Mag-log inLUCA——“Breakfast is served,” I announced as I turned from the counter.Kiki was just stepping into the living room with the children. One on each side of her. Their small hands wrapped tightly around her fingers like she was the only solid thing left in their world. The sight of them together did something strange to my chest. Something warm.I had dismissed every omega in the house earlier that morning. No noise. No whispers. No curious eyes. I needed the pack house quiet today. These children had already seen enough chaos for a lifetime and I refused to let them wake up to it again.Kiki looked up when she heard my voice.She tried to smile.It did not fully reach her eyes but it was real enough to hurt. There was effort in it. Strength. The kind you use when you decide to keep standing even though your knees are shaking.I knelt slightly and spoke softly to the kids, keeping my voice low and easy. “Food first,” I said. “Then we can talk about anything you want.”The boy nodded se
KIKI—I tried to open my eyes but they felt heavy, swollen, like they did not belong to me anymore. Like they had cried themselves empty the night before and decided they were done with this life. My head throbbed gently and my chest felt tight, like something had wrapped itself around my heart and refused to let go.Then memory rushed in. It crashed into me all at once.Stella.My mom.Dead.The word still did not sound real. It echoed inside my skull like a bad joke someone forgot to laugh at. I felt my throat close immediately, breath catching, panic rising before I even fully woke up. My body reacted before my mind could catch up. Grief does that. It does not ask permission.I forced my eyes open.Morning light poured into the room, bright and soft and completely wrong. The sun had no right to be shining like nothing had happened. The world should have been dark. Quiet. Still. Instead, golden light spilled across the bed and hit my face, making my eyes burn so badly I had to sque
LUCA——The first rays of dawn cut through the blinds, soft and fragile, brushing over the small forms of the children still clinging to me. I had driven quietly back to the pack house, careful not to wake Kiki, careful not to let anyone else see the weight on my shoulders. The car smelled faintly of lavender from the air freshener I had ignored until now, and the smell made my stomach twist. Life had to go on, and yet the world felt broken beyond repair.I carried the little girl inside first, holding her close to my chest like she was a fragile fragment of glass. Her brother’s hand was still in mine, small fingers curling around my thumb as if the connection could tether him to something solid in a world that had spun violently out of control. I could feel their fear and it made my wolf bristle in instinctive anger, but I forced it down. This wasn’t the time to rage. This was the time to build a home, even in the shadow of a massacre.Kiki’s door was still closed. I had left her sle
LUCA——Kingsley’s voice dropped when he spoke again.“Well, Luca… Stella’s two kids are in the car that brought her mother’s body here. They won’t stop crying.”That sentence hit harder than any report he had given me all night.I turned slowly to face him. “Why was her body brought here in the first place, I mean The former queen is meant to be buried beside her husband right and that’s in our pack.”“The warrior that brought her here made a mistake with the location, I will have him redirect immediately” he said already mind linking the so called warrior.Tradition always shows up loud and proud when it is too late to protect anyone.I ran a hand down my face and looked past him toward the car parked at the edge of the grounds. I could hear it now. The sound I had been trying not to think about. Thin, broken cries. The kind children make when they are too young to understand death but old enough to feel it hollow them out.“They lost everything in one night,” Kingsley added quietly
LUCA—I stayed with her long after the room went quiet.Kiki lay curled on her side like the world had shrunk into something unlivable, tears drying on her cheeks and lashes clumped together in even her breath uneven even in sleep. Falling asleep had not come easily to her. Every time her body drifted, it snapped back like it was afraid of where her mind would go if she let go completely.I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her fight rest like it was an enemy. She has just lost the rest of her family which made her present condition very understandable.At some point she started shaking, small and subtle at first, like a nightmare was creeping in through the cracks. I did not think. I just moved. I pulled her gently into my arms, slow and careful, giving her time to resist if she wanted to. She did not. She melted into me like she had been holding herself together with pure will and finally ran out.Her forehead pressed into my chest. Her fingers curled into my shirt.“It’s okay
LUCA —— I have fought wars. I have buried warriors. I have stood in rooms full of blood and loss and still walked out breathing. But driving back to the pack house with Kiki crying beside me felt like the most brutal thing I had ever survived. I kept my eyes on the road because the moment I looked at her properly I knew I would lose control, and control was the only thing standing between us and complete collapse. Her pain sat in the car like a living thing. Loud and suffocating. Every sob felt like it punched straight through my ribs and lodged itself in my lungs. I told myself one thing over and over again. Do not fall apart. Not yet. She curled into herself like she was trying to disappear, arms wrapped tight around her middle, shoulders shaking, breath broken. She looked smaller than I had ever seen her, and the bond reacted violently to that. My wolf slammed against my chest, furious and panicked and ready to tear the world apart for hurting what was mine. I forced







