LOGINIRENEDaniel Reid made excellent coffee.It was such a small thing that I was almost embarrassed by how much I looked forward to it. Every morning, without discussion or arrangement, a cup appeared on the counter of the medical wing before I arrived. Black, strong, no sugar. Exactly right. I had never told him how I took it. He had simply paid attention, the way he paid attention to everything, quietly, without making a production of it.The first morning I found it there, I stood holding the cup for a long moment before I drank it.The second morning, I stopped standing and just drank.By the end of the first week, I stopped noticing that I had stopped noticing.Tom was well enough now to sit in the chair by his window for several hours each day. I found him there one afternoon with a book open in his lap and his eyes on the training ground below, watching the warriors run drills with the particular expression of a man who wanted badly to be among them and was making peace, daily, wi
IRENEI opened my mouth.And the door to the main house swung open.She moved the way she always had, like the world was a stage and she had been given the only script. Lyra Cross did not walk into rooms. She arrived in them. Head high, dark hair loose over her shoulders, wearing a coat that probably cost more than my monthly salary at St. Aurelius had been. She was beautiful in the way that had always made me feel slightly less of everything, not because she tried to diminish me, but because her very existence seemed to rewrite the standard by which women in our family were measured.She had not seen me yet.Her eyes were on Ashford."Alpha Ashford." Her voice was warm, composed, precisely calibrated. "I apologize for arriving at this hour. I know it's irregular. But I was told you were still receiving visitors, and what I have to say is important."Ashford did not stand. He was still beside me on the wall, and the fact that he did not immediately rise and orient himself toward her,
IRENEWe sat in the fading light, and neither of us spoke for a while, and it was the most at ease I had felt in days.It was two mornings later when everything changed again.I was crossing the main courtyard just after seven, medical bag in hand, heading to the wing where Tom was doing his morning exercises. The pack was already moving around me, warriors heading to the training ground, omegas carrying baskets toward the kitchen, a cluster of children chasing something small and fast across the cobblestones.I had almost made it to the far archway when I heard the gates.The sound of a vehicle on the gravel road outside. Tires on stone. An engine cutting out.I would have thought nothing of it. Packs had visitors. Deliveries arrived. I had learned not to pay attention to the rhythms of the gate.But then I heard the voice.And my feet stopped moving of their own accord."....appreciate you meeting me. I know it's short notice. I'm Dr. Daniel Reid. I believe someone on your staff may
IRENEThe first sign was small enough that I almost missed it.Breakfast.For eleven days, the pack omegas had brought my meals without being asked. A tray outside my door in the morning, hot and covered. Lunch delivered to the medical wing. Dinner left on the desk in my quarters with a small wildflower tucked beside the plate, something I had come to suspect was not pack custom but Ashford's quiet instruction.On the twelfth day, the tray did not come.I waited longer than I should have before going to the communal kitchen myself. I told myself it was nothing. People forgot things. Routines slipped. I had no reason to read meaning into an empty doorstep.But when I pushed open the kitchen door and found three omegas already inside, Petra, the young one with the braid, and two others whose names I had not yet learned, the way they went still told me everything.It was not the stillness of surprise. It was the stillness of people who had been waiting to see what I would do."Good morni
IRENE.The first incident happened four days after the rogue tracks.I was in the pack kitchens, grabbing a late dinner after a long day in the medical wing, when a commotion erupted outside. Shouts, running footsteps, the sound of someone screaming in pain.Finn burst through the kitchen door, his face ashen. "Doctor, you need to come. It's Marcus. He collapsed during training."I followed him outside, my heart pounding. Marcus was one of the pack's senior warriors, a man in his forties with a reputation for being unshakeable. Now he lay on the ground, his body convulsing, dark veins spider-webbing across his exposed skin.The curse.It was the same pattern I had seen in Tom. But this time, it was different. This time, it was moving faster, spreading through Marcus's body like wildfire."Get him inside," I ordered. "Now."The warriors carried Marcus into the medical wing, laying him on the nearest bed. I pushed through them, my hands already reaching for his chest."Everyone out," I
IRENE.The first sign that something was wrong came on the morning I found the rogue tracks.I had risen before dawn, unable to sleep, and decided to walk the perimeter of the pack grounds. The forest was quiet, peaceful, the kind of stillness that usually calmed my racing thoughts. I had been walking for nearly an hour when I noticed them, footprints, fresh and deep, pressed into the soft earth near the eastern border.They were not pack prints. I had learned to recognize the difference during my year away. Pack wolves moved with purpose, with confidence, their tracks straight and deliberate. These were different. These were the tracks of wolves who were hiding, creeping, watching.Rogues.My blood ran cold. I crouched down, examining the prints more closely. There were at least five of them, maybe more. They had been here recently, within the last few hours. And they had been watching the pack grounds.I needed to tell Ashford.I turned to leave, and that was when I saw her.Lyra st
IRENE The first week at Crescent Moon Pack passed in a blur of sleepless nights and careful deception.I learned the layout of the pack's medical wing within hours. It was smaller than I expected, more intimate than the human hospital where I had trained. Three beds, a surgical table that looked d
Irene. The car stopped at the edge of pack territory, and my hands trembled against my medical bag.One year. One year since I had crossed this border as a broken, wolfless failure. Now I was returning as Dr. Irene Cross."You sure about this, Doc?" The human driver looked nervous. "This place giv
Irene.I stood in the center of the room, they had tied my hands with a silver cord that burned against my wrists. The mark on my neck throbbed with each heartbeat, a constant reminder of the bond I could not escape."Irene Cardona." Elder Garrett spoke first, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceil
Irene."Stand up straight, Irene." My father's voice cut through the celebration noise. "You are embarrassing me."I straightened my spine, watching pack members laugh and dance around the flames. The Moon Ceremony was supposed to be a night of joy, celebrating the alliance between our pack and the







