LOGINRico’s POVI had been running for twenty stairs, and I knew exactly where the arrow was going.I saw it from the top of the final flight, a pale streak across the Heart Chamber, aimed at a silver-haired man who had closed his eyes and opened his arms. I saw Elara’s face turn toward me, white and terrible. I saw her mouth shape my name.I did not think.For four hundred years I had been the one nothing could touch, the king who walked through war with a cold smile and woke each morning exactly as he had gone to bed. It was only in the last four months that I had learned what it was to be afraid. And I had learned, with sudden crystal clarity, that I was not afraid of dying.I was afraid of standing still.I threw myself in front of the Sovereign.The arrow took me high in the chest, just under the collarbone.It did not hurt.That was the first strange thing. There was only a hard, bright shock, lik
Maren’s POVMy son was four years old when the mountain took him.His name was Tobin. He had red hair and a gap in his front teeth and a stubborn streak that drove his grandfather mad. He wandered off during a berry-picking trip, a single moment of turned backs, and by the time we found him, three days later, he was lying in a drift beneath a stand of black pines, curled around a wooden horse, his face turned up as if to listen to something.He had been asked to lie down.I have never been able to forget the look on his face. Peaceful. Content.I told my father I would never forgive the Frostveil. My father, who had lost his own pack’s children to the same cold, said nothing. He only held me.I have a gray hood and a quiet voice and a good bow. I have waited eleven years.When the Concord called for observers, I did not tell my father I was going. I told only Veyron’s old quartermaster, who owed me a favor, and who
Elara’s POVMy parents had built their house in nine days.It stood at the foot of the Weeping Falls, a low stone cottage with a slate roof, a crooked chimney, and a front door painted the color of cornflowers. Smoke rose from the chimney. Someone had planted herbs in a row of pots along the sill. When I came up the path with Flame’s hand in mine and Rico’s arm around my waist, the door swung open before I could knock.“You’re early,” said Aislin, wiping her hands on her apron. She looked ten years younger. There was color in her cheeks and flour on her sleeve. “Come in, come in. I’ve made soup.”I started to cry.“Oh, Elara, it’s only soup.”“It’s not the soup.”“I know.” She pulled me into a hug that smelled of woodsmoke and thyme. “I know, my love.”We stayed that night in the little room under the eaves, the four of us tucked into a bed meant for two. Flame fell asleep with her head on my arm. Rico, sti
Kael’s POVI have faced assassins, warlords, shadow beasts, and the personal wrath of a god.I had never been so nervous in my life.“Hold still,” Dax muttered.“I am holding still.”“You’re fidgeting.”“I am not”“You’re fidgeting with your dagger, Kael.”I looked down. I was, in fact, spinning my favorite blade in slow, anxious circles. I stuck it into my boot, folded my arms, and glared at the training yard, which was empty except for the two of us and a heap of frozen straw dummies.Dax stood a few feet away with his hands behind his back. His left shoulder was still bandaged under his tunic. A smear of snow clung to his hair, and he looked like a man about to be sentenced.“I wanted to ask you something,” he said.“I have something to ask you.”“Let me go first.”“No, you’ll do it badly.”“I will not do it badly!”“You always do things badl
Elara’s POVThe fever came in the night, three days after the Concord.I woke to the sound of Rico’s breathing. It was wrong, shallow and fast, and when I touched his forehead my hand came away wet. He was burning. His skin, which had always run cool, felt like a hearthstone.“Rico.” I shook his shoulder. “Rico, wake up.”He opened his eyes. They were glassy, unfocused.“Elara,” he mumbled. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”“You are not fine.”“It’s only the ribs.”“It is not only the ribs!”I was already out of bed, flinging open the door, shouting for Liora. She arrived in a nightgown with her braid undone and her satchel bumping at her hip. She took one look at him and her face went grim.“How long?”“I don’t know. I woke up and he was like this.”Liora laid a hand on his chest, closed her eyes, and was silent for a long time. When she opened them, they
Elara’s POVSilverfang’s old hall had never been meant for peace.It was a vast, drafty cavern of a room with high stone arches and a floor of cracked marble, the kind of place designed to make visitors feel small. Banners from six packs hung from the rafters. A great horseshoe table stood in the center, and around it sat the alphas of the Western Reaches, a ring of grim faces and folded arms.I walked in with my head high and a three-year-old on my hip.“The Queen Elara Valoran,” the herald announced, “Luna of the Obsidian Crown, Bridge of Storm and Earth.”Every eye turned.Rico walked at my left, still limping, in plain black with no crown. Dax and Laura followed behind. Flame was dressed in a little green tunic with a sprig of holly tucked in her hair. She gazed around the hall with wide, interested eyes and waved at an elderly alpha, who, to everyone’s surprise, waved back.I took my seat at the head of the tab
Kai’s phone buzzed once more on the nightstand Thorne again,They’re circling the block. Two scouts. Ronan’s personal enforcers. They know she’s here.He silenced it, heart pounding with a mix of fury and possession. Elara lay asleep in his arms, body soft and warm, the faint curve of her lower bell
Kai returned at dusk, the sky bleeding orange and purple over Pine Ridge.Elara was upstairs in the loft, fresh from a shower that had done nothing to cool the constant low burn between her legs. Her body was a traitor sore in the most exquisite ways from the night before, pussy tender and swollen,
The bell chimed like a warning shot.Elara stepped through the beaded curtain, heart already racing from the quiet evening loneliness that had become her constant companion.She froze.Kai stood inside the door, shoulders filling the frame, black henley stretched obscenely tight across his chest, dark
Elara drove until the sun was high and her eyes burned from crying.The mountain road twisted behind her like a bad memory she couldn’t shake. Every bump jolted her sore body, reminding her of how thoroughly she’d been used how thoroughly she’d let herself be used. Her pussy was tender, swollen, sti







