LOGINMy pace slowed.I was close.The grove opened ahead of me, circular and impossibly quiet. The ground was covered in dead moss. Stones lined the perimeter, carved with symbols so ancient they seemed to hum.And in the center, she stood.The dark priestess.Tall. Shrouded in a veil of black. Skin like
CASSANDRADerek knows.The thought pounded in my head like a war drum, louder than the creaking floorboards beneath my feet as I stumbled back inside my cottage. I couldn’t breathe. My skin was ice. I gripped the edge of the counter like the world might slide out from under me if I let go.He knows.
"As a matter of fact," I said slowly, "it was."She nodded. "That was from one of my favorite shirts. My mother was furious when she saw that I’d torn a piece from it."The air went out of my lungs.Her favorite shirt.I blinked, trying to picture that day clearly. Cassandra had been there—that much
DEREKI didn’t move.Didn’t nod. Didn’t speak.I just stood there, letting her see it in my face. Because yeah—it was me.Every call, every closed-door meeting, every favor I cashed in to fast-track the permits they needed before anyone could find a reason to stall or block it. I’d done all of it. Q
DEREKThe crowd had already begun to gather when I arrived.The courtyard in front of the new Rogue Foundation was cordoned off with velvet rope and lined with silver-and-navy banners. The city's emblem flew alongside Moonstone’s and Red Ridge’s on tall flagpoles, and a heavy length of ribbon stretc
DEREKThe growl of the four-wheeler under me did nothing to quiet the growl inside my chest.I’d been patrolling for hours.The wind whipped against my jacket, tugging at the collar as I tore down another ridgeline, the sun low and angry behind me. Dust kicked up behind the tires in plumes. My hands
DEREKThere are threads that weave through a life unseen— Quiet, stubborn things that tie us to the world, to the people who change it forever.Most fray slowly, the work of years and distance, worn down by the everyday erosion of time. But some... Some are burned. Some are ripped away all at onc
LOGANThe forest didn’t have a name on any map. Not one you’d find in any official pack ledger, at least. But every wolf who grew up near the Blightwood knew better than to say its name out loud.That was the kind of place it was.My tires crunched over brittle gravel, the road narrowing until the t
I gasped against him, and his tongue slid in—deep, claiming, desperate.I should have shoved him off. Should have screamed at him, reminded him what he was, what I was. But my body betrayed me.I kissed him back.Hard.My fingers curled into the front of his shirt, dragging him closer as his hands s
I grew angrier the more I talked.“You gave me a heartbeat on a monitor and a false sense of fatherhood. And then, when you knew the walls were closing in, you faked a miscarriage to seal the story. You didn't just lie—you tried to break me.”Tears welled in her eyes, but I kept going.“I mourned a







