Marked in the Middle

Do you ever get that gut feeling like you’re being set up? That’s where I was the morning after the pendant showed up in my kitchen. I didn’t sleep. Not really. Just laid there staring at the ceiling, thinking about how something I didn’t find ended up in my apartment like it belonged here.I didn’t touch it. Hell no. I just looked at it from across the counter like it was a bomb waiting to go off. I even left the kitchen light on all night. Like that would help.By sunrise, my brain was fried, and I needed answers. Real ones. Milo Deen hadn’t responded to any of my messages—not a peep since the job offer. Weird, right? You don’t ghost a tracker you just paid serious cash to. Unless you’ve got something to hide.So I did what I always do when something stinks: I hunted down the smell.First stop—Viremont Archives.I threw on a hoodie, yanked my braid through the back of a cap, and shoved the pendant in a lead-lined pouch. The less it touches the air, the better. Magic objects soak up

We left just before sunrise, when the streets were still groggy and too tired to care who was slipping through their cracks. Lira clutched her jacket tight like it was armor, and I could tell from the way her eyes kept bouncing around that sleep hadn’t done her any favors.“Where exactly are we going?” she asked, voice low like we were already being followed.“Grimfall,” I said. “Old sector, near the border.”She froze mid-step. “Grimfall? The place where people go missing?”“Yep. That’s the one.”“And you’re taking me there... why?”“Because that’s where Milo was last seen.”Lira didn’t argue. She just kept walking, her lips tight like she was holding back a scream or a dozen questions. I didn’t blame her. Grimfall wasn’t just dangerous—it was cursed.Once, it was a normal district like any other. Then the war hit. Territory battles, rogue wolves, witches with vendettas. Now it was a cracked-out maze of burnt-out buildings and blood-soaked ground. You didn’t go there unless you were

The thing about running is that eventually, you gotta stop. Either because you hit a wall, or your legs give out, or—like in our case—you run straight into the one person you’ve been trying to avoid.And by “one person,” I mean Roman Vale.Let me back up.After laying low in Janie’s place for two straight days, eating expired canned ravioli and sleeping in shifts, it was clear the walls were closing in. Janie’s wards were strong, yeah, but even magic gets tiring. Lira was getting twitchy, and I was starting to feel like a sitting duck. I needed info, and more importantly—I needed a damn plan.So I reached out to Roman.Bad idea? Maybe.Necessary? Absolutely.Roman was a name most wolves in Viremont didn’t say out loud. Not unless they wanted to lose teeth. He used to run with the Silver Ash Pack back in the day. Before he broke off. Before he got “exiled,” which was code for “chose not to bow to Kael’s crap and got hunted for it.”He’d been off the grid for a while, living in that blu

By the time we hit the dusty outskirts of Elarrow, the sun was drowning in a thick haze of smoke and storm clouds. The city wasn’t a place you walked into unannounced—not if you had enemies. And Roman had plenty.Elarrow used to be neutral ground. Back when the packs still honored council law and peace treaties held more weight than blood. But Kael had sunk his claws deep into this place. Now, it was a silent city wrapped in shadows, run by wolves who smiled with knives behind their teeth.Roman parked the truck behind a crumbling warehouse on the north side. We kept our heads low, weapons close, scents masked. Lira wrapped a scarf around her hair, hood up, eyes down. But even hidden like that, she still looked like a flare in the dark. She had that Luna energy now—heavy, magnetic, dangerous. The kind that made alphas twitch.“We found Milo first,” I said, eyes scanning the skyline. “He knows this place better than anyone.”“Are you sure he’s stil

The forest outside Milo’s safehouse was breathing wrong. That’s the only way I can describe it—like the whole place had lungs and it was sucking air in too fast, holding it in too long.We’d been back less than an hour since the rescue, and already the girl—Kaela—had turned the whole room into a pressure cooker. She sat cross-legged on the couch, tiny fingers curled around that shard of the Moonfire Pendant like it was her heartbeat. Lira hovered nearby, every instinct screaming “protect,” while Roman paced the perimeter like a caged storm.Kellen stayed near the doorway, leaning on the frame with that lazy predator stance. He hadn’t said much since we got back, but his eyes never left Kaela. I wasn’t sure if he was guarding her or studying her.Probably both.Milo slammed the last of the window shutters shut. “If anyone saw you leave that compound,” he said, “we’re already dead. And by the way—thanks for not mentioning the whole ‘twin pendant’ thing before we strolled into the lion’s