LOGINBRAYDEN'S POV.Rhys didn't stop asking questions the whole way down."Brayden, where are we going?""You'll see.""I'm barely dressed.""I've noticed.""Brayden."I kept his wrist in my hand and led him through the quiet corridors, down the back staircase, and out through the glass doors onto the terrace.Then he stopped asking.The pool glowed in the dark like a sheet of blue glass. The underwater lights were on, painting the stone edges in soft, rippling silver, and a thin veil of steam drifted off the heated water into the cool night air. Right in the middle of it, perfectly still, floated the reflection of the moon.Rhys stared at it."Oh," he breathed."It looks like the moon fell in," I said.His head snapped toward me. His eyes narrowed."Remus told you that.""Remus told me nothing.""That's my line. I say that to him." He folded his arms
BRAYDEN'S POV."Send me the location," I said quietly, staring out of the arched window at the moon hanging over the palace walls. "I'm coming.""Yes, Alpha King."I ended the call. My jaw was so tight it ached.Footsteps clicked across the marble behind me."Alpha King?"Gina stopped a few feet away, her tablet hugged to her chest, her brows drawn together."What's going on?" she asked. "You look so tense. Who was that?"I looked at her.Gina had raised me when my mother couldn't. If anyone deserved the truth, it was her.But I knew her too well.If I told her someone in this pack had tried to kill my Luna, she would stop sleeping. She would check my food, my car, my guards, and worry herself sick over whether the Alpha King himself was next.And she had warned me. The very first day I told her about the contract, she had stood in my office and told me I was dragging a stranger an
BRAYDEN'S POV.I opened my eyes to the ceiling of our bedroom. The lamps were on. The curtains were drawn. My head throbbed like someone had taken a hammer to it.Rhys was on the edge of the bed with his back half-turned to me, winding a white bandage around his knee. A second one was already wrapped around the other."What happened?" My voice came out hoarse.He didn't look up. "There was glass."That was all he said.I pushed myself up onto my elbows, and the pieces fell into place on their own. The cold marble. The pounding in my skull. The heaviness in my limbs.I had fainted. Again.The last thing I remembered was Rhys walking toward the door and me reaching out to stop him. After that, nothing."Did I hurt you?""No."He tied off the bandage and stood. When he finally looked at me, there was something in his eyes I had never seen there before. He looked so quiet, as if he was careful of me. Like he was looking at a stranger."I'm going to put Remus to bed," he said.And then he
RHYS' POV.The room went completely silent.What Brayden just said sounded like it was coming from another world. My ears rang so loud I thought they might never hear a thing when the ringing stops. "Some time?" My voice came out thin. "You've been investigating for some time?""Since the crash.""And you never told me.""You never told me where you go either." He dragged a hand down his face. "So I guess we're even."I stared at him.Brayden had been digging quietly. Every single night, while I lay in his arms pretending to sleep, he had been chasing the same shadows I was.And if he kept digging, where would it lead him?To the arrow in the armory. To the cliff. To a forest omega with no name, and a son with his eyes.To me.Within eight days, I had promised myself I would tell him everything before the Moonstone test. I had rehearsed it in the bath, in the car, lying awake beside him in the dark. I wanted him to hear it from my mouth. Not from a file. Not from some investigator's
RHYS' POV.I tossed my cream blazer onto the bed and started on my shirt buttons, my mind still trapped inside that leather ledger.Thirty-two years ago. Eight missing children.The door swung open.Brayden walked in, still in his charcoal suit, his tie loosened at the collar. He didn't close the door behind him. He didn't smile either.He just looked at me.Brayden was never this calm."Where were you?" he asked.My fingers paused on the third button. "Pearls Motherless Home. I'm planning a charity event for the children.""With who?""Just me and the guards."He scoffed softly. "The guards you left standing at the gate like statues?"My stomach dipped."Gina told me," he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. "The guards called it in, and she came straight to my office. She said you climbed out of the car with a man in a gray suit. Your secretary, apparently." His brow arched. "Since when do you have a secretary?"Gina.Of course it was Gina. She always seemed to know where ever
THIRD PERSON'S POV. The black royal car rolled to a stop in front of a pale yellow building with a rusted iron gate. A painted sign arched over the entrance, its letters faded by years of sun: PEARLS MOTHERLESS HOME. Beneath it, someone had painted a row of little white pearls, each one with a smiling face. Rhys stepped out of the car and smoothed down his cream blazer. Behind him, two palace guards climbed out of the front seats. "Wait here," Rhys told them. "It's a children's home. I don't want to frighten anyone with guns at the door." The guards exchanged a look. "Luna, the Alpha King said..." "The Alpha King said I shouldn't leave the palace without guards. I didn't. And you can see the front door from right here. But my secretary comes with me.” The taller guard hesitated, then nodded and planted himself beside the gate. Richard climbed out of the back seat with a leather folder tucked under his arm and his glasses pushed up his nose. He wore a plain gray suit t







