LOGINAIDEN'S POV
I rolled from side to side in bed unable to stop. Perhaps I should have taken Selene's offer. Her best and only good trait was being a body warmer. She wasn't much help in anything else when it came to pack responsibilities. Her first instincts were to spread her legs for me to distract me from the moment.
At first that was what drew me to her.
“Aiden, why are you stressing yourself with all these boring leadership books? Being Alpha is your right, nobody is going to take it away from you just because you were too bored to read some book written by some old wind bag.”
I had to admit it was nice. My dad was always blabbing about responsibilities and how he would only choose the most ‘credible person’ as his heir, constantly pushing me to my limits. afraid that someone would steal away what was rightfully mine.
Lyra wh
**Kael's Point of View**The forest was a whole new world at night. The familiar paths and the comforting smells of pine and wet earth were now covered in a new, heavy awareness. It seemed like every shadow was watching. The usual sounds of nighttime life were quiet, as if the animals could tell that something was wrong in their area.My team moved in a ghostly quiet way. Jake and Ryker stood on either side of me, their senses at their highest. Orin, our lead tracker, was behind us, constantly sniffing the air. Elara, the pack's most powerful mystic, was in front of us, her hands glowing with a soft, preparatory light, ready to sense the unnatural.We weren't going to the factory itself. Jake's report was very clear. The leftover energy was no lon
**Kael's Point of View**The air in the Sanctum, which had just moments before felt so safe and old, now felt thin and weak, like a soap bubble separating us from an endless, hungry dark. Lyra's words hung in the air, taking the warmth out of the stone around us.*We rang the bell for dinner.The metaphor was so perfect that it was scary. We hadn't just drawn in a predator; we had called for a feast. My mind, which is used to dealing with territorial disputes and pack politics, couldn't handle how big it was. This was not a war over land or power. This was a fight to stay alive.Lyra was shaking because the huge and terrible things she had learned were about to overwhelm her. I hugged her
**Lyra's POV**The silence of the Sanctum was not an absence of sound, but a presence. It was the deep, resonant quiet of a library that had held its breath for a thousand years, waiting for a reader. The air hummed with a low, thrumming energy that vibrated in my teeth, a constant reminder of the immense power sleeping in the stone around us.Kenny slept peacefully in a make shift crib carved from a recess in the cavern wall, the ancient runes around him glowing with a soft, protective light. For the first time since his kidnapping, the frantic, terrified flutter in our golden bond had stilled into the steady, calm rhythm of a truly safe and deeply dreaming child. That alone made the cold, hard reality of our new existence worth it.Kael was a wh
**Kael's Point of View**The villa, which had been my safe place for years, now felt like a grave. Every shadow seemed to remember that cold from another world, and every creak of the floorboards sounded like the Warden's footsteps. The smell of our fear filled the air, a bitter taste that no amount of opened windows could get rid of.Lyra was packing a small bag for Kenny in a quiet, scary way that worked. Her movements were exact, but her hands shook a little. She had dealt with shame, violence, and a rogue Alpha, but what happened to us last night was on a whole new level. It had not only hurt our bodies, but also the idea that we were safe. The medallion around her neck was not active, but I could feel its low hum of power, a watchful, wary energy that was like our own.
**Lyra's point of view**No sound.This silence was different from before. Not the heavy silence that comes before a storm, but the empty, ringing silence that comes after a disaster. The lights were steady again, and the room was warm again, but the memory of the cold was still fresh in my mind. The smell of ozone and something strange still lingered in the back of my throat.Kael's arms were wrapped around me so tightly that I could feel his heart racing against my back. His breath was hot and rough in my hair. The Alpha, who was always strong, had been shaken to his core. We had fought against a rogue army, a monster that wanted power, and his own son who was a traitor. But this... this was too much for us to understand. Something that made all
**Lyra's Point of View**The cold was not from this world. It didn't come in through the windows or whisper through the cracks in the doors. It grew from the middle of the room, a pocket of absolute zero that sucked the heat out of the air, our skin, and even our breath, which now hung in ghostly plumes in front of us. The flickering lights stuttered and went out, leaving us in a deep, unnatural darkness. The only light came from the faint, sickly green glow of my medallion and the dying embers in the fireplace.Kael moved before I could even think about it. He moved me behind him in one smooth motion, making his body a solid, unmovable wall between me and Selene's bed. His growl was a low, constant vibration in the quiet room, a primal challenge to this invasion of his space.Selene had said, "The warden comes." And it felt like it was already here. Not in body, but in spirit. A huge, patient, and completely foreign attention had turned to this ro







