LOGINMorning came slowly.I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, unmoving, as if shifting even slightly would disturb whatever fragile thing had settled inside me overnight.The gathering. The bench.The quiet.The way his voice had softened when he said he would wait.And then—The kiss.My breath caught faintly at the thought of it, my chest rising a little deeper than before. My heart responded immediately, picking up in a way that felt unfamiliar and yet… not.My wolf stirred. Not urgently. Just — present. Aware.I closed my eyes briefly, pressing my lips together as if that would stop the memory from replaying—but it didn’t.It had been real.Not something borrowed.Not something I was pretending to understand.Something I had chosen.Slowly, I exhaled and opened my eyes again, staring back at the ceiling.Last night, I had been ready to tell him the truth.And somehow—I hadn’t.Instead, I had stepped closer and kissed him.“Ahhh!” I screamed, embarrassingly, kicking my feet u
The words hung between us, fragile and heavy all at once.Lucian stilled.Not just in movement—but in presence. His attention sharpened, his gaze locking onto mine with a quiet intensity that made my pulse stutter.“The truth,” he repeated.“Yes.”He looked at me for a moment — searching, careful. “What truth, Mila?” He asked.His voice was calm.Too calm.Like he already knew this wasn’t something small.My throat tightened. My fingers curled slightly at my sides as I tried to steady myself.I opened my mouth—“I…” And before I could even complete the sentence.A sudden rustle broke through my words from somewhere beyond the stone wall.Sharp and sudden, something between a snap and a crash, the kind of sound that didn’t belong to the gentle night we had been sitting inside. Lucian was on his feet before I had fully registered it, every line of him shifting into something alert and ready. In one smooth movement, he stepped in front of me—not fully blocking me, but enough to place
The night settled gently over Nightshade, cool and steady, carrying the quiet hum of voices and the glow of lantern light across the pack house.Lucian and I had spent the entire day together—talking until the afternoon slipped past us without notice. He had taken me through parts of the territory I didn’t remember, showing me places that were supposed to feel like home, explaining things with that same calm patience he carried everywhere.As we neared the pack house, the sounds of life reached us—wolves gathered in small groups, laughter weaving through the night air, the crackle of a bonfire in the central courtyard.The pack was alive—breathing, moving, waiting.For me.Lanterns hung between the trees in long strings, catching the last of the fading daylight and holding it there—amber, gold, warm. The smell of woodsmoke reached us before anything else, and then it all came at once: voices layered over each other, the low rhythm of movement, someone laughing just beyond my line of s
He crossed the grass with the same unhurried steadiness he carried everywhere, and I stood very still and told myself to breathe.My face felt hot. I was aware of it in the particular, helpless way you become aware of something you cannot control, and the awareness only made it worse.Lucian stopped a few feet away.He looked at me — at my face, at the box in my hands, at whatever my expression was doing that I couldn’t quite get under control — and something in his eyes softened.“Good morning,” he said.I said nothing and simply looked away from him.Lucian tilted his head slightly, studying me with that unhurried attention. "Are you… alright?"I still said nothing. The silence stretched. A bird called somewhere in the oaks. Lucian waited with the patience of a man who had learned not to fill quiet with noise.Then the warmth in my face shifted into something else.Anger.“You didn’t come,” I said.The words came out before I could stop them.Lucian blinked. "What?"“Last night,” I
The morning air was cool and smelled of damp earth and pine. Amira led me around the side of the pack house with the confidence of someone who had done exactly this kind of thing many times before, steering us along the wall until the outer shed came into view. Lucian stood at the centre of a loose circle of elders and senior warriors, a map unrolled across the table before him. I stood at the edge of the path and looked at him. He hadn’t noticed us yet. His attention was entirely on the map and the men around him, one hand resting flat on the table, the other gesturing. The morning light caught the lines of his face — the jaw, the scar, the quiet authority that seemed to cost him nothing. “As Luna,” I said quietly, more to myself than to Amira, “I should be at his side for something like that.” Amira glanced at me. “You will be,” she said. “It’s just a matter of time. I know you — I know you hate sitting still. But you’re still healing. Handle yourself first. Everything else fol
Morning came quietly. Too quietly. Pale sunlight slipped through the curtains, spreading softly across the wooden floor. The birds outside had already begun their morning chatter, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the pack grounds slowly coming to life. But Lucian had not come. He had said he would check on me that night. At first I told myself it didn’t matter. He was the Alpha. He had responsibilities, patrols, meetings. It would be foolish to expect him to appear simply because he said he would. And yet. I had found myself listening for his footsteps in the corridor long after the pack house had gone quiet. Every time I thought I heard something, I had gone still — and every time it turned out to be nothing, the disappointment was sharper than I had any right to feel. Which was ridiculous. I sat up and frowned at the wall. Why am I doing this? Why should it matter to me? I turned the question over carefully, the way you turn something unfamiliar in your hands t
The garden path wound deeper, away from the house, until the tall hedges gave way to a small clearing ringed by ancient willows. Their long branches draped low, forming a natural canopy that filtered the sunlight into soft, shifting patterns across the grass. At the center sat a stone bench, worn s
The fire had burned down to glowing embers by the time the last of the pack drifted away. Laughter still echoed faintly from the far side of the courtyard, but here, near the ivy-covered wall, the night felt private, like the world had stepped away.Lucian and I remained on the bench, shoulders tou
Morning came quietly. Mist moved through the trees like soft smoke. I woke before the sun rose. The pack house was still silent.Lucian was not beside me. His place in the bed was empty, but still warm. He’d slipped out sometime in the night for patrol, leaving only the faint imprint of his warmth
There was nothing.No pain. No light. No sound.Just... emptiness.I felt like I was floating in a dark space, slowly disappearing, until there was nothing left of Elara Ashwood but scattered fragments of memory and regret.Is this death?The thought felt far away, like it didn’t fully belong to







