LOGINFREYAThe room went very quiet after that, and I felt my entire body go still, holding back a lot more than I let show on my face.Dorian’s words lingered in the air, completely surrounded by silence, and I understood exactly what he meant even before my brain could finish processing it. This wasn't about Ethan. This wasn't even about the seal, not really, not to Dorian. This was about my sons.Micah's omega resistance had already spread faster than we could contain it, whispered about at gatherings we weren't invited to, discussed by people who had never once held him or even heard him laugh. To them, he wasn't a baby who liked to be bounced on his father's knee. He was a topic of discussion. A rumor. A miracle that, depending on which way the wind blew, could just as easily be called a threat.I thought about the last full moon ritual, the way the shadows had bent strangely around his crib during the attack, the way even our own guards had looked at him differently afterward, like h
ETHANNothing came out of the dark. We waited, tense and silent, long enough for my heartbeat to slow back down, and eventually Selene told us the bell rang on its own sometimes, when the seal shifted, and that we should go home and rest before we did anything else.I didn't love that answer. There wasn't a better one, though, and Freya looked half a step from falling over from exhaustion, so I didn't push for more. We walked back through the trees as the sun finally came up over the ridge, neither of us saying much, both of us turning over everything Selene had told us in our minds."You're quiet," Freya said at one point, glancing at me."So are you," I replied."I'm thinking about my father.""I'm thinking about my grandmother trying to kill our son," I said, and she almost laughed, even though nothing about this whole situation was funny."We're a mess," she said. "Both our families. Two women pretending to be dead, one little boy who might carry the same strange thing I have in m
FREYANobody moved for a second. Not me, Ethan, or even the wind through the trees around us, and I remember thinking it was strange that a place this old could go so completely still."What does that mean," I asked. "Born at all? You're saying I was born because of a seal under the mines?"Selene folded her hands in her lap unhurriedly, like she had all the time in the world to explain something that had taken me years to find out."Keepers aren't born by accident," she said. "The Moon Goddess chooses one in every generation. Not by blood alone, though blood carries it. She chooses, and then she waits for that soul to be born into the right family at the right time. Your grandmother was one. You are the next.""Whether I want to be or not," I said, and it wasn't really a question."The Goddess doesn't ask," Selene said simply. "She gives you the gift, and the world decides what you do with it."I sat back on my heels, trying to think about the fact that throughout my whole life, ever
ETHANI woke up reaching for Freya before I even opened my eyes. That’s just how it worked now. My body knew her spot in the bed before my brain caught up, and when my hand landed on cold sheets instead of warm skin, I was completely awake in half a second.Empty.I sat up quickly, my heart already beating faster than it should. The room was quiet, the babies still asleep down the hall, the first grey light of morning barely touching the window. Her side of the bed wasn't just empty, it was made, like she'd smoothed it out on her way out so it wouldn't look like she'd rushed.That was worse, somehow. She'd been careful about it.I found a note on her pillow, folded once, my name written on the outside in her neat handwriting."Back by nightfall. Don't follow."That was it. No explanation, no details, nothing about where she'd gone or why she felt the need to sneak out before the sun came up like a criminal in her own home.I read it three times like more words might appear if I stared
FREYAMy grandmother had been dead for years. I could still remember how small and quiet the funeral had been, my father standing stiffly in his best suit while they lowered an empty casket into the ground. That was what they told us, anyway, that there'd been nothing left to bury after the accident, and closing the casket empty was the kindest thing they could do for a grieving family. I never once questioned it. Why would I wonder about a lie nobody ever gave me a reason to suspect?And now Ethan was standing in our room holding a letter with her name attached to it like she'd sent it herself."Open it," Ethan said quietly.My hands wouldn't stop shaking as I ripped the paper open. It tore apart easily, and inside was a single folded page, the ink faded to a soft brown, the paper thin in a way that told me it had been carefully kept somewhere for a very long time.The handwriting hit me before the words did. It was achingly familiar, even after all these years, pulling at something
ETHANI wanted to kill her.I said as much, out loud, in front of half my war council, my voice booming across the room before I even thought about taking it back. A few of the older wolves nodded like they agreed with me completely, and honestly, in that moment, I didn't care whether they did or not. Annie had sold information that got my mother hurt, put my sons in danger, and nearly cost me the woman standing next to me. In my head, there wasn't much room left for mercy."Ethan."Freya's hand landed against my chest, right over my heart, like she could physically hold back a decision I'd already half made in my head. I looked down at her, and for a second I almost didn't recognize the calmness on her face, given everything Annie had done to her."She's still useful," Freya said, her voice surprisingly quieter now, given everything. "She’s been locked up and is being watched. She doesn’t have to die.""Freya, she nearly got our children killed.""I know exactly what she did," Freya
ETHANShe was staring at me like I'd dropped out of the sky, which wasn't that far from the truth.I'd been running a patrol route through the back edge of the territory, nothing unusual, just burning off that restless energy that came with settling into a new place. I'd been in this city for less
FREYA "You're seriously not going to show up, are you?" I muttered, staring at the empty seat across from me. The chair had been empty for over an hour. The candle between us had burned down by at least half, and the waiter, bless his heart, had stopped asking if I wanted to order. I picked up my
FREYAThe meeting was set for the following morning.Orin had booked a private room at the Lodge, which was the closest thing our pack had to a proper meeting venue. It was all exposed timber and stone hearths and the permanent smell of pine resin and old smoke. It wasn't the glass-and-steel corpor
FREYA I sat in my car outside the main house and stared at the cut on my hand until the bleeding slowed. Then I started the engine and drove. There was a moment, somewhere between the main area and the edge of the pack territory, where the anger finally hit me. Real anger, not the composed, co







