تسجيل الدخولAUTHOR’S POVMoonlight illuminated the pristine white carpet of Victoria Ashford’s upscale campus suite, casting long shadows across the modern furniture. Sitting behind a sleek glass desk, her posture remained rigid while a nervous campus security guard stood near the wooden door. Shifting his weight from one foot to another, the man held a manila folder filled with surveillance reports"Tell me what you found, Nyax," Victoria commanded. Her voice held a sharp edge, cutting through the quiet room. "Spare no details. You know what is at stake.""He is spending an abnormal amount of time with the new academic supervisor," Nyax reported, opening the folder to display several grainy photographs. "A scrawny freshman named Emberly. We tracked them interacting at the rink, lingering near the campus infirmary, and leaving a coffee shop together late at night."Anger surged through Victoria’s chest. She did not feel the sting of romantic jealousy, but rather a cold, calculated fury. Risking h
JORDANThe thoughts returned and I sat there for goddess knows how long before the serenity [external, definitely not internal] was interrupted by synchronized footsteps echoing against the concrete pavement. Turning my head, my muscles coiled with tension when I saw who it was. Victoria Ashford walked calmly down the dark path toward my bench. Flanked by four armed Northern guards, she was wearing a tailored black coat and high boots. "What the hell are you doing out here, Victoria, and why are you constantly stalking my locations?" I cursed, standing up from the bench and glaring at her approaching figure. Victoria ignored the bait. Walking up to the rusted bench, she held an insulated paper bag from a city restaurant in her manicured hand. "I am not stalking you, Jordan. I simply pay competent people to monitor the city cameras because I was worried about your deteriorating mental state. I brought you some hot food, because my security details informed me that you have not eate
JORDANThe silence wasn’t helping.If anything, it made things worse.And my thoughts? That even made it ten times worse as I paced across the hardwood floor, my boots wearing a familiar path into the wood. Snatching my encrypted pack phone from the kitchen counter, I dialed Cael’s secure number, sizzling with frustration and worry. My chest heaved with a mixture of exhaustion and rage. Worse still, time was running out."You need to give me a positive update regarding the black-market bounty hunters right now, Cael, because I am running out of time and my father is closing his net," I demanded the moment the secure line connected, skipping any formal greeting. "I am going to tell you this as bluntly as I can, Jordan, because yelling at me is not going to produce the historian," Cael replied, his voice carrying the raspy edge of someone who had not slept in three days. "There is zero news from the mercenary teams operating in the tri-pack area. Silas erased his digital and physical
EMBERLY LYNWOODSitting in the back row of my mandatory sociology elective usually guaranteed a peaceful hour of pretending to be invisible. That strategy fell apart when Professor Harrison mandated a three-person group project and read the partner assignments aloud to the lecture hall. My stomach dropped into my shoes when he called my fabricated name alongside Jordan Draven.Jordan had spent the last few days avoiding me like a walking plague since our disastrous kiss in the alleyway. He could barely look in my direction without scowling or finding an excuse to leave the room.Our third group member was Lexi. She possessed a perfect blonde blowout, zero shame, and a very obvious, predatory crush on the future Alpha. Before the lecture hall even emptied, Lexi practically sprinted over to our desk, slamming her manicured hands down on the wood with a bright, victorious smile."We are heading to the library study rooms right now, boys," Lexi announced, though her heavily mascaraed eye
JORDAN The condensation dripped down the bathroom mirror, blurring the exhausted disaster staring back at me. Wiping a hand across the glass revealed dark circles beneath my silver-gray eyes and a swollen lower lip. Leaning heavily against the porcelain sink, a sharp throb radiated from the fresh bandages wrapped tightly around my ribs. My mind felt like a shattered glass window.Mate.The deep, primal voice echoed inside my skull, vibrating with a smug satisfaction that made my stomach churn."Shut up," I muttered out loud, gripping the edges of the sink until my knuckles turned white. "It was a mistake. My brain was misfiring."*Mine. Tasted like ours.*Running a hand through my damp hair, I let out a bitter laugh. "He is a guy. A teenage college boy wearing baggy hoodies. You are supposed to be an apex predator, not a confused mess. We do not kiss guys."*Do not care. Smells like rain. Tasted good.*"It was pure adrenaline," I argued, staring desperately at my own reflection, ple
EMBERLY LYNWOOD Grabbing the thick fabric of Jordan's jacket, I used every ounce of my remaining strength to drag his weakened frame out of the alleyway and into the shadows of an abandoned factory doorway. He was bleeding heavily from the torn stitches in his side. Dark blood soaked through his clothing as the silver residue burned his natural healing abilities. Wasting no time in the darkness, I ripped a ragged strip of fabric from the hem of my gray t-shirt, bunched the material together, and pressed it against his open wound to staunch the arterial flow.Jordan let out a harsh hiss of pain. His blood-stained hand wrapped around my wrist with a vice-like grip. "What the hell are you doing in the Eastern Pack, Emberly?" he demanded again. His breathing labored, his silver-gray eyes burned with a mixture of agony and shock.Racing to find a plausible excuse a clueless freshman might use, I blurted, "I came down to the industrial sector to buy a fake ID from a street dealer I met o







