LOGINLorna stood in the doorway, her eyes black as pitch, her body perfectly still. The ritual candles flickered, casting dancing shadows across her pale face. The mark on her wrist—the one we thought had faded—was glowing again, pulsing in rhythm with a heartbeat that was not her own. The air around her shimmered with cold, and the bond recoiled as if touching something rotten.The shadow did not bind to you, she said again. Her voice was flat, empty, as if someone else was speaking through her vocal cords, using her mouth like a puppet. It bound to me. It was waiting. It knew you would try to transfer it. So it hid. In the one place you would not think to look.My blood ran cold. Lorna had been in the great hall during the ritual. I had seen her standing in the shadows near the back, her face blank, her hands folded. I had assumed she was still weak from the mountain, still recovering from the shadow's possession. I had assumed she was healing.I was wrong.Lorna, I said. Can you hear me
The shadow whispered to me at night.Not in words. Not yet. In feelings—cold hunger, ancient rage, a thirst for something I could not name. I would wake with my hands clenched, my nails digging into my palms, my breath ragged. Cassian would reach for me, and I would flinch. Not because I feared him. Because I feared what was inside me.Three days had passed since the mountain. Three days of pretending. Three days of smiling at the pack, reassuring my mother, training with the triplets. Three days of hiding the darkness that coiled beneath my skin like a serpent waiting to strike.Kaelen knew. He watched me from across the great hall, his grey eyes sad. He had carried the shadow for twenty years. He knew the signs. The sleeplessness. The hunger. The way the world seemed dimmer, as if the shadow was drinking the light.You need to tell them, he said. We were standing on the balcony, the moon full above us, the forest dark below.Tell them what? That I am becoming the thing we destroyed?
The shadow lunged, wearing my mother's face, her black eyes empty, her hands transformed into claws of darkness. I raised the Kingslayer, but I could not swing. Not at her face. Not at my mother. The blade trembled in my grip, its symbols flickering as if confused by my hesitation.Cassian intercepted. His blade caught the shadow's claws, steel scraping against darkness with a sound like breaking bones. He drove it back, his feet sliding on the stone floor, sparks flying where his boots scraped.Ravenna, he shouted. Do not freeze. That is not your mother. You know this.I knew. But knowing and feeling were different. My mother's face—the face that had smiled at me, held me, sold herself to Marcus to protect me—was twisted into a mask of rage. Her mouth stretched too wide, her teeth too sharp. The thing wearing her skin wanted me to hesitate. It was counting on it.Theron shifted, his wolf form slamming into the shadow's side. His massive shoulders drove it against the wall, and cracks
I did not remember leaving the mountain.One moment I was on my knees, the Kingslayer buried in the shadow's remains, Lorna's body crumpled beside me. The next, I was standing in the courtyard of Blackwood Manor, my clothes stiff with frozen blood, my hands empty. Cassian was holding me upright, his voice distant, muffled, as if I were hearing him through water.Ravenna. Ravenna, look at me.I looked. His grey eyes were wild, his face streaked with soot and dried blood. Behind him, the manor burned.Not the whole manor. Just the east wing. The wing where my father had been staying.The wing where Kaelen had been.No.I ran. Cassian caught me before I made it three steps, his arms locking around my waist, pulling me back.You cannot go in there, he said. The fire is too hot. The structure is coming down.My father is in there.He is not. He is gone. Soren saw him leave. Before the fire started. He walked out of his room and into the forest. He was not alone.I stopped struggling. What
Lorna's body crumpled to the floor.Cassian caught her before she hit the ground, his arms bracing her limp form. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow, the black marks on her wrist pulsing faintly. The voice that had spoken through her was gone, but its echo lingered in the air like smoke. Found you. The words crawled under my skin, settling into my bones.Theron was at the door, his claws extended, his eyes scanning the corridor. Lysander stood at the window, the dagger from the chest in his hand, its blade blazing with pale blue light. The bond hummed with tension, every nerve on edge, every wolf in the estate holding their breath.Is she dead? I asked.Cassian pressed his fingers to her throat. No. Her heart is beating. The shadow used her as a conduit. It burned through her. He looked at the black marks spreading up her arm. She does not have much time. Every time the shadow touches her, the corruption spreads.Lysander's voice was quiet, grim. It knows where we are now. It
The morning after the council, a lone rider appeared at the gates of Fenris's estate. I stood at the window of our chamber, watching her approach through the grey drizzle. The horse was lathered with sweat, its ribs showing through its coat. The rider hunched low, her cloak torn, her movements jerky with exhaustion. When she dismounted, her legs buckled. Guards caught her before she fell. The bond hummed with warning before I saw her face.Lorna Hale.Cassian's former betrothed. The woman who had tormented me at Silver Creek Academy. The alpha's daughter who had promised to make my life hell. I had not seen her since Marcus's fall, since the packs scattered, since the shadow first emerged. I had assumed she was dead. Part of me had hoped she was.Soren brought her to the great hall. The northern alphas had dispersed after the council, leaving only Fenris and a handful of guards. The room was cold, the fire low, the shadows long. Lorna looked nothing like the polished princess I rememb
The council gave us seven days to prove ourselves. Seven days to hunt down the remaining rogues, to secure the borders, to show the northern packs that Blackwood was not weak. Seven days before they returned with their judgments and their challenges and their cold, measuring eyes.Cassian stood at
The eastern forest fell behind us, but the weight of what I had done lingered in my chest like a stone. Mercy, not vengeance. I had let the rogues live. Some wolves would call it weakness. I called it the only way to break a cycle that had been spinning for centuries.Cassian rode beside me in sile
The morning after the celebration, I woke to warmth.Not the cold of the mountain. Not the chill of the manor's stone walls. The warmth of three bodies pressed against mine, three heartbeats woven into the bond, three pairs of eyes watching me even in sleep.Cassian had his arm draped over my waist
The light from the Kingslayer did not fade.It spread through the chamber like water finding its level, washing over the bones, the stone, the shadows that had clung to every corner for centuries. The Luna's form dissolved not into darkness but into something softer—golden light that swirled upward







