The sun rose over Blackpine with a pale, hopeful light, spilling across the clearing and casting golden streaks through the tall pines. The packhold stirred, waking not just to a new day, but to a new era—one forged from fire, loss, and an unbreakable bond. Troy stood at the top of the main hall’s steps, Daisy beside him, surveying the assembly of pack members gathered before them.The past weeks had been brutal. The pack had been fractured by Benjamin’s treachery, shaken by betrayal, and nearly torn apart by the internal strife his manipulation had sparked. Now, however, there was clarity. There was direction. And there was leadership—fierce, unwavering, and bonded by love.Troy’s voice rang out over the clearing, firm and commanding. “The Blackpine Pack has faced storms before, but never like this. Never with our trust and loyalty tested to the bone. Benjamin’s actions nearly cost us our unity—but today, we reclaim it. Every Alpha, Beta, and Luna here has a role to play. Every pack
The council hall was silent now, empty of murmurs, scheming eyes, and the tension that had once hung heavy like a storm cloud ready to burst. Benjamin was gone—exiled, stripped of every scrap of influence he had clawed for decades—and the Blackpine Pack breathed easier, finally free from the shadow of deceit.But the real calm, Daisy realized, was not in the halls or among the council. It was here, in the quiet of Troy’s arms.She leaned against him as they walked through the moonlit corridors of the packhold, fingers intertwined. The bond between them pulsed like a steady heartbeat, a quiet, powerful force that had survived manipulation, spells, and betrayal. For the first time in weeks, she felt grounded, whole.“You look tired,” Troy murmured, his voice low and rough from sleepless nights and the raw exertion of their recent battles.Daisy smiled softly, brushing a stray lock of hair from his eyes. “I am. But… I’ve never felt more awake.” Her thumb traced circles over the back of h
Benjamin’s hands were slick with sweat, the gilt edges of the council chamber’s long table cold under his fingers. Around him, the pack leaders murmured, casting wary glances at each other, their loyalty frayed but not yet broken. He had fought for power all his life, clawed his way to the top through treachery and betrayal, and yet, now, sitting there in the seat of a fragile Alpha he had seized through murder and manipulation, he felt the walls closing in.Because Troy and Daisy were more than a couple. They were a force that no cunning, no manipulation, no vote could break. And that stung worse than the memory of the night he’d killed Troy’s parents.Benjamin rose abruptly, voice booming across the chamber. “The Blackpine Pack cannot afford weakness!” His words were clipped, sharp, but carried the practiced charm of a man used to bending the room to his will. “I say that Troy Anderson is unfit to lead—not only because of his time in exile but because of his Luna’s—” His gaze flicke
The night had settled over the packhold like a silken blanket, soft and heavy. Outside, the wind whispered through the pines, carrying with it the faint promise of storms. Inside, the chamber was alive with warmth, the kind that only two bonded souls could generate when reunited after a trial that had tested the very core of their connection.Daisy lay curled against Troy’s chest, her head tucked under his chin, his arms wrapped around her like iron. She had slept fitfully, dreams haunted by the last traces of the fog, but now that she was awake, that uncertainty had dissolved into something raw, irreplaceable. The bond that had flickered and waned had returned stronger, blazing brighter than ever, tempered by the fires of desperation and the victory of survival.Troy’s lips brushed her hairline as he hummed lowly, his wolf stirring in satisfaction at her closeness. “You’re here,” he murmured. “Every part of you. You’re mine, Daisy. All of you.”Her fingers traced the ridge of his jaw
The fog shattered like glass inside Daisy’s head.One moment she was lost in that honey-thick haze, caught between whispers that told her Troy had abandoned her and an ache that urged her toward Benjamin’s carefully manufactured comfort. But then—the warmth of something deeper, something unyielding—rushed through her veins.It was not magic. It was not persuasion.It was bond.His bond.The mark on her neck, which the witch had tried to nullify, flared back to life with a blaze that burned away every shadow. A howl tore through her chest—wordless, primal—answering the pulse of her mate’s spirit clawing its way back into hers.Daisy stumbled forward, falling to her knees, clutching her throat as though the mark itself had just been branded anew. Tears blinded her. The fog tried to close in again, but it faltered now, weakened, thinned to strands of mist that dissolved under her defiance.No.No matter what Benjamin promised. No matter what spell had chained her mind. She belonged to on
The fog had been her cage.It had crept in quietly, at first no more than a soft veil, a haze of confusion, an itch under her skin that she couldn’t scratch. But as days blurred into nights, Daisy had felt the pressure build, as though invisible hands pressed at her temples, bending her thoughts, drowning her memories, dimming the glow of her bond with Troy until it was little more than a flicker.And Benjamin was always there.Smiling, patient, his voice like honey laced with ash. He whispered of choices, of freedom, of a world where she wasn’t shackled to the son of a fallen Beta but elevated beside a man with connections, ambition, and cunning. The fog made his words seem almost plausible. Almost. But something kept gnawing inside her. His words were not right. She was not entangled with the son of a fallen Beta. She remembered fainy that she once knew the son of a fallen Alpha . The image was blurred but she recalled fighting with this son to get back his birthright. Oh, it was a