LOGINAuthor’s POVA soft chuckle escaped Madam Joyce.“But we saw everything.”Isyra said nothing. Could say nothing because beneath the humiliation and fury, something much darker was beginning to spread through her chest.Panic.Not loud panic, not screaming terror. It was the cold kind. The kind that crawled slowly into the bones.Madam Joyce knew too much. Far too much.“And Lysera?” Madam Joyce smiled faintly. “That poor child spent years suffering while everyone called her wicked.”The mention of her sister immediately reignited Isyra’s anger.“Do not speak about her like you know her,” Isyra snapped viciously. “She is manipulative. Jealous. Violent.”Madam Joyce looked almost amused. “Is she?”The question felt less like curiosity and more like mockery.“She learned from the best, didn’t she?”Isyra’s eyes flashed silver instantly. “How dare you.”Madam Joyce remained entirely calm beneath the pressure of her rage.“That’s the interesting part,” she said softly. “You still don’t und
Author’s POVFor a moment, Isyra forgot how to breathe. The color drained violently from her face, so fast it was almost frightening to watch. One second she was flushed with anger, the next she looked as though every drop of blood had been ripped from beneath her skin.Shock crashed through her so hard that even her wolf recoiled inside her. Her lips parted.“Y-you…!”The words came out broken and strangled, trembling beneath the weight of disbelief. Rage followed immediately after, hot and vicious, but it tangled together with something far worse.Fear. Real fear.For once, Isyra could not force her thoughts into order fast enough to speak.Madam Joyce’s grin widened slowly. It was not a pleasant smile anymore. Not polite or respectful. Standing there beneath the afternoon sunlight with Isyra’s perfume wrapped around her body and satisfaction gleaming in her eyes, she looked almost inhuman.Like something beautiful that had crawled out of the dark wearing a woman’s skin. An angel of
Author’s POVIsyra stood alone in the garden, staring blankly at a blooming white rose.The flower swayed gently beneath the afternoon breeze, elegant and delicate beneath the sunlight. Normally, she would have admired it. She would have bent slightly to inhale its scent and thought about how beautiful it would look woven into the decorations for her Luna ceremony.Today, she felt nothing.The world around her seemed muffled, distant, drowned beneath the pressure tightening around her chest.Footsteps approached from behind, soft against the stone pathway. Isyra did not turn. She already knew who it was.The scent reached her first, floral perfume, sweet and expensive. The exact perfume Isyra herself wore.Her expression tightened slightly.She remembered the day Henry had leaned over and sniffed her and complimented it years ago. Just once. One careless sentence that was spoken while she sat beside him during dinner.“That scent suits you.”That was all. But Isyra had clung to it des
Author’s POVThe room fell into silence after Monroe finished reading the letter. It was not the tense, suffocating silence from before. This one was different.It was lighter and filled with insurmountable relief.The kind of silence people fell into when death stepped away from their throat at the very last second.For a moment, none of them moved. Then slowly, almost visibly, the panic in the room loosened its grip.Mrs. Monroe was the first to sink into it.“Oh, thank the Moon Goddess,” she whispered weakly, one trembling hand pressing against her chest. “They really were kidnapped…”The breath she released sounded shaky, almost disbelieving, as though she had been bracing herself for something far worse.Isyra’s shoulders sagged. The terror that had gripped her since the mention of investigation finally eased enough for her to breathe properly again. Henry wasn’t secretly arresting people. He hadn’t uncovered everything. Not yet.The realization flooded her with such overwhelming
Author’s POVHe looked almost deranged in his conviction.“My family sacrificed everything for this!” he went on. “Everything!” His lip curled in disdain. “And what did the Alpha’s family do? Nothing! They abandoned it! Roaming the world like fools while I held everything together!”His gaze snapped toward Isyra.“And now this—this mess—because of that girl!”His voice dripped with venom. “Lysera.”The name came out like a curse.“That useless, stubborn, inconvenient girl had to get pregnant.” His expression darkened further. “If she had just died when she was supposed to, none of this would be happening.” He kept going. “She should have been executed,” he continued harshly. “Everything would have been clean and done with.”His teeth clenched tightly.“And now she dares to challenge me? In my own pack? In front of servants?” His voice rose again. “She walked out on me.”The disbelief in that alone was enough to fuel his anger further.“I don’t care about the Moon Goddess anymore,” he
Author’s POVThe second living room in the Monroe estate was smaller than the grand hall that greeted visitors, but it lacked nothing in refinement. Polished wood gleamed under soft lamplight, velvet cushions sat untouched on carefully arranged seats, and the air carried the faint scent of incense that had long since burned out.Tonight, however, the room felt suffocatingly heavy like something unseen had settled over it and refused to lift.Isyra paced back and forth. Back and forth.Her steps were uneven, sharp against the floor, betraying the panic clawing its way through her chest. Her hands trembled at her sides, then clenched, then released again as though she could physically shake the fear out of herself if she moved enough.She couldn’t.Her mother sat slumped into one of the single-seater couches, her posture unusually collapsed, her elegance stripped away by exhaustion. Her face looked drawn, pale, and older than it had any right to be.And Elder Monroe— He sat upright, sti
Author’s POVHenry stood ankle-deep in water.The lake was small and shallow, the surface barely disturbed except for the faint ripples spreading out from where he stood. The water was cold enough to bite, but not enough to hurt. Pale reeds ringed the edges, bending slightly as though moved by a br
LyseraFor a long while after I fell silent, Healer Apollo said nothing.The room felt strangely small then, as though the walls had crept closer while I was talking. The quiet pressed against my ears until I almost wished he would interrupt me, accuse me of lying, do something to break the tension
LyseraI lay on my back, staring at the pale blue ceiling, my eyes fixed on a single dark spot near the corner where a spider was patiently building its web.It moved with slow, deliberate care—stretching, anchoring, retreating, returning again—its tiny body a quiet rhythm against the stillness of
Lysera The air became charged as Henry’s anger flooded the room, raw and undeniable, until I could taste it on my tongue. Sweat broke out along my spine. My hands began to shake, the cutlery rattling faintly against the plate as his presence bore down on everyone In the great living room. No matt







