LOGINAsher’s POVThe restraint around my right wrist gave another ugly metallic groan, and this time I felt something inside the mechanism shift.Good.I pulled harder.The entire bed shook beneath me while every monitor nearby started screaming at once. Red warning lights flashed across the room, and the three medical workers surrounding me immediately began talking over one another, one shouting that my current was breaking through while another reached for the suppressant controls. Their panic should have amused me under normal circumstances, it probably would have.Nothing about this felt funny anymore.Ciara.Ayla.The old territory.Those two women are not expected to come back.The words kept circling inside my head until they were louder than the alarms.“His levels are rising again!” the woman shouted. “Increase the stabilizer.”The man nearest my arm reached for the line connected to me, but before his fingers touched it, I forced my eyes open. The lights overhead stabbed into my
Asher's pov My current jumped before I could stop it, and the monitor immediately gave a sharp warning chirp.“What was that?” the woman asked.The man near my arm checked the screen. “His current moved.”“Is he waking?”“No. Probably a reflex. His system is already trying to burn through the suppressant again.” His fingers moved toward the line. “Increase the stabilizer slightly.”Fuck.I forced everything back down before he could add enough to bury me again. Fighting them physically was useless, but I was beginning to understand how the suppressant reacted to me. If I let my current sink instead of pushing against it, the machine calmed. My wolf followed the thought and withdrew with me, though I could feel his agitation growing beneath mine.The man waited several seconds, watching the monitor. “There. It’s settling.”The woman returned to whatever she had been doing. “Still, Ciara? I understand Miss Ayla being suspicious after all the strange things happening around her, but tak
Asher’s POVI was awake and that was the irritating part.If I had actually been unconscious, I could have forgiven the darkness, the heaviness and the strange empty feeling in my limbs. Instead, my mind had been awake for what felt like hours while the rest of my body behaved like it belonged to a corpse.I could hear, think and feel the cold metal beneath my back and the restraints around my wrists, ankles and chest. Somewhere to my right, a machine released a soft pulse every few seconds, followed by the faint burn of suppressant moving through the line attached to my arm.But opening my eyes?Impossible.Moving a finger?Also impossible.I tried anyway but nothing.“Fucking bitch.”The insult existed only inside my head because apparently Ayla had even taken my ability to swear out loud.That offended me more than the restraints.I reached for my wolf and found him buried beneath the same crushing weight. He was there, but weak, pacing somewhere far away with his head low and his
Dax’s POVThe moment I realized someone had deliberately kept me unconscious, staying in that room became impossible.I pushed myself off the bed, only for my legs to nearly give beneath me. Whatever had been used on me was still sitting heavily in my system, dragging at my muscles and making the room tilt for a few seconds before I caught the bedpost. My ribs hurt from Asher’s beating, my jaw throbbed and the current beneath my skin was nowhere near its usual strength, but none of that mattered enough to keep me there. I had gone to sleep or apparently been forced to sleep after making one decision very clearly.I was going to Ciara.I had already wasted five days hiding from her because I could not separate the woman I loved from the history attached to what Ayla said she might be. Five days of allowing old hatred and fear to make decisions for me. After Asher came in and beat some sense into my head, I had finally understood that I did not need every answer before facing her. I cou
Dax’s POVWaking should not have been this difficult.I knew that before my eyes even opened properly. My body felt unnaturally heavy, my thoughts dragging behind me as though I had slept for days instead of hours, and when I finally forced myself upright, the sudden dizziness made me catch the edge of the bed. My ribs protested immediately. My jaw hurt. There was a deep ache across my shoulder where Asher had landed enough punches to remind me that having an insane younger brother was occasionally a physical problem.Those injuries made sense but the rest did not, I heal pretty fast so me not healing of everything means there was an interference.I sat there until the room stopped shifting, then reached inward for my current. It responded slowly, far too slowly, like something had been pressing it down while I slept. Even my wolf remained buried somewhere in the darkest part of me, awake but refusing to come closer when I called.I tried again but nothing then a tired breath left me.
Inara’s POVI had been watching Ayla since we changed vehicles after landing in the supernatural realm, and she was making it annoyingly difficult to dislike her.That alone was suspicious.We had left the human realm hours ago. After the flight, another set of Blackthorne vehicles had been waiting for us beyond the supernatural border, darker and heavier than anything people drove back home, their windows reinforced and their bodies marked with old protection symbols. Since then, the roads had only become quieter, the towns fewer and the forests thicker. Everything around us looked ancient in a way I could not properly explain. Even the air smelled different.That part bothered me more than I wanted to admit.My senses had sharpened since the transformation, so nothing arrived as one ordinary smell anymore. I could separate damp soil from the wet bark beside it. I could smell moving water somewhere beyond the trees even though there was no river in sight. There were flowers growing f







