LOGINPOV: Lachlan Lachlan had his phone out before Matilda finished speaking. Rhys answered on the second ring. “Alpha.”“Cottage. Fifteen minutes. Bring Hamish and the sweep kit.” His voice remained flat. “Full perimeter, then the interior. Nobody enters without my approval.”“Understood.” He ended the call and found Imogen watching him from across the twins’ bed. Over the past two days, he had learned to recognize that expression as a warning.“You didn’t ask me,” she said.“There wasn’t time.”“There’s always time to ask.” She stood, one hand resting on Declan’s blanket. “This is my house.”“Someone stood within half a mile of it tonight, planning your children’s deaths.” He kept his voice low. The twins were asleep, and his anger was more dangerous when he no longer raised his voice. “Your back door has a standard lock, and a six-year-old could climb the garden fence. You’re moving. Tonight.”“I don’t take orders from you.”“This isn’t about us.” His tone came out harder than he inten
POV: ImogenMatilda Brandt, built like a retired rugby player, had delivered half the pups in Silvercrest. She had no patience for fainting, fussing, or wasted time, which was why Imogen felt her shoulders relax the moment the older woman entered.“Out of my light,” Matilda said.They moved. She sat on the edge of the bed, placed one broad palm on Hayley’s forehead and the other on Declan’s, then closed her eyes. For a long moment, the only sound was the soft ticking of the nightlight.“Power overload,” she said at last. “Textbook, unfortunately.” She opened her eyes and fixed them on Lachlan. “You’re the father.”"Yes," said Lachlan.“Then you’ll do.” She delivered the words like a diagnosis. “These two are caught in a loop. Each feeds energy into the other, and neither can shut it off. I can dampen the surge for a few hours, but I can’t fix the problem. They need the steady Alpha presence of both parents at once. They need an anchor beyond each other.”“Both?” Imogen asked.“Both. O
POV: Imogen Imogen pressed her fingers against Hayley’s throat before she consciously decided to move.A pulse. Slow but steady. She checked Declan’s wrist and found the same rhythm, a second beat matching his sister’s, as though one heart had been divided between two small bodies.“They’re breathing,” she said. Her voice sounded unfamiliar. “They’re breathing. They’re breathing.”“I know.” Lachlan was already kneeling on the other side of the bed. “Let me check.”She nearly snapped at him. Every instinct urged her to keep her hands where they were, and her wolf had risen so quickly that the edges of the room seemed sharper, tinged with gold. But Lachlan didn’t grab the children or issue commands. He slid two fingers beneath Declan’s jaw, then turned Hayley’s face toward the nightlight and gently lifted one eyelid with his thumb.“Pupils equal,” he said quietly. “Skin’s cool, not clammy. No visible injuries.” He looked up at her. “Has this happened before?”“Never like this.”“Tell m
POV: Lachlan The silence stretched until the moth struck the light again. “I’m not saying I believe you,” Imogen said at last.“I’m not asking you to.”“Good.” Imogen said“I’m asking you to let me find out what happened.”“And the children?” Her chin lifted. “Your rights as their father. Your standing. Your legal claim. How does any of that fit into finding out what happened?”“It doesn’t.” He surprised himself with the answer. “Those are separate matters. I won’t use one against you to get the other.”“You already tried that in the mediation room.”“I know.” Lachlan said“And you’ll do it again when it suits you.”“No.”“You can’t promise that.” Imogen said“I just did.” She stared at him. The bond stretched between them, taut as a wire. He felt it in his chest, his hands, and the base of his skull. She felt it too. Her shortened breaths and the faint flush along her collarbone gave her away. Her gaze dropped briefly to his mouth before snapping back to his eyes.He had not touched
POV: LachlanThe papers struck his chest, and he caught them by reflex.Lachlan looked down. A draft engagement announcement, his name printed beside Sienna’s in a typeface clearly chosen to look permanent. He had never seen this version, let alone approved it.“Sienna was here,” he said.It wasn’t a question, and Imogen didn’t treat it as one. She stood in the doorway, the hall light behind her, arms folded tightly across her chest. Every line of her posture made it clear she wouldn’t move aside.Behind him, a car idled at the end of the street before pulling away. He had passed Sienna’s rental on the coast road forty minutes earlier and told himself it meant nothing.He cursed her silently and thoroughly in two languages. “She had no right to come here,” he said.“She seemed to think otherwise.” Imogen’s voice remained level. “She offered me money to disappear. She also called my children a pregnancy claim. She said you’d told her I was insisting they were yours.”He went still. “I
POV: ImogenImogen's first coherent thought was that she should have seen this coming.Her second was that she was not going to show this woman a single thing she was actually feeling. Sienna Bancroft was standing on her doorstep at nine in the evening in heels and a dress, wearing a pre-loaded smile. People who arrived like that counted on disruption to do the work for them.She stepped back and opened the door wider. "Come in."It was not hospitality. Imogen simply wanted to hear whatever Sienna had come to say on her own ground, with her own walls around her.Sienna entered with the ease of a woman accustomed to walking into rooms and immediately deciding whether they met her standards. Her eyes swept across the cottage kitchen, taking in the twins' drawings on the fridge, the football boots by the back door, and the modest, lived-in warmth of the space. Her expression tightened for a fraction of a second before smoothing over.Cooper appeared in the kitchen doorway. He looked at S







