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SELENA.Silence swallowed the ceremonial hall whole.Nobody moved.Nobody even seemed to breathe.The priest’s words hung heavily in the air, sinking into the crowd one stunned face at a time.For a moment, I could only hear the sound of my own heartbeat.Across the sacred circle, Denver had gone completely still beside Alec, his hand resting protectively against the boy’s shoulder while the silver light continued flickering around them.The priests looked unsettled now.Even the elders.One of them rose slowly to his feet.“What exactly are you saying?” he demanded.The old priest kept his eyes fixed on the sacred flames.“The ritual recognizes another blood connection.”Murmurs exploded instantly across the hall.Talia’s face drained of color.I saw the exact moment panic entered her body.But she recovered quickly.“That’s impossible,” she said sharply.The priest finally turned toward her.“Were twins born during the child’s birth?”The question crashed into the hall like thunder.
SELENA.By the time we entered the ceremonial hall, the entire pack already knew something important was about to happen.The atmosphere felt charged with anticipation. Hundreds of eyes followed us as Denver and I walked down the center aisle together, but nobody spoke above a whisper. Elders sat elevated at the far end of the hall dressed in ceremonial black, their expressions unreadable beneath the glow of firelight.The air itself smelled mystical. Smoke.Oil.Ancient magic.And beneath all of it—Tension.I kept my movements steady despite the tightness in my chest.Beside me, Denver looked calm.But, I knew better.His hand brushed briefly against my lower back as we reached the front of the hall. Like he needed to know I was really there.The gesture almost hurt.Because seven years ago, this should have been our life.Not this war.Not this pain.An elder rose slowly from his seat at the center platform.“The council will now begin the Rite of Bloodline Confirmation.”His voi
SELENA.I woke up slowly, as though my body had decided sleep was no longer something it trusted.For a few seconds, I simply lay still, staring at the dim ceiling above me, trying to understand where I was. The room was unfamiliar at first, until the details settled into place, the muted light, the scent of rain still lingering from the night before, and the steady presence beside the bed.Denver.The memory of the previous night returned in fragments rather than order. Christopher’s hands. The pressure around my throat. The explosion of movement after the door had burst open. After that, everything blurred into warmth and noise and distance.My throat tightened as I instinctively raised a hand to it. The skin was tender beneath my fingertips.Real.It had really happened.I exhaled slowly and forced myself to sit up.That was when I noticed Denver watching me.He was already awake, sitting beside the bed as though he had not moved for some time. His posture was still, but his eyes
Denver.“I’m fine,” she whispered hoarsely.No.She wasn’t.She looked exhausted now. Pale beneath the dim light. Shaken in a way that went deeper than fear.Then her knees almost gave out.I crossed the room instantly.Selena barely had time to react before I caught her carefully against me.I slid one arm beneath her knees before lifting her into my arms fully.She stiffened slightly at first, like she still wasn’t sure what to do with my touch anymore.That hurt more than I expected.But after a second, her fingers curled weakly into the front of my shirt.And something inside me cracked quietly apart. Every time I looked at those marks, something ugly twisted inside my chest all over again.Christopher’s hands had been on her.And I hadn’t gotten there fast enough.The thought alone nearly made me violent again.“Alpha?”One of the guards spoke carefully from near the doorway.I ignored him completely.My attention stayed fixed on Selena. I carried her out of the room without ano
Denver.After Selena left my room, I stayed back because I initially felt she needed time to process all we had just talked about. But the longer I stayed in that room, the more wrong it felt to let her walk away carrying all of that alone.We had already lost seven years to lies. I wasn’t willing to lose another night.But halfway down the corridor, I heard something crash inside Selena’s room.The violence in that sound didn’t match anything I expected to find.So without thinking, I shoved the door open.The first thing I noticed was the metallic stench of blood.Then Selena.Christopher had her pinned against the wall.His hands locked around her throat while she clawed desperately at his wrists, her face pale with panic.For half a second—I couldn’t move. The sight hit me so hard my vision actually blurred for a second.Then rage exploded so violently through my body that I barely remembered crossing the room.Christopher turned too late.I hit him hard enough to send him crash
Selena.For a moment, I couldn’t move.“Christopher stood in the doorway as though he belonged there, calm dark eyes fixed on me while the silence between us thickened into something suffocating.Every instinct inside me screamed that something was wrong.Because for the first time since I met him, I wasn’t looking at Christopher through confusion or heartbreak or guilt.I was looking at him through what he was capable of. And somehow that made him feel unfamiliar.Dangerous in a way I had never fully allowed myself to see before.“What are you doing here?” I asked quietly.Christopher’s gaze moved slowly across my face, lingering briefly on the redness around my eyes before he smiled faintly.“That’s how you welcome your long-lost mate?”The words made my stomach twist violently.“You have no business coming here.”Instead of answering, Christopher pushed the door wider and walked into the room without permission.The movement startled me enough that I instinctively stepped backward.
Selena. Dinner was announced just after sunset.I had hoped the day would end quietly, that I could retreat to my room and gather myself after seeing Silas earlier, but that hope dissolved the moment a servant informed me that the family would be dining together in the private chamber.Family.The
Selena.Later that evening, I sat at the edge of my bed, fingers tracing the edge of the silk sheet, thinking about the day. The conversation.with Denver mother, Tiana cold words lingered, but none was enough to take my mind from thinking about him.About Denver. About the way his eyes lingered o
Denver.I was heading back to my room that evening when a guard intercepted me.“Alpha… your mother would like to see you in the sitting room,” he said.I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to wipe away the fatigue that had settled into my bones after the endless meetings, the elders’ scrutiny, a
Selena.I stood at the window and looked out at the land below. From here, I could see how large Denver’s pack truly was.The buildings stretched far into the distance. Roads, lights, homes, training grounds, guard towers. It was bigger.More developed. More structured than the pack I had come from







