LOGINKAEL'S POVI've been on this log for a long time when Voss finally walks toward me.I hear him coming before I see him. The clearing goes slightly quieter as he moves, the way spaces go quieter when the most important thing in them shifts position. The other wolves track him without looking directly at him. The kind-voiced man stops talking mid-sentence and watches.I put my hands flat on my knees.I sit straight.Voss stops in front of me.He's even bigger up close. He fills the air around him differently than other people. Like the air knows he's important and rearranges itself accordingly.He looks at me for a long moment without speaking.I look back.*Don't look away first,* I tell myself. *Mama never looks away first.*Something shifts in his expression. Not quite respect. Something like it."You're not afraid," he says.His voice is deep and slow. Like he decided long ago that words were worth taking time with."I didn't say that," I say.He tilts his head slightly. "Most child
THE SHADOW PACK'S CAMP KAEL'S POVThe man with the kind voice told me it was an adventure.That's what he said when he came to my room. He crouched down to my level the way grown-ups do when they want you to feel like they're not bigger than you, and he smiled and he said “come on, little one, your mother sent me, she wants you to see something, it'll be quick.”I knew him. He had a Beta smell. I didn't know exactly what Beta meant but I knew what the smell meant, important, someone my mama had to be polite to even when she didn't want to be. He came with the official smell. The pack smell. The kind that meant he belonged.He said mama sent him.So I went.I forgot my boots.I realized it three steps into the corridor and turned back for them but he said “it's all right, it won't take long” and he was already moving and I thought about the castle I was building and how I wanted to finish the tower before morning and I thought it won't take long so I went without them.That was a ver
THE ALPHA'S NIGHTMAREEIRA'S POVCassian signals the formation to slow.He gestures two unit leaders forward. They materialize from the formation smoothly, the practiced response of people who watch for signals without being told to watch for them. A man named Cade who commands the eastern flank and Senna, the woman who questioned Cassian's choice to lead northeast himself.He speaks to them in a voice pitched for the four of us only."Reece's count puts them at fifty minimum, split across multiple flanks. They have high ground advantage and preparation time. They've also had hours to identify our likely approach angles." He pauses. "Which are the same approach angles Japheth designed our search protocols around."Cade's jaw tightens. "He told them where we'd come from.""He told them where we'd come from," Cassian confirms. "So we don't come from there."Senna looks at the trees. Calculating. "The eastern ridge. It's rough ground, takes longer, but it comes out above their most likel
TRACKS IN THE DARKEIRA'S POVI have never been in this part of the forest at night.I've walked the southern edges in daylight. Learned the pack territory in pieces over the past two weeks the way you learn anything when you're trying to look like you belong somewhere, carefully, quietly, without drawing attention to the fact that you're mapping exits.But this part of the forest, the northeastern stretch that bleeds toward the neutral territory between packs, is different at night. The trees grow closer together here. The canopy thickens until the moonlight comes through in broken pieces, scattered across the ground like something dropped and not yet collected. The undergrowth is dense and dark and full of sounds that have nothing to do with us.My eyes adjusted quickly once we passed the tree line.Faster than I expected.Faster, I think, than they used to.I file that away and keep moving.The unit moves in a formation I don't know the name of but understand instinctively, a loo
THE SEARCH CONTINUES CASSIAN'S POVThe hall is still moving around me when I feel Eira at my peripheral before I see her.I've been aware of her since we came down from the tower. It's the bond that pulls my attention toward her without asking permission, the same way it always has, even when I was spending five years pretending otherwise. Right now it's telling me she's behind me and to my left and that the quality of her stillness is the kind that costs a great deal to maintain.I turn.She's watching the room. Standing just inside the entrance with her arms crossed, not in anger but in the way of someone holding their own ribcage together. The emerald dress. Still the emerald dress. Her hair coming loose from whatever arrangement it had earlier. Her eyes moving across every warrior and every weapon and every unit forming up with the systematic attention of someone cataloging, processing, preparing.She's building a picture. Making sense of the machinery. Understanding what's being
SEARCH PARTYCASSIAN'S POVI have led men into danger before.More times than I can count. Border disputes. Rogue wolves. Pack challenges that turned violent before diplomacy had a chance to breathe. I know what it looks like to stand in front of warriors and send them toward something that might kill them. I know the specific weight of that responsibility. The way it settles in your chest and stays there until everyone comes back.Or doesn't.But I have never stood in the middle of my own great hall, surrounded by flowers from a celebration that ended an hour ago, and given orders with this particular quality of desperation underneath them.Because this time it isn't pack duty driving me into the dark.It's something I don't have five years of practice managing.I push it down.Lock it somewhere below the part of me that needs to function.And I start giving orders."Every unit mobilized. Full capacity. No one stays behind except essential palace staff and the healers." I move throug
Forty-Seven: The InvitationEIRAThe mark on my neck is slowly healing, and deep down, I don’t want it to. I want to expose my neck for the whole world to see.A giddy smile spreads across my face as I stare at my reflection. Black hair, pale skin, blue eyes. I pinch my cheeks to add some colour, a
Forty-Two: You’re MineEIRACassian stares at me, looking so deeply into my soul. He takes a step forward, and I take two back.Just like a predator, his eyes flash, lips curled up in a wolfish smirk, exposing the tips of his fangs.A low rumble echoes in his chest. “I’ve missed you, mate.”My stom
Forty-Four: Betrayal And ForgivenessEIRAI see the moment it dawns on him. Cassian’s gaze cuts to Kael, then to me.“He’s an alpha,” he whispers from the floor.Asha struggles to take Kael, and she succeeds while he screams and cries.“We’re sorry, carry on,” she pats Kael on his back, shutting th
Forty-Six: Healing Abilities Returned?EIRA“Oh goddess, Esme. I’m sorry.” I drop to my knees. Pain shoots up my legs, and I wince.Cassian steps in immediately, picking me up. “What are you doing? You’ve hurt yourself.”Blood seeps out from knees, mixing with the dark liquid. Small glasses poke ou







