Serena’s POVIt was aching, in my chest, in my limbs, all the way up to my bones, as if the moon itself had reached down and sucked me dry. I blinked heavily and my eyelids seemed to ache under the leaden weight, a sharp whiff of herbs and antiseptic stinging my nostrils. I was in the infirmary of my pack, the low flicker of lantern light casting odd shadows on the stone walls. My skin was sore, not just from the fight but from something beneath it, a throb deep within.I attempted to sit and a sudden stab ripped across my side, I gasped. I placed my hand to my belly automatically and felt a tender pudge that reminded me of my own little lineage. “Easy, Serena,” a deep, gravelly voice said next to me. Derrick. I winced, turned my head, and saw him sitting on a wooden chair next to the bed, his green eyes shadowed with fatigue. His shirt was wrinkled, his hair disheveled as if he hadn’t slept in days. Maybe he hadn’t.“You’re awake,” he said, leaning forward with hands clasped togethe
Derrick’s POVMy chest was rising and falling heavily, my muscles aching from the struggle, blood seeping from a slice across my forearm. Serena lay tied to a stone slab that had been dragged to the clearing, her wrists rubbed raw by rough ropes, her green eyes shining with stubbornness, despite the fear I could smell on her. My mate. My everything. And I’d be the one who let her fall into this trap.Rhys was in front of her; his shadow was a parody of the friend I remembered. His amber eyes were glinting with malice, and he was sneering in such a way that made my wolf growl under my skin. He had a curved knife carved down with runes that shimmered slightly in the dim light of the moon. The sight of it sent a chill down my spine. I recognized that blade—I’d watched him wield it during the massacre, when he’d carved Rhys’s mark onto the fallen. Now, it was inches from Serena’s throat.I balled my fists, claws aching to erupt through. “Let her go, Rhys. This isn’t about her.”He laughed
Serena’s POVI was standing at the rail of the Packhouse, the wrought iron railing the only thing between me and the blood red sky, my hands shaking. It was not just any moon — it was a warning, a surge of ancient power that reached into something held deep inside. My unborn child, safely nestled in my womb, appeared to feel it as well, it's heart beating. But the visions… they didn’t go away.Now they came in flashes, uninvited and cruel. A ring of rogues repeating themselves under a sky of blood, their voices growling and crooning to some evil spirit. In the middle, a stone altar, glowing with an eerie green light. And my little—my unborn baby—chained by shadows, as that power was drained from it for a spell that would bind it to Rhys’s will. I wouldn’t let that happen. Not to my baby. Not to the last thing I had that was truly mine.“Serena,” the voice said, softly and firmly, waking me from the dream. It was Elder Mara. Her quick eyes, as little as she was, were measuring me with
Derrick’s POVThe clearing smelled of off musk, a bitter tang that made the back of my throat itch with a warning. The altar’s obsidian surface gave off a pulse of radiance, somber light carved in the stone that hummed with an energy I couldn’t quite comprehend, but that sent a shiver down to the thick of my bones. Serena was beside me, eyes round, lunar mark dimly visible. My wolf snarled inside me, demanding I protect her, tear down anyone who threatened her or her child. But my blood ran cold at the sight of Sophia, stepping into the light. She was a ghost from Serena’s past, and a venomous one at that; one who had once torn her world apart. And now here she was, in my pack, a wicked grin on her lips that said nothing but trouble.Sophia’s eyes met my gaze with a long defiant stare. "Did you expect me, Alpha Derrick?" Her voice weaved, every word laced with a knowledge that sent me into tightening my fists. “I come in peace. For now.”“Peace?” I snarled, moving forward and protect
Serena’s POVThe note we had found pinned to the gnarled oak by a dagger yesterday was still seared into my mind.As Derrick marched forward his feet, his broad shoulders set towards the house, his alpha aura seemingly crackling in the moonlight. Elliot stood on my right, beside me. We had been in the car since the packhouse and the two men hadn't exchanged a word, the silence between them sharp enough to cut. I could feel it — their competition, their unspoken stakes in me, and the heaviness of truths neither would ever tell in full. My lunar mark pounded away under my sleeve, as though it knew what awaited us behind the altar.And here he was in the clearing: a black ring of old stones that glowed silver in the moonlight. In the middle, at the middle of the chamber, was an alter, a piece of obsidian carved with symbols that seemed to pulse with a soft glow. My breath caught. The carvings brought out the crescent-shaped mark on my shoulder — a mark I’d been born with, the one my moth
Derrick’s POVI felt my fists grip hard with my knuckles paining, the monster within me congraving with fury to be released. He remained there, his broad shoulders drooped, his blue eyes flashing with guilt as he was forced to confess to being the father of Serena’s baby. The words pierced me in a way no claw ever had, slashing into the fragile trust I had finally forged between us. My mate, Serena, the girl whose scent consumed my every breath was pregnant with another man’s baby. And that man was Elliot — the coward who’d refuse her, shame her, and now go around trespassing on my property, claiming he wanted to make shit right.I wanted to rip him apart, to let my wolf tear through his flesh until there was nothing left to kill but regret. But I couldn’t. Not yet. Not when Elise—my so called betrothed—had beeb whispering in Rhys’s ear, telling him all our strategies, our weak spots. I’d suspected it for weeks, but now I had proof—a intercepted message, written in her graceful hand,