BAILEY [ONE YEAR LATER]Peace feels strange—like wearing someone else’s clothes. Familiar in shape, but never quite yours.For the first time in my life, I wake to quiet instead of alarms. No drills. No rogue threats. No screams in the distance. The war is over, but the silence it left behind is louder than I expected.The kingdom is rebuilding. Villages are thriving. Fields once burned black now bloom with new life. And everywhere I go, wolves speak her name with reverence.Luna Beatrice.But to me, she’s still just Mom. Scarred and stubborn, still rising too early, still making tea too strong, still calling me “kid” even when I correct her and say, “I’m literally taller than you now.”She walks with a cane some mornings, the limp more noticeable when the weather turns. Nyx’s power—once wild and all-consuming—now flickers softer beneath her skin. Like a fire banked to embers. But it’s still there. It always will be. She doesn’t need to snarl or shift to remind anyone who she is.She
BEATRICESome wounds bleed in silence. Others scream through the bond.Maxwell lies still beneath me. Too still.His chest rises in shallow, stuttering gasps. His skin—normally so warm it grounds me—feels like ice. The blood beneath my hands is thick, already cooling in the air. His wolf, once this roaring, iron-hearted presence beside mine, is slipping. I can barely feel him now.“No,” I whisper, cupping his face. “No, no, no…”I shake him gently. His head lolls. His eyes remain shut. The mark on his neck—the one only I know by heart—flickers faintly with magic, then dims.The mate bond is breaking.And not in the way it did before.This isn’t rejection.This is death.Nyx snarls in my chest, pacing wildly, slamming her fury into every rib. She knows what’s happening. She knows what it means to lose your mate. To feel the other half of your soul tear away.The battlefield rages behind me, but I don’t hear any of it. All I can hear is Maxwell’s heartbeat slowing.Fainter.Fainter.Fain
MAXWELLWar has a sound—and I’ve heard it enough now to know it doesn’t always start with battle cries.Sometimes it begins with silence. With breath held. With a valley holding its teeth just behind the fog.Blackwater Ravine stretches in front of us like the jaws of a sleeping beast—narrow, steep, slick with frost and old blood. The perfect chokehold. Or the perfect trap, depending on which side you're on.We chose this place for one reason: we needed Enzo to believe he could win. Needed him arrogant, fast, reckless.And now… here he comes.“Movement at the southern ridge!” one of the scouts calls, his voice tight with urgency.I raise my hand to signal the rest of the troops. “Hold until the last line crosses.”My wolf stirs just beneath my skin, pacing, watching. Waiting. It’s not fear I feel. It’s not even anger.It’s the kind of clarity that only comes when you know you’re about to bleed for something that matters.Beatrice is positioned on the northern cliffside, commanding the
BAILEYThey said I was too valuable to be on the front lines—but no one warned me how helpless it feels to hear screaming and not be allowed to run toward it.I’ve been running messages between the healer tents and the command post for hours. My legs are sore, my lungs burn, and every corner of the battlefield feels colder than the last. Blood cakes the edges of my sleeves from helping move the wounded. I tell myself it’s not mine. I don’t look too closely.The war has turned our camp into a maze of stretcher cloth, howls, and commands shouted over roaring fire.I push through the chaos with a salve bag pressed to my chest like it’s sacred. It’s all I can do—run, deliver, run again. I asked to fight. I begged. But Gamma Aria said I was more valuable alive. I think what she really meant was, you’re too young to die today.But I feel older than everyone here.A scout calls out my name and thrusts another bundle into my hands. “Eastern stables,” he pants. “They’re prepping backup mounts.”
BEATRICEThe fog rolls in like a ghost army, swallowing the hills until the world turns to ash and bone.At first, I think it’s just morning mist—until the first howl slices through it like a blade. Then the horns sound. Three short bursts. East, south, then west.Multiple fronts.Maxwell was right.They’ve come.“Positions!” Aria’s voice rings out from the command post, sharp and unyielding. “Shield the outer rings!”Soldiers scramble. Alarm bells clang through the packhouse towers. Bailey is already gone—evacuated the night before with the young ones and noncombatants. Still, my chest twists as I scan the hillside, searching for any sign of her, even though I know she’s safe.That twisting doesn’t stop me from moving.I pull the vambraces tight over my forearms and sling the custom blade Maxwell had forged for me across my back. Nyx stirs inside me, more alert than she’s ever been. Not restless. Not panicked.Focused.Present.Finally, she whispers.I descend the stone steps from the
MAXWELLIt starts with a whisper—one council member questioning my judgment behind closed doors—and now I’m standing in front of them like a mutinous dog waiting to be leashed.I should’ve seen it coming.The moment I placed the Luna crest in Beatrice’s hand in front of the pack, without their permission, without their ceremony, the balance shifted. The council hates losing control more than they hate me. Now they want blood for it—mine or hers.The council chamber is packed. Advisors, old warriors, even a few Elders from the southern peaks. Dorian sits stiff-backed in the high chair like a god ready to pass sentence. His eyes flick to the others before addressing me.“You’ve taken liberties that threaten the very foundation of our pack structure.”I say nothing.“You’ve shown favoritism, compromised our alliances, and drawn battle lines we may not be ready to hold.”Still nothing.“You’ve crowned a Luna without a vote, without counsel, and—may I remind you—without full trust from the