FAZER LOGINLaney.The voice is distant, muffled, like it's coming through water.Laney!My name again. Closer this time. Urgent.I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids are lead weights. My head is splitting open, a white-hot spike of pain driving through my skull from temple to temple. Everything is fuzzy—shapes without edges, sounds without meaning.Something bitter coats my tongue. Herbs. Medicine.Sedated.I force my eyes open.The world swims into focus slowly, agonizingly. Above me, the moon hangs full and brilliant in a black velvet sky, so bright it hurts to look at. Stars scatter across the darkness like shattered glass.How long have I been here?I shift—mistake—and pain explodes through my ribs, my shoulder, my spine. I gasp, the sound wet and ragged. My hand moves instinctively to my head, and when I pull it away, my fingers are slick with blood.My own blood.The metallic scent fills my nose, sharp and overwhelming. Rose stirs inside me, sluggish and disoriented, her instincts screami
The healers arrive within minutes—pack members from the mountain compound, moving with practiced efficiency through the chaos. They load Ricky onto a stretcher, his breathing shallow and wet, blood soaking through the bandages Cade wrapped around his ribs. I watch them carry him toward the vehicle, my destroyer wolf screaming to hunt, to tear apart whoever did this, to paint the forest red.But I let them take him. The healers' compound is deep in the mountains, a sanctuary carved into stone and protected by wards older than any living wolf. If Ricky's going to survive, that's where he needs to be.River's voice cuts through from the porch—sharp, lethal. "Treeline!"I'm on my feet instantly, Cade rising beside me. "I'll stay with Laney," Cade says, his hand already on his knife. "You good?"But River's already shifting. Bones crack and reform in seconds. His wolf explodes forward—massive, silver-black, all predator fury—and launches off the porch into the darkness.The trees rustle. S
And as we disappear into the night, engines thundering in perfect synchronization, I realize my mates understand.They're not trying to contain this version of me.They're riding with me.I veer off the main road onto a narrow mountain trail, the kind most people wouldn't even notice in daylight. The Softail handles the terrain like it was built for it—tight curves, loose gravel, steep inclines that would make most riders nervous. I'm not most riders.River and Cade stay in formation, their engines growling behind me as we climb deeper into the mountains."Where exactly are we going?" Cade's voice crackles through the comms."Ricky Chains Donovan's place," I call back. "Old OG biker. Rook said he might have information about the military operation hunting destroyer wolves."River's engine revs. "And you trust him?""My father did." The words come out rougher than I intend. "Ricky was there when Dad got his first bike. Taught him half of what he knew about riding. If anyone knows about
The aftermath was organized chaos—my sisters left immediately for their packs, Luna Elizabeth and Alpha Rian returned to Iron Fang with MC escort, and I placed Kira as Temporary Beta at Black Talon, where she'd be critical in the fight against the unknown military operation hunting destroyer wolves. Shianne and Garrett remained to complete my MC initiation trials.But tonight, I needed something different.Tonight, I need to show my mates who I am beneath the crown.The sun is setting, painting the sky in shades of amber and blood orange. I lead River and Cade away from the main compound, away from the pack, behind the alpha house, where grief and decisions I never wanted to make still linger in every corner.There's a path here, overgrown with weeds and disuse."Where are we going?" Cade asks.His hand finds the small of my back—natural now, instinctive. Three months ago, I didn't know these men. Now I can't imagine moving through the world without the weight of their presence beside
The Iron Fang council chambers were packed.I walked through the double doors with my spine straight and my chin up.An alpha claiming what was hers.River moved at my left, a wall of controlled aggression—leather, steel, and quiet violence. Cade walked on my right, sharper, colder, no trace of his usual charm. Today, he was all predator.Luna Elizabeth followed three steps behind, briefcase in hand.Because this wasn’t a gathering.It was a trial.Black Talon wolves filled the left side—Korr’s pack, now mine. Their faces were hard, grieving, uncertain.Iron Fang filled the right—my birth pack.They should have stood with me.They didn’t.I stopped ten feet from the council table.Five elders sat in judgment.Alpha Rian at the center.My future father-in-law.But pack law was pack law. An acting alpha had to sit on the council as an authority on it.And right now—I didn’t know if he was mine.The room fell silent.“Laney Thorne,” Rian said, voice carrying through the hall. “You stand
This has been a long night.I look up and I’ll be damned—it’s a full moon.The sky stretches above me, massive and luminous, the kind that makes every wolf in a hundred-mile radius feel the pull deep in their bones.My bones included, though I’m fighting the urge to shift, and just run, with everything I have left.River and Cade stayed behind with their father, Alpha Rian, making sure no one interfered with the investigation. No one sabotaged it.There was a criminal investigation of the scene of Alpha Korr’s assassination. He will then be moved ironically to the same morgue my father was in just days before. Luna Elizabeth walks with me on my right, her heels clicking against the asphalt with surprising precision for someone wearing four-inch stilettos at two in the morning.Shianne follows at a respectable distance on her motorcycle, the engine cut, just rolling the bike alongside us.She’d offered me a lift earlier, asked if I wanted to ride, but I’d refused.I need to feel my l
The bullet hit me before I heard the shot.One second, I was standing on the porch with Cade and River, watching the last of Korr's men disappear into the tree line. The next, fire exploded through my left shoulder, and I was on my knees, the world tilting sideways."Laney!" Cade's roar shattered th
Cade kneels in front of me, his hands on my knees. "Then we dismantle him back," he says. "One layer at a time."My father built this pack from nothing. I won't let Korr tear it apart."Tomorrow," I say. "We start tomorrow."River pulls me to my feet, his arms wrapping around me. "Tomorrow," he agre
My old room sat at the far end of the second floor.Same white trim. Same oversized windows overlooking the east woods. Same massive vanity my father had insisted belonged in a “young lady’s room,” even though I’d hated the damn thing for years.I stepped inside slowly.Cade and River followed.My
The house felt wrong without him.Too quiet.Too still.Too damn empty for a place that had once held the weight of an Alpha.Even with bodies moving through it—Ashwood wolves, enforcers, staff trying to pretend everything was normal—the house felt hollow. Like it knew.Like the walls themselves wer







