LOGINAnd every single person was walking.Everyone. The men from my truck, from all the trucks, and beyond them more, spilling out of side streets and doorways, hundreds, then more than I could count, every one of them moving the same way at the same slow even pace toward the blue light, and not one of t
SofiaThe thing nobody tells you about stowing away in the back of a wolf's supply truck is that wolves do not believe in shock absorbers.I'd been folded between a crate that smelled like gun oil and a stack of canvas duffels for going on four hours, knees up under my chin, one hand knotted around
AvaI came back into my own body the way you come up from under cold water. All at once, lungs grabbing, except the water was me, and I'd been drowning in myself longer than I knew.For a second there was no up. Too much arrived at once. After the white nothing of the place with Catherine, the world
"Alexander."My name, in the low voice, gone thin at the edges now. A command. Come. Hold the vessel. Put your hands on it and hold it still.The wall in my chest told my feet to move. A year of habit told them to move. I took one step up toward the seat. My body did it the way my body did everythin
AlexanderI had spent my whole life learning to read the exact moment a thing breaks, and the goddess wearing my bride was beginning to break, and I could not turn my head to look at her.That was the cruelty of the wall she'd built in me. It let me see everything and touch nothing. I stood where sh
"Ava." I said it out loud, to a concrete wall, and it came apart in my mouth. "I've got you. I'm here. I've got you, baby. I've got you."She couldn't hear the words. She never could. But she could feel a hand close around her in the dark, the way I'd once felt hers close around me from a hundred mi
"I don't need saving," I said, the words laced with disgust.Damon's head snapped toward me. "What?""I said I don't need you to save me." My voice carried more anger than I'd meant to reveal. "What kind of lesson is this? That we solve problems by breaking people's faces?""He was about to attack y
EvelynTwenty minutes earlier, I'd been examining Susan's injuries when Damon stepped out. The moment the door closed, I'd dropped all pretense."Why are you inflicting injuries on yourself?" I'd asked.Susan had gone perfectly still. Then her hand shot out, fingers wrapping around my wrist with sur
His expression darkened as his gaze fixed on Margaret."What are you still doing here?" His voice carried a lethal edge that made everyone take a step back. "I ordered you to your quarters."Margaret lifted her chin defiantly. "She threatened—""I gave you a direct order." Damon's Alpha power rolled
"Please what? Please stop? Do you want me to stop?" He leaned closer, and when he spoke again, ice ran through my veins. I knew that voice. "Which words are real, Susan? Which ones are the lies?""I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry, I'll tell him. I'll tell him the truth.""What truth?""That I lied







