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 came up sputtering, completely soaked, water dripping from my hair.Falco was laughing. Actually laughing, bent over with his hands on his knees, the kind of laugh that sounded like it came from somewhere deep."It's not that funny.""It absolutely is." He was trying to stop and couldn't. "You loo
AvaWe walked back to the cabin without talking.Falco went straight to the kitchen. "Shower. I'll make food."I didn't argue. Stood under water hot enough to turn my skin red, scrubbing everywhere like I could wash off what happened. My hands kept shaking. I kept seeing the way Falco's arm looked w
AvaThe two wolves dragging me broke into a run. My arms screamed in their grip as they hauled me toward the nearest building, and I barely kept my feet. All around me was chaos—Levi's howl echoing, wolves shouting orders, boots drumming, and distant gunfire. I strained to keep Levi in sight, fear r
Falco POV - 5 years ago The apartment door was unlocked. I stopped with my hand on the knob, key still extended. I always locked it. Mira always locked it. I'd drilled that into her head since we moved in—lock the door, check the windows, don't let anyone in you don't know. I pushed it open slowl







