INICIAR SESIÓNNox reared forward, grinning up into her face as I darted into her space, too close to do anything. I saw her register the fact that I had moved, but not that I was close enough to rip her throat out.My jaw itched. My teeth lengthened as Nox pushed forward. The pulsing vein in her vein drew me forw
POV: VeraWhat did it mean for him to take care of it? What was he going to do ?I left Cleo with Ruth, who asked no questions and simply let Cleo go to sleep on her couch.I was still mad and hurt from Caius's formal apology and his decision not to come home. I was still reeling from the way he'd pu
POV: VeraThe three of us walked home in silence, but it was a different kind of silence than the morning had been. This silence felt like Caius had just made a statement about where his loyalty lay, regardless of our personal conflict.And despite everything — despite the anger and the hurt and the
The casual dismissal infuriated me. I wanted to call out to him, to chase after him and yell, but what was the point of that?I stomped off toward my patrol route and ran hard and fast, trying to work out the anger through sheer physical exertion. But instead of calming down, I just worked myself up
POV: VeraI didn't sleep at all. I couldn't sleep. I could barely breathe around the quiet in the house with Caius gone.I had never noticed the way the air moved through the empty spaces when it was just Cleo and I, or how I had been relying on his scent drifting through the gaps in the doors and t
"You're blaming me for the bond?" I said, my voice rising. "Is that what this is? Is that what you're saying? That it's my fault I'm tied to Tyler? That I’m not trying hard enough to be free of him?""That's not what I meant—""Then what did you mean?" I was on the offensive now, words coming fast a
POV: VeraI kept waiting for him to take it back.All morning, while I cracked eggs and sliced bread and scraped dried blood from under my fingernails, I expected Caius to walk into the kitchen and tell me he'd changed his mind. That he'd been delirious. Or polite. Or just outmaneuvered by a four-ye
POV: VeraThree days. Someone walked in and took it.The walk home was cold. The kind that starts in your chest, not your skin. I shoved my hands deeper into my jacket and stared at the ground passing under my boots. Tyler's voice, Caius's eyes, the empty velvet stand. They circled behind my temples
POV: CaiusVera punched like a woman twice her size.The wound had barely bled, truth be told. The gash she'd reopened was already knitting shut beneath the fresh bandage — lycan blood did its work fast, faster than any herbal paste or clean cloth could account for. I'd have to be more careful. She
POV: VeraFor a second, nobody moved.Caius's fingers were locked around Gareth's wrist. He hadn't raised his voice. Four words, and the yard went quiet enough to hear the frost cracking in the grass.Gareth looked at him — the bandages, the borrowed shirt, the way he leaned against the doorframe li







