MasukKAEDENMy 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
SILASThe smell of failure is unmistakable.I stand at the center of the ruined clearing, my claws still extended and I take the sight in, basking in the stinging humiliation of defeat.The altar is cracked down its center. Torches lie guttered across the dirt, their flames reduced to thin, directionless wisps. My warriors are distributed across the ground, some moving, some in the slow, effortful process of remembering how their bodies work. A handful are not moving at all, and I note their positions.The violet glow of the teleportation spell has faded, leaving nothing but a mocking silence and scorched earth.And she is gone.Taken.From my altar. From my ceremony. From my hands.Gone.A murmur moves through the crowd that has gathered at the clearing's edge, the pack, confused and frightened and looking to me. Shifting forms stumble through the dark, their whimpers echoing off the jagged rocks."Alpha? What was that?""Was that... was that Prince Kaeden?"“How did...”“Who were th
AVARAI’m scared and confused but very, very relieved.I didn’t marry Julian.I’m free from Silas.I don’t know how long my freedom will last, or even what the freedom pertains, in this strange place, but I’m willing to enjoy this, momentary as it may be.Silas will be back, though. I know it. He needs me for something. I have something that he wants. I don’t know what that is, but he actively pursued after me when I was little, killed my family, brought me to the pack, wiped my memories and pretended that all those years, the only reason why he kept me by his side was because of his benevolence.And I believed him. Even though he never had a kind word, or even a kind look for me, I believed that he somehow had compassion for me and maybe, somehow, cared for me.I was a fool. I know better now.I wince as a bout of pain shoots up my face, straight through my skull. Whatever the demon ‘doctor’, Scyla, gave me to keep me strong enough for the ritual, it is fading away and with it, all t
KAEDENThe moment my feet cross the boundary line, Fenris surges, not gradually, not controlled, not the careful managed descent I've spent years perfecting.A detonation.Bone shatters and knits itself back together in the span of a single agonized heartbeat. Muscle tears apart and rebuilds, denser, stronger, wrong in the most magnificent way. My senses explode outward, the world rushing in all at once, every heartbeat within a hundred meters suddenly audible, every scent a physical thing I can almost touch.I tear through the fabric of the night. The ground beneath my paws is a blur of frost and stone as I cleave through the Silvermoon pack like a lightning bolt through a stagnant forest. The black and russet wolves of the pack recoil, caught between the sacred silence of the ritual and the sheer, blinding velocity of my approach.I see her.Avara. A ghost of ivory silk, standing trembling before the altar, her legs barely holding. The High Priestess’s blade is a silver sliver in th
AVARAMy legs tremble violently as I attempt to walk away from the horrors of Alpha Silas’ office, from the demons and the Hollow Walkers and the dark, dark magic I had no idea the man I called my father had affiliations with until this evening. Pain erupts through my body in cascading waves, but I fight it, not out of resilience, but out of fear. I’ve learnt this evening that I don’t know who the man, Silas is. But if there is one thing I know, it’s that I’ve not seen the worst of what this man can be. The worst of what he can do."Watch your step," he hisses, not bothering to look at me. "We wouldn't want you collapsing before the ceremony now, would we?"The ceremony.The word detonates somewhere behind my sternum.For a moment, I crane my eyes to their periphery, and briefly contemplate running. But it’s hopeless. I’m weak. I can barely walk and whatever shit the demon doctor shoved into my face is the only thing keeping me steady.Scyla. I should have trusted my intuition long ag
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
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
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
SILASI collapse against my mahogany desk, my fingers gouging into the wood.“Fuck!”It has been a few hours since I returned from the Seculum, and I still feel like I have been flayed from the inside out, every single organ of my body broken and stitched together with black magic. And it hurts like







