INICIAR SESIÓNSERAPHINAMy room was warmer than the corridor.Nadia kicked her shoes off at the door and climbed onto the bed, pulling the duvet over both of us while I changed out of the lingerie into something that felt less like a mistake and more like myself. Oversized shirt. Shorts and my hair tied back.I climbed in beside her.We sat with our backs against the headboard, the lamp on low, and the chocolate bar open between us. For a few minutes, neither of us said anything. Just existing in the same space the way we used to before everything had gotten complicated.It felt like exhaling.“I drugged the wine,” I said.Nadia turned to look at me.“I put something in it, from the medical supply. To make him talk.” I looked at the duvet. “He figured it out before he drank any of it.”Nadia was quiet for a moment. “How mad was he?”“He threw a glass at the wall.”“The wall specifically or in your direction?”“The wall. Nowhere near me.” I paused. “He would never—”“I know,” she said immediately.
SERAPHINAStupid decisions.Stupid desperation-driven decisions. I was the boss of those.I had been planning it since the archive.Not the lingerie specifically, that had been a last-minute decision born of equal parts desperation and the understanding that Damien’s defenses operated differently when I was in the room and he was trying not to look at me. The wine had taken longer. Agnes kept the good bottles in the lower kitchen cabinet and I’d spent twenty minutes in the chemistry of it, the small vial I’d taken from the pack’s medical supply room, something mild, something that loosened rather than knocked out, something that would make the answers come easier.I’d told myself it wasn’t terrible.I’d told myself a lot of things tonight.When the door opened and he stepped in and stopped, I felt the plan settle around me like something I’d already committed to and couldn’t walk back from.“Seraphina? What are you doing?”I sat up. “Waiting for you.”“You should be in your room,” h
DAMIENMarcus came home on a Tuesday.The packhouse adjusted around him, Agnes reorganizing the ground floor without being asked, the guards changing their patrol pattern so the main entrance was always covered, small practical acts of care that the pack extended without announcement.I helped him through the door myself.He didn’t say anything about that. Neither did I. We had arrived, somewhere between the hospital corridor and the drive home, at a version of each other that didn’t require commentary on every gesture. It was new and it was fragile and I intended to protect it.I got him settled in the ground-floor room we’d converted. Agnes appeared with tea, her smile bright like she had been waiting to be useful and was finally being allowed to be.“I’ll be right here,” she told Marcus, in the tone that brooked no argument.Marcus looked at her, then at the tea, then at me. Discomfort crossed his expression knowing he was going to be mothered whether he wanted it or not and had d
*SERAPHINACarrow’s was the kind of restaurant that existed in the space between casual and serious, with warm lighting, small tables, and where people chose when they wanted a conversation to feel contained.I saw them through the window before I went in. Shane and Nadia were at a corner table, Nadia with her coat still on and her bag on her lap, which meant she hadn’t fully committed to being there yet. Shane was talking. Nadia was looking at the table.I pushed the door open and Nadia looked up.The moment she saw me her expression moved through recognition and then settled into equal parts hurt and anger. She turned to Shane. “Is that why you brought me here?”“Nadia—”“You told me you needed to talk.” Her voice was controlled but only just. “You said it was important.”“It is important,” Shane said. “Both of you, please just—”Nadia was already reaching for her bag properly, already deciding to leave. Something snapped in my chest.“Don’t,” I said. “Please.”She looked at me. “I
SERAPHINAI heard the elders before I saw them.Their voices carried that low formality that suggests they had arranged themselves for a purpose, drifting from the entrance hall into the living room where I was sitting with a book I hadn’t been reading for the past forty minutes.I stayed where I was.Damien’s voice came next. I couldn’t make out the words at first, just the register of it, controlled and tired in equal measure. Then Brone’s voice, measured, as it always was, and whatever he said landed differently than anything else had tonight because the quality of Damien’s silence after it changed completely.“Do you have any idea,” he said, “what this week has looked like? My son is lying in a hospital bed with spinal damage. My border was breached by an organized unit of wolves that we cannot identify. My pack has a leak I haven’t located yet.” The control was fraying at the edges in a way I had never heard from him before. Never once in four years. “And this is what you bring
DAMIENMarcus said it again as though he wanted to make sure I’d heard it correctly the first time. “They came for Seraphina.”He sounded more sure. It helped back up the conclusions in my head in the most terrible way. I sighed. “Tell me everything,” I said. “From the beginning. Every detail.”Marcus shifted against the pillow carefully. “We were on the south ridge. Eastern curve of the route. Sera heard them before I did.” He paused. “Three of them, already shifted when they came out of the trees.”“Positions?”“Triangle formation. Two flanking, one centre.” He looked at the ceiling, reconstructing it. “The centre one came straight at her, not me. At her. I was standing right there and it looked through me like I wasn’t a factor.”“And you stepped in front of it.”“Yes.” He said it without ceremony. “It was moving fast and she was already reading the other two and I just—moved.” His jaw tightened. “It hit me hard. Claws across the chest, caught my shoulder. I went down.”“What happe







