LOGINThen I whispered, “She woke because of truth.”Nicholas’s POVTruth.The word cut deeper than any blade.Watching Esther’s wolf awaken, seeing that glow ripple through her, was like watching dawn break inside my own ribs. Norman howled in joy, circling like a storm.Mate. Whole again.I wanted to re
Esther’s POVThe moon hung low over the palace courtyard, pale and thin as if it too had been hollowed out by truth.I hadn’t slept in days. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Carl’s face in that hospital bed, the IV line glowing red with Nicholas’s blood, a thread connecting them that could never b
I couldn’t stay. Not then. Not with the room spinning around the truth.I turned on my heel and left.Outside, the evening had turned cold. The palace gardens stretched wide and silent, shadows long across the stone. I made it halfway to the fountain before the first surge of fury hit, hot and wild
Nicholas’s POVIt was supposed to be an ordinary morning.A quiet one, even the kind where the palace felt less like a fortress and more like a home. The smell of breakfast bread drifting through the halls, the faint laughter of children somewhere near the east courtyard.Then came the scream.High.
I turned the page without a word.Inside, the fragile hope I’d been nurturing began to splinter.Nicholas found me near noon.He stormed in, half out of his formal jacket, eyes dark and wild. “Who leaked this?”“You’re asking me?” I said.“I’m asking everyone.” His voice was a snarl. “They’re saying
Esther’s POVThe palace had never been this bright.Golden banners fluttered across the courtyard, musicians tuned lutes and violins, and trays of sugared fruit glimmered beneath the sunlight. All of it, the music, the laughter, the illusion, was for Sofia.My daughter. My little girl who had someho
He’s our mate, she whispered one night, voice faint but undeniable.“I know,” I breathed, tears stinging my lashes. “But he broke us.”He can mend us, too.I wanted to scream. Instead, I pressed my forehead against my knees and let the tears fall silently into the folds of my nightgown.Trust wasn’t
“Cake time!” she chirped, clapping her sticky hands. “Please?”Esther turned to her daughter with a trembling smile. “Yes, sweetheart. Cake time.”The storm retreated by inches.For the next several minutes, I stood on the outskirts as the crowd pretended nothing had happened. Children laughed. Cand
The child’s laughter cut through the air like sunlight through fog—bright, piercing, utterly disarming. I hadn’t heard anything like it in years.It came from Sofia. My Sofia.The name echoed through me like a wound reopening and refusing to heal.From my place beneath the old oak at the edge of the
Esther’s POVSofia’s handwriting was a battlefield of backwards letters and overexcited loops. The little envelope landed on our kitchen table like a spark from another world.“Look!” she chirped, cheeks flushed from the late-summer heat. “I wrote it all by myself. No help from Carl!”She shoved the







