LOGINDRAVEN "I do not like this." I sat across from the healer in the other side room. "Alphas do not sit and talk about feelings while an enemy prepares to attack."Elowen, the healer Mira had brought in, watched me without flinching. She was older, calm, with eyes that had seen too many broken wolves pass through rooms like this one. "Alphas who refuse to look at their own damage get people killed," she said. "You already locked your mate behind barriers. We'll start from there."Buttercup stayed near the door at first, her arms crossed loosely, as though she wasn't sure whether she belonged inside the conversation or outside it. "I'll wait outside if you need the space," she said. "But I'm not leaving the hall.""Stay." The word came out rougher than I meant, with a need I hadn't planned to reveal."That's the first honest thing you've said since you sat down," Elowen said, unbothered by the rawness in my voice. "Tell me what the barriers felt like when you put them up."I stared at t
BUTTERCUP "Open the barriers, Draven. Right now." I slammed both palms against the invisible wall he had thrown up around the room. "This is not protection. This is you losing control, and I refuse to watch it happen." He stood on the other side of the barrier, his eyes too bright, breath too fast, shoulders drawn up like a man bracing for a blow that had already landed a dozen times in his mind. "I can't. If I open it, you'll leave. And Silas will get the opening he needs. I saw it happen. I saw you die in my dream." "You saw a nightmare," I snapped, panic clawing at my throat. "Not the truth. Look at me Draven. I am still here. I've refused him. I chose this bond, every piece of it, and you are the one building walls between us now?" Through the trinity link I shoved the words harder, letting him feel the anger and the desperation tangled together, refusing to let either one soften into something he could dismiss. Kai's presence slammed into the bond next with alarm, a jagged
DRAVEN THE NEXT MORNING "Check the western patrol again," I ordered, pacing the command room. "Silas could already have people inside the outer lines. I want their names." Marcus nodded and left fast. Kai watched me from the table, a line of concern shaped on his face. "You checked them two hours ago," he said. "The reports are good. You need some sleep." "I want to be sure," I shot back. "Sleep can wait till later." Buttercup spoke, her expression caught somewhere between worry and frustration. "Draven, you're running on nothing. The bonds feel frayed through you. Talk to us, please." I looked at her, and the fear hit again...the same fear from the nightmares. Her face in Silas's hands. The burning safe house, the lost child, All of it because I was not fast enough, not careful enough...The thought from those imagined failure hunted me. "I'm fine," I said. "Just focused." "Your energy is spiking in unstable patterns," Asher said. "The shared anxiety is feeding back t
ALPHA VOSS (Seraphina's Father)THE NEXT DAY "I will speak plainly." I sat across from Buttercup and the rest, with suspicious eyes looking at me. "Silas is not a rival. He is a slow death, and I have watched him strip pieces from my territory for years... with a contract. I am here because I am out of ground to lose."Buttercup did not blink. "You spent months trying to destroy me and this pack. Now you want a seat at my table." Every sleepless night I had caused her live in that sentence. "Give me one reason to believe this is not another game.""Just one reason. Make it good," Draven snapped, his fingers striking the table gently.Kai leaned forward, his face twisting with curiosity. "You backed Seraphina's every move against Buttercup. Why switch sides now?"Asher said nothing. His eyes never left me, as if he meant to peel the truth from my skin.I kept my hands flat on the table, feeling the weight of their combined scrutiny like a blade at my throat. "Because Silas does not st
Buttercup"We need more than our own pack," I stated, standing in the meeting hall before the first group of representatives. Their faces ranged from doubt to openly hostile, and I forced myself to meet each gaze in turn. "Silas collects bonded people and turns them into weapons. If he comes for us, he will not stop there. We either stand together or get picked off one by one."A gray-haired Alpha from the southern hills pack leaned back on the chair, his arms crossed over a chest scarred by decades of territorial disputes. His curled his lips. "Your safe house is young, and barely more than a rumor with walls. Your pack is already stretched thin. Why should we bleed for your fight?"Kai answered before I could. "Because his network already has seventeen pairs. When he finishes with us, your Territory will be next. You can wait for that knock on your door, or you can act like it matters now."An older woman from a trading faction shook her head, the beads in her graying braids clicke
LILA"I'm not sitting this out." I strode onto the training yard in the early light. My stomach was already showing a small curve as I was already at the second trimester. The guardian mark on my wrist glowed as if it agreed with me before I had even finished speaking. "Drills will start now."Kai stepped in front of me, blocking my path outright, as his eyes searched my face for a crack he could argue his way into. "Lila, no. You're carrying our child. The front-line training is too much risk.""Don't," I raised my hand, gesturing he shouldn't try to intervene even before he could say another word. "Don't stand there and tell me what I can carry."Draven defended. "He's right. We need you to be safe. The pack needs the child safe.""I am the pack," I shot back, whirling on him. "Or has that changed since yesterday?"Buttercup hovered at the edge of the group, worry pulling her brows together. "There are other ways to help. You don't have to prove anything.""I'm not trying to prove a
BUTTERCUP I sat there on that damn couch, my legs still trembling and his words ringing in my ears. “I’m sorry, little one.” The door had barely closed behind Draven before I jumped up. My dress was wrinkled, my thighs sticky, and my chest felt like someone had punched a hole right through it.
“Well, well, well...” Seraphina said again, her voice dripping with fake sweetness. “Am I interrupting the show?”I froze under Draven, my dress still bunched around my waist, his body covering mine as heat rushed to my face as I tried to push him off. “Get off me.”Draven sat up fast, shielding me
BUTTERCUP I watched the door close behind Draven as he went to see Seraphina, and I felt my emotions finally snapping inside me. “Enough of this shit,” I muttered to myself, sliding off his bed. My legs still felt weak but I forced myself to move. I grabbed my dress from the floor and pulled i
BUTTERCUP What the hell was I supposed to do now?I turned away from the cheering crowd, my legs were shaking as I did. Then a strong hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me hard. “Come with me, now.” Draven’s voice was low and rough in my ear. I didn’t fight with him, I couldn’t even if I wanted







