Mag-log inElara“My daughter did what?!”My father’s roar carried through the entire house. I wasn’t sure which daughter he was furious about — whether he had discovered that I was hiding Mandi and her mother on our lands, or whether this was about Louisa. I crept down the hall to his doorway and was immediately hit by the scent of cotton candy. My mouth watered before I could stop it. Biological response. Entirely involuntary.I angled myself to see into the room. Kaelen was seated across from my father’s desk, mostly with his back to me, his arm in a sling. “She has colluded with Julian to take over the pack,” he was saying. “When I refused to give them full control, they attacked me. I was caught off guard, outnumbered — I had no choice but to flee for my life.” He sighed with co
JulianThe night was dark and cold, a killing frost threatening in the still air. Autumn leaves had scattered across the training field, and it seemed the entire pack had assembled on the grass, their breath rising in small clouds. The anxiety was palpable — I could feel it, hear it in the low murmur of voices speculating around the edges of the circle that had begun to form.Wisdom and experience against youth and physical fitness. Many of them hadn’t seen me since Kaelen’s ascension, when I had been so diminished I could barely stand upright. I wasn’t that man anymore. The months of running — literally, through the woods, away from Louisa and everything that terrified me about her — had done their work. My body had remembered what it was.And now I had something worth fighting for.
JulianFor all intents and purposes, I had signed over everything I owned to Louisa and our unborn child. It wasn’t a great deal — some personal investments, a sum in savings — but it was enough to let her
KaelenFinally, Louisa and Julian were both out of the house at the same time, and I had the perfect opportunity to search the old Alpha suites for my mother’s gun. I had the master key in my pocket, but I didn’t even need it. Louisa never bothered to lock her door. What a trusting fool. I pushed it open and cringed against the scent that practically slapped me in the face. I never, in my life, smelled a woman who was so damn unappealing.As the door swung open, I took stock of the room. It bore very little resemblance to my mother's room anymore. Louisa had added her own little touches everywhere, and had filled the bland space with splashes of color. It was… not terrible. I took another step into the room, and then realized there was a door on the floor.What in the actual hell?The door that separated the two rooms was off its hinges and just lying on the carpet, for no apparent reason at all. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the door jamb and the handle had been damaged, like so
LouisaThat wasn’t exactly how I had planned for things to unfold, but the cat was well and truly out of the bag.“There are no take-backs, Missy!” Gerald Halfmoon said, once he had recovered enough to speak. “You may be regretting your decision, Julian, but the blood ceremony was performed. Unless Kaelen willingly passes the Alpha mantle back to you, what’s done is done. It’s irreversible.”“Nothing is irreversible,” Ruth said, waving her cookie in the air. “There is always an option to replace a weak Alpha. Julian will have to challenge him.”“But — an Alpha challenge is to the death!”“That’s right!” Gerald said, with entirely too much satisfac
JulianAll I wanted was to get back to Louisa.She had occupied every corner of my mind all day — her smiles, the soft sounds she made, the way she sighed in her sleep. And underneath all of it, steady and impossible and real, the sound of our baby’s heartbeat.I was still trying to make sense of the fact that our tiny, barely-formed child had somehow expelled Kaelen’s venom from Louisa’s blood and healed the mark entirely. Not a trace of a scar remained — I had confirmed that by close examination while she slept. I hadn’t known such a thing was possible. But it only reinforced what I already knew in my bones: Louisa was meant for me. The whole catastrophe with Kaelen had never been going to hold.And it had all come about because of me. Because I had been
LouisaHow could this have happened?I imagined every woman who had ever stared down an unplanned pregnancy had asked herself exactly that. It was a silly question — we all knew perfectly well how it happened. But in my case I was genuinely puzzled. It was common pack knowledge that despite more th
MandiSomething was wrong with the Luna. I could feel it — and I suspected the whole pack could too. Ever since she came back from Silvercrest she was different. She still moved through her days with her head up, still smiled at the right moments, but it was like someone had turned down a dimmer on
JulianLouisa was driving me crazy.The day I found her pruning Annie’s roses, the rational part of my brain understood perfectly well that she had done nothing wrong. She was the Luna now — whatever Kaelen’s deliberate refusal to hold the official ceremony might suggest. The pack, the house, and t
ElaraI flew down the stairs the moment I spotted the unfamiliar car in the driveway, burning with equal parts relief and curiosity. Louisa had been frustratingly vague every time I asked about her mate, and I was long overdue for answers.By the time I reached the main floor, my father had already







