LOGINKAEDEN“So... the moment of truth. After so many attempts at trying to get you to listen.” I laugh, trying to make the atmosphere less intense, really more for me than her.Because the truth about her origins and Silas plans are not the only things I intend to reveal to her tonight. I also very much intend to reveal that well, that she’s my mate.And I don’t even know how to begin.She laughs too. “Yeah, well, I really was a stubborn little shit, wasn’t I? And I would have saved myself a truck load of trouble if I had just listened from the start.”“Don’t blame yourself. You barely knew anything about me other than what my father must have told you. You had your rights to be suspicious.”“Oh, but I do. The signs were all there, glaring, really. But I let myself be deceived and gaslighted and lied to and now I don’t even know truth from deception anymore.”She sighs and I feel my heart ache for her, for all that she has been put through. And underneath the aching remains that relentle
JULIANI lean beside the oak tree at the training courtyard, watching the disaster subtly brewing. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to have to co-lead a war that will surely end in my death, given the display that Kaeden showed, how so easily swooped in and took Avara, the magic he had at his disposal, one rivalling and easily defeat Silas’... magic?I wonder how no one has talked about it yet. About how the Alpha could shoot fire and dark tendrils of smoke off his fingers, dark tendrils that looked suspiciously like dark magic.But I guess that everyone else has something more dastardly on their mind. Just like me. And what is on my mind at the moment is the fact that I do not want to be on the losing side. The wrong side.My father hisses as he comes to my side. "Look at them," he hums, though his voice is like a razor. " because a single Gamma was found wanting."I look. The warriors are lined up in uneven rows, their shoulders hunched, murmuring, subtly resisting.Well, no sh
AVARAThis place is... beautiful.I look around at the trees, the birds, the wild flowers. I have not been in such a beautiful place for as long as I can remember, and I almost feel tears welling up in my eyes.I take a deep breath. Yep. Smells like freedom.“This place is beautiful, isn’t it?”I turn around. Kaeden is behind me, his hand finding it’s place at the base of my back. He looks down at me and smiles brightly.“It is.”“Well, great to know that you’re finally steady. I’ll need to show you around.”“Is... is this where you’ve been hiding? All those years?”He laughs. “Oh, well, this is part of it. But I couldn’t possibly stay in one place, not if I needed to extend the allies I was gathering, especially not with my father’s assassins after me.”“Silas sent assassins after you?”“Surely by now you know what sort of man he is. What he can do.”“I do.” I go silent, the memory of the horrors that I went through before Kaeden whisked me away flashing before me. I shiver. “I’m so
SILASI’ve been mostly locked in my office, thinking, recalibrating, restrategising.And also, very much so, beating myself up.I do not take losing easily and this is my biggest loss yet.Perhaps I have wasted some time over the days of brooding instead of making advancements. However, I do know that Avara is was in too bad of a shape when Kaeden took her to be in perfect health at the moment, no matter how many witches Kaeden has in his disposal and uses in an attempt to get her to recover.Dark magic doesn’t fade easily. And perhaps it has gotten me some time.Anyways, right now, my head is clear. And it is time to start making movements. I’ve thought up several extreme measures that I will take to recover my harvest, and now it is time to start from the basics.I ring my call bell."Cassius."The door opens. Cassius enters first. Julian follows, and I read him immediately, pale beneath his composure, still looking gobsmacked and shaken by the events of that night.“It’s been three
KAEDENMy jaw tightens.“Do not think we have not already deciphered this, Kaeden,” Maereth says, “But we would much rather like to hear it from your own mouth.”"She's..."The word catches.I exhale."She's nothing," I say.The lie lands in the air and sits there and immediately, comprehensively fails to convince anyone in the vicinity, including me.Dolores raises an eyebrow. “Nothing?”"She's..." I stop. Try again. "It's complicated."I look at them with imploring eyes, desperate to run as fast as I can from this conversation, but none of them budge. It takes a long time of just staring and hoping against hope that they bore of the conversation before I sigh and finally give in."She's my mate." I finally grit out. “The Moon saw fit to tie me to her. Are you satisfied?"Fenris growls in satisfaction. I nearly snap at him.Maereth's expression softens. "There it is," she says. “For a moment, I feared that those words would not come out of your mouth.”Dolores raises an eyebrow. "The
KAEDENIt has been three days.Three days since I tore her from that altar, since I felt the weight of her in my arms and understood how much of her had already been spent.Three days of watching her breathe, watching the colour slowly return to Avara’s lips and the hollows of her cheeks fill out. Three days of Fenris pacing behind my ribs, a restless, silver tide that only settles when I am within arm’s reach of her.And I remain restless, desperate to be by her side, watch her recover, be there for her.I’ve tried to convince myself that it is because of the discussion that we need to have, because of the plans we need to map out, because I need her to get healed as quickly as possible so that we can begin working on undoing all that Silas has done to dispel her memories and block her abilities.But I know that it is much more than that. I just find it difficult to accept it because anytime I think in that light, let myself bask in my thoughts and feelings, the knowledge of the sacr
KAEDENAfter seeing Silas at the Seculum, knowing the implications of the damned vesting that he had with the Mother of Shadows, there were so many things that I wanted to do… surge more for my allies, reach out to the elves and the pixies and the lonriars, the centaurs I met in the north, the giant
AVARA“Have you noticed that the warriors have become more intense in their training ever since Kaeden came back? My father told me that it was on the Alpha’s commands.”Julian is so close to me that his hot breath is all over my face and I can smell the bacon he had as breakfast. It’s not a partic
KAEDENI’m still panting when we make it back to the witch coven, my eyes wide open with shock, my head spinning, the dark voices that pursued us as we ran out of the Seculum still ringing faintly in my head.Myra has none of her usual flirtatious playfulness as we walk to the main meeting room in t
KAEDENYou would not believe that it is about the break of dawn, with the sheer darkness of this place. The darkness is so dense, it feels like it’s wrapped around me, suffocating me.We took too long getting here. Too damn long. I fear that my father may have finished his business and left.But to







