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Cassandra"Are you still in love with him?"I expect Jack to bolt when I say yes. He doesn’t. He just nods, doesn’t even flinch. And if he’s rethinking his position on this whole coffee date, his face gives nothing away. He just sits there calmly, receiving whatever information I offer."I'm telling you because you deserve to know what you're dealing with before you ask me to coffee," I explain. "I'm not— I don't play games with people's feelings anymore. I’ll admit I used to and I was very good at it. But I’ve learned my lesson and I'm done with it."He's quiet again. I watch him think—doing my best to read the thoughts in his silence, understanding whether he’s convincing himself of something or still processing the facts. But his face gives nothing away."Coffee," he says finally. "Still yes?"I stare at him. "After all that?""I'm not here for a project, Cassie," he says. "I'm not trying to fix you or be the rebound or prove something. I know who you are and I'm asking if you want
CassandraJack has been hanging around for weeks now. I probably would have noticed him sooner if I hadn’t been so oblivious to any man who wasn’t Noah. But I must have noted his presence, at least subconsciously, because I wasn’t all that surprised when he asked me to dance at the pack gathering. He's a pack warrior—one of the ones who runs the eastern boundary rotations, which means I've processed his patrol logs through the administrative system more times than I can count. I said yes immediately when he asked me to dance too. Did I say yes because Noah’s been flaunting his relationship with Piper and I wanted to show him I don’t care. Yes, absolutely I did. At least in part. It definitely wasn’t because I’m feeling ready to move on. I'm still not sure I'm ready. But that doesn’t really matter now, does it?Noah has officially made his choice clear. My options are to move on or end up completely alone. I'm really running out of reasons to keep saying no to things. So when he com
Noah It’s two days later when we finally get our first break. Cole comes in mid-morning with a folder he's holding and the look of a man who has found something he didn't expect."Eastern correspondence cross-reference," he says cryptically. "Administrative flagged something."He sets it on my desk almost reverently. I pick it up and read it. Then I read it again.Cassandra—I know that’s who did this because that’s the only person it can be. I haven’t hired anyone else permanently, why would I when she can do it for free—has cross-referenced six weeks of eastern border correspondence against Ironwood's internal administrative calendar, specifically the council meeting schedule, which is the information we log in the public-facing administrative record. And the correlation is exact. The skirmishes don't happen randomly within a window. They happen in a specific sub-window: the forty-eight hours following a logged council meeting. When leadership is occupied with internal governance,
Noah I’m still bent over my desk, neck stiff and shoulders drooping, when Piper stops by. She brings food—apparently having decided the useful thing to do is to make sure I eat. She sets it on the desk beside the operational files and stands beside me with a hand on her hip until I give in and look up at her."How are you?" she smiles, waiting for me to return the expression that will prove I’m just as happy to see her.If it weren't for the headache pulsing behind my right eye and the sinking feeling I’m running out of time to solve this riddle, my answering smile might be genuine. As it is, the most I’m able to muster is a weak substitute. She doesn’t seem to notice though. She just circles behind my chair, her hands deftly finding the knots in my shoulders and kneading them away. I drop my head back on a moan, her hands applying just the right amount of pressure. “Oh Alpha,” she murmurs, “I love it when you make those sounds for me.”“Trust me, I love it too.” I demonstrate by m
NoahDonovan Reeves is officially a pain in my ass. The whole situation has stopped being a nuisance and started being a Goddess-damned pattern.That's a different thing entirely. The nuisances, when he was just filing official complaints, were easy to address. Sure, it was a headache and took time I really could’ve used for other things. But it basically boiled down to a written response to the council and his claim was always dismissed. The ugly truth is, it’s not all that uncommon for Alphas, especially power hungry ones, to try expanding their territory through border disputes. If they lose, no big deal. If they win, even better. And unfortunately, some new Alphas or even older ones, don’t want the hassle of fighting the disputeBut this—a relentless assault on my borders—goes way beyond dipping a toe in the water to test the temperature and it takes a lot more than time I don’t have. It takes manpower, tactical plans and strategy, not to mention the risk to my men every time they
Cassandra I’m not sure why I’m so surprised. I’ve been telling myself for weeks that I’m ready for this. I've known for weeks that this was coming, that Noah was going to choose Piper, that I wanted him to, even because he deserves to be happy after everything I did and didn't do.I told myself I was ready. I told myself a lie. Because this… this pain that feels as if my ribs have been cracked open and my heart ripped from my chest, it’s unbearable. My breathing accelerates until I’m gasping for air. Torturous thoughts flood my mind and I’m helpless to stop them. My hands are wet where they cradle my face and I taste salt on my lips. He chose. He chose her and she stayed over and it's done now, it's actually done, and somewhere in this building there is a man and his wolf—his wolf who is my fated mate, who knows it, who has always known it—and he chose someone else, and it’s all my fault.A high-pitched keening reaches my ears before I realize it’s coming from me. The sound cuts off
Skye Of all the futures I imagined for myself, I never dreamed one day I would have to choose between my husband and my unborn child.My hand trembles as I smooth down the front of my dress—a soft blue one that Jaxon once said he liked. I've spent an hour on my appearance, wanting to look my best
SkyeThe rumors spread faster than I anticipated.Despite Jaxon's best efforts to contain the narrative—carefully worded statements to the elders, strategic conversations with influential pack members—the truth has a way of seeping through cracks. By the end of my first week back, everyone knows th
SkyeI press forward, though I'm not even sure which direction forward is anymore.At some point, my wolf stops talking.The silence inside me is worse than the howling wind.I'm alone now. Truly alone. Just me and the storm and the cold that's seeping into places I didn't know could go numb.I can
Skye I can't breathe.The boy—this child who just called my husband daddy—is looking up at Jaxon with complete adoration. And Jaxon... Jaxon isn't denying it. Isn't pushing him away. He's just standing there with his hand on the boy's shoulder, watching me with those cold gray eyes like he's waitin







