was not something I could divide. If I was going to do it, I had to do it alone.The guard at the final door straightened when he saw me. No smile. Just a nod. He turned the key with both hands, metal scraping as if the lock itself exhaled. The hinges groaned when the door opened, announcing me more cl
ANGELA’S POVThe first thing I noticed was his breathing, steady and deep, and how my own lungs finally remembered what to do. I had been holding myself tight for so long that the rise and fall of Aaron’s chest felt like permission to loosen my grip on the world.The pack clinic was quiet except for that rhythm. One lamp burned low beside the bed, warming the white walls. The air smelled of crushed leaves and bitter roots, the healers’ work still heavy in the room. I sat close enough that my knee brushed the frame, my fingers threaded through his fingers, counting his pulse without meaning to.He was alive.The hall of crimson stone, the shouting, the blade raised high—all of it felt far away now, like a dream thinning in daylight. His face lay slack with sleep, anger and pain smoothed by exhaustion and draughts. A new scar was already forming on his shoulder, pink and raw, a mark that would stay when the rest had faded.Julius was dead.The thought landed without ceremony. I waited f
AARON’S POVI had Julius on the floor before the hall finished inhaling.The stone burned into my knee as I drove him down, my forearm locked tight across his throat. His breath rasped wet and thin against my skin. Behind me, metal rang as guards shifted, caught wrong-footed by the speed of it. I tasted iron and dust and the old smoke that clung to this place no matter how often it was aired.“Order your guards to stand down, Pius,” I said. My voice scraped, but it carried. “Or I tear his throat out here. It is payment. A first payment for the ambush you ordered on my parents.”Pius stood at the far end of the hall beneath banners that once meant something to me. His jaw moved as if he were grinding bone. His gaze flicked from my face to his son pinned beneath me. Julius’s eyes bulged, white all around. His hands clawed at my arm, weak and panicked, nails scraping my skin.The guards froze. A few leaned forward, then stopped when Pius lifted his hand. He said nothing. The silence stre
AARON’S POVThe cold stone crept back into my bones when they dropped me again. Whatever brief, furtive contact had passed was over. The plan had been nothing more than a whisper, a nod, and a hope, but it was still more than I had minutes ago.Elder Elara moved with practiced calm. She used precedent and protocol like scalpels, stripping away Pius’s layers of polished scorn until there was nowhere left to hide.“You deny the allegation, Alpha Pius,” she said. “Yet records from that season show an unusual movement of your personal guard toward the Shadow Moon border. For what purpose, if not the coordination of an external action?”Pius’s smile tightened at the corners. “Border drills, Elder. A show of strength to a restless neighbor. A common practice.”“A practice that coincided precisely with the ambush in question?”“A tragic coincidence.”The exchange stalled there. David’s word set against a king’s denial. But the damage had been done. I saw it ripple through the room in small w
ANGELA’S POVThe final hours before departure were controlled chaos. I stood in my room, not facing a mirror but the bed, where a decision waited. On one side lay polished leather armor, the official battle dress of a Shadow Moon Luna. On the other, a gown of deep charcoal gray, severe and restrained, worn for pack judgments when bloodshed was not yet inevitable.“The armor says you expect a fight,” Gamma Rylan said, arms folded. “The gown says you are presiding over one.”“The armor might provoke them,” James said as he entered, travel-worn and tight around the eyes. He had just returned from delivering our terms.“Pius accepted. Calmly. Too calmly. He said, ‘Let the Luna come and speak her truth.’ It felt like a predator inviting a lamb into its den.” He paused. “Julius was nowhere to be seen. His absence is loud.”A bad sign. Julius moved on impulse and rage. Silence meant calculation.I reached for the gown, letting the fabric slide through my fingers. “The armor is what they expe
ANGELA’S POVThe war room went quiet the moment Pius’s counteroffer arrived.The Crimson emissary set the scroll on the table and stepped back, stone-faced, waiting. The parchment lay there like something alive. Renounce your title. Submit to my son. Then he goes free.Beta James went pale. Gamma Rylan slammed his fist into the table, then froze, shaking with rage. “He mocks us. He asks for the impossible.”But it was possible. That was the cruelty of it. My crown for Aaron’s life.Pain throbbed behind my eyes. Since the rescue, the bond had been chaos (his pain crashing into my guilt). Then, hours ago, it changed. Cold metal. Pius’s scent. Julius’s voice, oily and close, sliding straight into my head. A warning. Then silence. Not death, not fear. Just distance. A steady pulse, controlled and calm. Aaron was alive, and he was shielding me.With that calm came images. Not words. A vast hall. Raised stone. Crowds pressed tight. A public stage. Understanding hit hard. Pius did not want a







