LOGINLUCIEN’S POVSomething is wrong. The thought doesn’t come gently, it tears through me.I wake with a gasp, my body jerking upright before my mind can catch up. Sweat clings to my skin, my chest heaving as if I’ve just run for miles.My hand presses against my chest instinctively.There, that’s where it is. That sharp, hollow pain that wasn’t there before. My breathing turns uneven.The bond It feels..... Wrong.Not broken but stretched.“Saphra.”Her name leaves my lips before I can stop it.I’m already moving.The door slams open so hard it cracks against the wall, splintering wood and echoing down the corridor. I barely register it.Nothing matters except, Her.Find her, now.The hallway blurs as I run.Servants jump out of my way, startled, terrified. I hear voices and shouts but they’re distant, meaningless noise.“Sire!”“Alpha!”Ignored, all of it.My feet hit the stone hard and fast, each step driven by something deeper than thought.The bond pulses again.Empty.I reach the to
LADY SERAPHINE POV“Another time my lady,” he says smoothly as we walk the eastern corridor, his voice calm and controlled. “The palace is still recovering. There are areas that....”“I want to see everything,” I interrupt lightly, my tone pleasant enough to pass as curiosity.His jaw tightens slightly.“The main halls, the council chambers, the outer grounds....” he continues, as if I hadn’t spoken.“I said everything,” I repeat, turning my head just enough to meet his gaze, smile intact and eyes sharp.There's a pause, a silent standoff.“As you wish,” he says finally.Wonderful.The tour begins properly after that. He shows me what he wants me to see first. The grand halls, the throne room,the council chamber. All polished stone and carefully maintained illusions of control but I’m not here for illusions.Still, I let him lead for now.Until....“And the servants’ quarters?” I ask casually as we pass another guarded wing.He hesitates.“They are… modest,” he says. “Not particularly
LADY SERAPHINE POVThey said the palace was unstable, they said the Alpha was compromised, they said I should delay my arrival but I came anyway.Because power doesn’t wait for the perfect moment.It takes it.The gates open before me with all the grandeur expected of a place clinging desperately to order. Stone towers stretch high into the sky, banners snapping in the wind, still proud, still defiant, still pretending nothing has changed.But I see it.The doubled guard rotations.No, tripled.The tension in the air, coiled tight beneath polished surfaces. The way soldiers hold their weapons just a little too firmly. The way servants move too quickly with eyes lowered and voices hushed.Fear, uncertainty, weakness.I step forward, my heels striking the stone with measured precision, my entourage falling into perfect formation behind me. Twenty of them handpicked.A statement.My gown brushes against the ground like liquid, every thread chosen for impact, every detail calculated. My h
SAPHRA’S POVThe palace feels different the moment I step inside.It settles over me like a second skin, prickling along my nerves in a way I can’t quite explain. The familiar stone walls rise around me, unchanged, but something beneath the surface has shifted.I feel it in the way the guards move.In the way their eyes track me.In the way no one smiles.My steps slow instinctively as I cross the main hall, my hand pressing lightly against the bandages beneath my dress. The wound aches with every movement, a dull, persistent reminder that I shouldn’t even be out of bed.But I couldn’t stay there.I swallow hard and force myself forward.Focus.I didn’t come back here to fall apart. I came back to try to face him. To do the one thing that feels more impossible than anything else I’ve ever done.Forgive him.The word still feels foreign but it doesn’t make my chest close up the way it did before.That has to count for something.A group of guards passes me in tight formation, their arm
SAPHRA’S POV“Still fighting it,” she responds quietly.“I’m not fighting anything,” I say flatly. “I’ve already decided.”She doesn’t respond immediately.“You’re lying.”My jaw tightens.“I’m not.”“You are,” she says simply.I turn to face her, anger flaring.“You don’t get to tell me how to react.”“No,” she agrees. “But I know how you feel.”Her gaze is steady like she’s looking straight through me.“If you were truly certain,” she continues, “you wouldn’t still be coming back questioning me repeatedly about the same thing.”“I’m not questioning it,” I snap. “I’m rejecting it.”“Then why haven’t you walked away?”The question hits harder than I expect.I hesitate just for a second.Eira steps closer.“Because part of you already knows,” she says softly.“Knows what?” I demand.“That there’s more to the truth than what you’ve allowed yourself to believe.”My chest tightens.“No,” I say, shaking my head. “There isn’t. I saw what he did. I lived it. I am still leaving it.”“And yet,
SAPHRA’S POV The cave smells of damp earth and old magic.I feel it the moment I cross the threshold pressing lightly against my skin. It shouldn’t be comforting.And yet… it is.Maybe because it isn’t the palace, maybe because it isn’t filled with blood or maybe because this is the only place left where I might actually get answers.Still, every step inside feels like a battle.My hand presses tightly against the bandages wrapped around my stomach, trying to hold myself together as another wave of pain ripples through me. The wound has closed enough that I’m no longer bleeding out, but it hasn’t healed fully.It aches constantly.A deep, relentless reminder of him and of what he did. I grit my teeth and force myself forward anyway.“Eira,” I call, my voice echoing faintly off the stone.For a moment, there’s nothing.Then......“You came.”Her voice drifts from deeper within the cave, calm and steady as always.I follow it, moving slowly, carefully, until the narrow passage opens in
SAPHRA'S POV Lucien had barely been healed before the members of the council called a meeting. The throne room always feels colder during council meetings.Not because of the stone, those walls have held winter for centuries but because of the people inside it. Power gathers here like a storm clo
MARCUS’S POVI have stood before Lucien Darkveil while cities burned.I have delivered reports soaked in blood, casualty counts that would have broken lesser Alphas. I have argued strategy while enemies pounded at our borders and traitors rotted in our dungeons.Never—not once have my hands shaken
SAPHRA'S POV I don't plan to tell her but the confession begins anyway. It starts as a crack and then everything inside me gives way.“Mara,” I say, my voice already shaking. “I need you to listen and try to understand me.”She stills instantly. The shutters are half-closed, dawn hours away. Candl
MARCUS’S POV I have learned to trust unease.It is a quiet thing, rarely dramatic, never loud but it has kept me alive longer than strength or steel ever could.Tonight, it sits with me in my office, coiled low in my gut, watching as I spread documents across the broad oak desk. Maps of the easter







