LOGINMira's POV "Why are you here with us?" Briane suddenly asked, tilting her head slightly as she studied me from across the room, her arms crossed but her expression softer than it had been just hours earlier. "What…are you still mad at me?" I asked, my voice small, bracing myself for whatever answer might come next, my hands twisting nervously in my lap. Maybe I'm not supposed to be standing here with them. "No, of course I'm still mad at you, but that's not what I'm saying." She said, waving a hand dismissively, though the corner of her mouth twitched with the faintest hint of amusement. "I'm saying, why are you here with us and not with Nathan? You two should be having a conversation right now. Or are you guys cool? Like, actually cool?" "I…" I stuttered, not knowing quite what to say, my mind scrambling for words that wouldn't come. I don't know if Nathan even wants to talk to me right now, not after everything, not after all the weeks I spent pretending to be something I wa
Mira's POV "Why are you here with us?" Briane suddenly asked, tilting her head slightly as she studied me from across the room, her arms crossed but her expression softer than it had been just hours earlier. "What…are you still mad at me?" I asked, my voice small, bracing myself for whatever answer might come next, my hands twisting nervously in my lap. Maybe I'm not supposed to be standing here with them. "No, of course I'm still mad at you, but that's not what I'm saying." She said, waving a hand dismissively, though the corner of her mouth twitched with the faintest hint of amusement. "I'm saying, why are you here with us and not with Nathan? You two should be having a conversation right now. Or are you guys cool? Like, actually cool?" "I…" I stuttered, not knowing quite what to say, my mind scrambling for words that wouldn't come. I don't know if Nathan even wants to talk to me right now, not after everything, not after all the weeks I spent pretending to be something I wa
Mira's POV "Why are you here with us?" Briane suddenly asked, tilting her head slightly as she studied me from across the room, her arms crossed but her expression softer than it had been just hours earlier. "What…are you still mad at me?" I asked, my voice small, bracing myself for whatever answer might come next, my hands twisting nervously in my lap. Maybe I'm not supposed to be standing here with them. "No, of course I'm still mad at you, but that's not what I'm saying." She said, waving a hand dismissively, though the corner of her mouth twitched with the faintest hint of amusement. "I'm saying, why are you here with us and not with Nathan? You two should be having a conversation right now. Or are you guys cool? Like, actually cool?" "I…" I stuttered, not knowing quite what to say, my mind scrambling for words that wouldn't come. I don't know if Nathan even wants to talk to me right now, not after everything, not after all the weeks I spent pretending to be something I wasn't
Thorne's POV I watched as Ava breastfed Kaelen, her whole body soft and unguarded in a way I hadn't seen in what felt like a lifetime, before she gently placed him in his rocker, watching him drift off into a peaceful sleep with a tenderness that made my chest ache. Then she stood up from the bed, crossed the room toward the mirror on the wardrobe, and slowly unzipped her gown, letting it pool at her feet until she stood there in nothing but her bra and panties, the soft light of the room catching against her skin. "Stop looking and come help me." She said, catching my reflection in the mirror, a teasing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. I stood up immediately, a smile finding its way to my cheeks despite everything we'd been through only hours earlier, and crossed the room to stand behind her. She watched me in the mirror the entire time as I stepped closer, and I leaned down to press a kiss against her neck before unhooking her bra slowly, deliberately, placing another
Darien's POV My head still can't wrap around the fact that I have been trapped, that I, of all people, had fallen into the hands of these dimwits and their pathetic little scheme. How could that even happen? How could I have been so gullible, so easily led around by the nose by a group of humans and half-wits who should never have been able to get anywhere near me, let alone humiliate me in front of over a hundred witnesses? I had a feeling since this morning that things were going to get ruined somehow, some nagging voice in the back of my mind whispering warnings I chose to dismiss as paranoia, but I wasn't expecting something this bad, and I certainly wasn't expecting that I wouldn't even be there, wouldn't be able to do a single thing to stop it while it was actually happening right under my nose. And the most infuriating, almost laughably absurd part of all this is that those dimwits had come completely alone. They weren't backed by any Alpha, weren't flanked by any army of
Darien's POVI think the best word that comes close to what I'm feeling right now is anger, though even that word feels too small, too tame for the storm raging through my chest, because what I'm feeling right now is something closer to madness, something that claws at the inside of my ribs and demands blood before it will settle. I just want to tear each one of them apart, every single person who had a hand in tonight's humiliation, piece by piece, until there's nothing left of them but a warning to anyone else who might think of crossing me.Ava, that cunning bitch, things always work out in her favor every single fucking time, and I can't understand how a woman I broke so completely, so many times over, still manages to slip through my fingers again and again like water I can never quite hold onto. That's fucking impossible, and yet here I am, standing in the wreckage of everything I built, proof that it happened anyway.I roared so loudly that I could feel the floor shake beneath
FLASHBACK CONTINUES Ava's POV "Ava, you can't do this. Please, listen to us this once. Don't do anything drastic." Rhea cried out from the other side of the door, her voice breaking. I could hear her pressed against the metal, could imagine her hands flat against it, trying to reach me throu
Darien's POV It can't be what I'm thinking right now, can it? The thought crashed through my mind, making my chest tighten with worry. No, it definitely can't be. It can't be…that Thorne's memory is coming back? No, that can't be possible. I repeated the denial in my head like a prayer. The drug
Ava's POV FLASHBACK TO THE DAY AVA HAD MET THORNE AND HE HAD STRANGLED HER "Ava, are you okay?" Briane asked the moment I got into the car. She immediately wrapped her scarf around me, covering my neck where the bruises had probably started to form. No, I wasn't okay. The words screamed in my h
Ava's POV "What the hell are you saying?" I asked, my voice sharp with panic. I stood up too quickly from the bed, not thinking, and immediately a crashing, blinding wave of dizziness hit me like a physical blow. The room spun violently around me, the walls tilting at impossible angles. My vision







