LOGINKael’s POVThe mansion feels different when we return, quieter, heavier.Wolves move through the corridors with their heads down. Some carry wounded. Others carry bodies, We won. But victory tastes like ash in my mouth. I carry Maya to the healing quarters. Lay her on a bed that's already stained with someone else's blood.The healers swarm around her. Hands moving fast. Voices low and urgent. I step back. Serena stands beside me. Her hand finds mine. Neither of us speaks.There's nothing to say. The casualty count comes in by nightfall. Thirty-two dead. Eighteen from Silver Crest. Fourteen from the eastern packs, Another forty wounded. Some will recover; some won't. I read the names on the list.Wolves I've known since childhood. Wolves who trusted me to keep them safe. I failed them. "You didn't fail anyone." I look up.Serena stands in the doorway of my study. Her face is tired. Her clothes are still stained with blood. But her eyes are steady. "You're thinking too loud again," she
Serena’s POVI don't know how they found me. One moment I was behind the lines. Safe. Watching the battle from a distance like Kael ordered.Next, a hand clamped over my mouth. Something sharp pressed against my throat. A voice whispered in my ear. "Scream and you die." I didn't scream; I should have. Now I'm standing at the edge of a battlefield with my hands bound and Elena's wolves at my back, and Kael is staring at me like his world just ended.The bond screams between us. His rage. His fear. His desperate, clawing need to reach me. I feel all of it; I feel him."Let her go." His voice carries across the clearing. Human now. He shifted back without me seeing it. "This is between us, Elena. She has nothing to do with it."Elena laughs.The sound is cold. Musical. Wrong."Nothing to do with it?" She steps closer to me. Her fingers trail along my jaw. I flinch. "She's the whole reason we're here, little Alpha. The prophecy. The power. The bond that makes you weak." Her hand drops."K
Kael’s POVI don't remember moving. One moment I'm standing on the wall. The next time I'm running through the gates. Wolves shout behind me. Someone calls my name; I don't stop.Marcus lies in the dirt. Broken. Bleeding. His face is barely recognizable beneath the bruises and cuts. I drop to my knees beside him. "Father."The word feels wrong in my mouth. Foreign. After everything he did. After everything, he admitted, but he's still my blood, and Elena did this to hurt me. His eyes flutter open. Swollen. Unfocused. "Kael." His voice is a rasp. Barely human." She knows." "Knows what?""Everything," he coughs. Blood flecks his lips. "The tunnels. The weak points. The rotation schedules." My chest tightens. "How?""Someone." He struggles to breathe. "Someone close, very close." "Who?"He shakes his head weakly. "Didn't see. Just heard. A voice. Familiar."His hand reaches up. Grips my arm with surprising strength. "Protect her," he whispers. "Serena. Whatever happens, protect her." "I
Serena’s POVI can't sleep. The bed is warm. Kael's arm is wrapped around me. His breathing is steady and slow, but my mind won't stop.Three days, two hundred wolves. Elena wants us dead. All of us, And somewhere inside these walls, someone is still feeding her information. I stare at the ceiling and count the cracks in the stone.The bond hums quietly in my chest. Kael's exhaustion bleeds through it. His worry. His fear. He's asleep, but even in dreams, he carries the weight. I turn my head and watch him. His face is softer like this. Younger. The hard lines around his jaw relax. The permanent tension in his shoulders eases.He looks almost peaceful. I reach out. Trace my finger along his cheekbone. He doesn't wake. I wonder if he knows how much I need him. How much I've come to depend on his presence. His strength. His stubborn refusal to give up. I wonder if he knows I'm terrified of losing him.The bond pulses, a quiet answer. He knows. I slip out of bed before dawn. The mansion
Kael’s POVThe whispers start before I reach the great hall. I hear them through walls. Around corners. In the spaces between footsteps, Did you hear?Marcus opened the gate. The Alpha's own father. How do we know Kael didn't know?How do we know he's not lying too?Each word lands like a claw across my spine. I keep walking.The hall is full when I arrive. Wolves packed shoulder to shoulder. Some in human form. Some half-shifted. All of them are watching me with eyes that hold something I've never seen before: doubt. I stop at the front of the room; nobody speaks. Good. Let them wait.I scan the crowd slowly. Looking for the ones who won't meet my gaze. The ones who shift their weight. The ones whose loyalty was already thin before Elena started her games.There are more than I expected. "You've all seen the message," I say. No point pretending otherwise."Elena wants you to question me. To question this pack. To tear ourselves apart so she doesn't have to." A wolf near the back call
Serena’s POVThe training room goes cold. Not the air. The feeling. Like all the warmth just bled out through the walls.Kael stands completely still. The note hangs from his fingers. His knuckles are white.Marcus hasn't moved from the doorway. I've never seen him look like this. Not calm. Not calculating. Not in control. He looks caught."Kael," he says quietly. "This isn't the place." "Then make it the place." The words come out flat. Dangerous. Nothing like the man who was adjusting my grip on a blade thirty seconds ago.Marcus glances at me. Then at Maya. Then back at his son. "We should speak privately." "No." Kael takes one step forward. "Whatever Elena knows, whatever you've been hiding, you say it here. Now. In front of witnesses." "Son.""Don't." The word cuts like a blade. "You lost the right to call me that when you started keeping secrets." The silence stretches. I feel Kael's emotions through the bond. Rage. Betrayal. And underneath both, something that hurts worse: fear
Serena’s POV"You're scared of me." The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.Damien pauses mid-step. Slowly, he turns back to face me. The hallway is empty now. Just us. His smile is still there, but something behind it shifts. "Scared?" He tilts his head. "That's an interesting word.""You
Serena’s POVI don't scream. I want to. The fear is right there, clawing at the back of my throat. But I swallow it down and force myself to think.Someone was in my room. While the whole mansion was in chaos. While wolves ran through the halls and guards shouted orders, I stood in Marcus's study,
Serena’s POV“What did he tell you?”Kael is waiting outside Marcus’s study like he never left.I stop so fast that my shoulder hits the door behind me. He steps closer at once, filling the hall, blocking the light, blocking my way out. His cut shoulder is wrapped now, but I can still smell blood u
Serena's POV"That's not possible." The words leave my mouth, but they sound far away. Like someone else is speaking through me.Kael stands in the doorway, chest heaving, eyes burning gold. The fury on his face is terrifying. But underneath it, I see something worse, fear, he's afraid of me."Kael







