MasukMy 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
CASSANDRAThe numbers weren’t adding up, and Father was livid.I sat stiffly at the table in the packhouse’s formal office, a fan of expense reports and ledgers laid out in front of me like a criminal record. My criminal record, apparently.“You bought what?” he barked, his voice bouncing off the wa
LOGANThe Blightwood stood before me like a promise and a punishment all at once.Branches arched high above, skeletal and twisted, their tips clawing at the bruised sky like they wanted to tear it open. The air was damp and metallic, thick with the scent of rot and old things buried deep. Even the
I realized—struck suddenly, sharply—that I had never done this before. Never just... laid with her. Offered comfort without expectation.When she had been with Silverclaw—back before everything shattered—I would fall asleep with her sometimes after long, heated nights. After I'd taken her to bed w
Across the aisle, I saw Alpha Deveraux from Hollow Pine Pack leaning forward, whispering furiously to his Beta. Others weren’t even pretending to hide their outrage.The prosecution rose next—a tall, broad-shouldered woman in a dark green suit, her expression carved from stone. She spoke without hes







