LOGINARREN. I was across the room before the scream finished leaving her. Katerina hit the floor at his feet with both hands wrapped around his legs, shaking so hard I could hear her teeth chattering. She was making a sound I’d never heard from her before. High and broken and barely humane. My claws extended without thought. I reached up and tore through the rope in one motion, catching Dalor’s body against my chest before he could drop. He was dead weight in my arms in a way that made my chest seize because warm meant recent. How long had he been up there? I got to my knees with him and Katerina scrambled toward us both, her hands going to his face immediately, touching him everywhere like she was checking he was real. “What do I do?” She was hyperventilating between words. “Arren what do I do what do I—” “Stop.” I kept my voice even even though nothing inside me was. I worked my fingers under the rope still looped around his neck and unwound it carefully. “Look at me.” She look
ELLARIA.Tatum was quieter than usual in the bath.I sat on the edge of the tub and tried to get him to blow bubbles the way he usually did and he looked at the water instead. I didn’t push. I just stayed there with him until he was done and wrapped him in his towel and tried to make it silly the way I sometimes did, pulling the corner of it over his head like a hood and telling him he looked like a very small monk.He smiled.It was small and polite and not quite real.I got him dressed and tucked him in and sat at the corner of his bed and looked at him and tried to figure out what came next.But my little boy beat me to it.“Why did you keep him a secret?”I looked at my hands in my lap for a moment.The question sat in the air between us and I felt the full weight of it pressing down on my chest. He deserved an answer. He’d always deserved an answer. And the truth in fact.I just hadn’t been ready to give it to him and now the choice had been taken from me entirely.“Because som
ARREN. She fell to her knees the moment she saw him. I watched her pull Tatum into her and felt something move through my chest that I didn't have a name for. I let go of his hand. My fingers curled into a fist at my side as I took a step back and watched her wrap herself around him. He stood there for a moment and didn't pull away, just staying still inside her arms while she held on. Her voice came out raw. "Where did you run off to? I was looking everywhere for you Tate. You scared me." I heard him sniffle. She pulled back just enough to look at his face and a tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it fast and blinked hard like she was angry at herself for it. Then she looked up and found my eyes. She held my gaze. Then she mouthed, ‘thank you.’ I made myself nod. And felt like a piece of shit doing it. I had found him. That part was true. But the reason he'd run in the first place traced back to me in ways I couldn't talk myself out of. Forty five minutes I'd spent c
hi readers! first of all, i want to really thank everyone who has clicked on this book, read a chapter, left a comment, a gift, or made it this far. your support truly means a lot to me, and I’m forever grateful you let me share my characters and their world with you. recently, i had a small bathroom accident(not so small, considering i broke my wrist) and i’ve been indisposed for a while and truly unable to push out chapters. the last few chapters that were updated last month were my saved up reserve, and I’m unfortunately all out of saved chapters.my cast is due to come off in the next two weeks, and I’m hoping to take it easy for a little while after that. so updates for this story have been paused for the meantime. this is the reason for the lack of updates as of lately, and it sucks to disappoint everyone reading, but its wiser to be at my fullest before pouring into any cups.steady daily updates will begin in august, and i know it’s not the easiest thing to be patient while
ELLARIA.“Tate!”He didn’t stop.He was fast when he wanted to be and right now he wanted to be and he was weaving around everything on the path without slowing once. I went after him calling his name and he kept going like he couldn’t hear me or had decided not to.“Tatum!”Nothing.He ducked around the corner of the nearest house and I pushed myself faster and came around after him and he was already halfway down the next stretch of path putting more distance between us with every second.A hand closed around my elbow and pulled me to a stop.I spun around.Arren.“Wait here,” he said. Gently. “Let me go after him.”I knocked his hand off my elbow. “I don’t need your help.”I turned and went the other direction, scanning everything in front of me. Every gap between houses. Every possible place a small boy who didn’t want to be found could disappear into.“Tate.” I kept calling even though he wasn’t answering. “Tatum please.”Nothing came back.I made it back to the house after anoth
ELLARIAI wiped my face as I walked and hated myself for every tear.I asked myself the question I'd been avoiding since the moment I agreed to come back here.Was this a mistake?Coming back. Agreeing to help him. Did my need to save lives mean I shouldn't save myself?I knew I was strong. I'd been forced to be. It hadn't happened overnight either. It took time and hard work and effort and a hundred sleepless nights where I turned in bed tormented by every memory. Every time I'd cried over him. Every time I'd missed my mother. Every time I'd wished I'd never followed Arren to that refugee camp after he saved me in that forest.Was it dramatic? Maybe.But that was the truth about heartbreak. Overcoming it took work. It took years. And I had done those years. I had put in every single one of them.And I let myself exist in the same space as him again for what?A good cause?His people were still dying. I was barely making progress. And I'd already lost about a year of my new self just
ELLARIA.We drove back to the Eastern Sector with Mirela in the back seat beside Tatum and Caden behind the wheel.Tatum was quiet for most of the drive. He stared out the window with his small hands folded in his lap and didn't ask questions.I was grateful for that.Mirela and I had talked throug
ELLARIA.He told me to stop making a fuss and walked away.Katerina at his side and the little boy trotting along between them, and the three of them moved down their path together like a unit, like something complete, like something that had existed long before I came into the picture and would ex
ARREN.Kade came in and dropped into the chair across from my desk with the energy of a man who'd aged five years in the last two hours."Katerina's taken the boy in," he said. "He's down for the night.""Good."He looked like he had more to say about the evening's events. After something like the
ELLARIA.“Then you can say goodbye to your job.” His jaw tightened.I'd given my all to this hospital, and he knew it.I had no wolf and none of the healing abilities the other doctors possessed. All I had was myself, and the skills I had forced into my bones over the years, once I realized the wor







