LOGINAdele's POV“Mummy isn’t home again today, is she, Aunt Bianca?”I already knew the answer. I asked anyway, because sometimes asking made the missing feel smaller, like sharing it spread the weight around.Aunt Bianca was brushing my hair by the window. Her hands stopped for just a second. Then she smiled … but it was the kind of smile grown-ups did when they were trying to cover something up. I was little, but I wasn’t stupid. I could always tell.“No, sweetheart,” she said. “Not today. But you know why, don’t you?”“Because she’s being brave,” I said.“That’s right.” Bianca went back to brushing, gentle through my curls. “Your mummy is the bravest woman I know. She’s out there doing something very important. Something good, for a lot of people. Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s scary. That’s what brave people do.” Her voice wobbled a little at the end. “You should be very proud of her.”“I am proud of her,” I said.And I was. I held onto that, the way I held onto the little wooden
Calla's POVI couldn’t walk anymore.I’d stopped being able to walk somewhere back along the ridge when my legs gave out and dropped me into the dirt. All I could do now was to crawl. I had to get there, whatever it takes. Hand over hand. Knee after knee. One pull forward, then another, dragging my own body across the cold stone like something already half-dead. The Valley of Kings opened up ahead of me, gray and silent and waiting, and I told myself I only had to reach the bottom. Just the bottom. Just a little further.Every movement was agony.The pain wasn’t only in my arm now. It was everywhere … in my bones, in my chest, behind my eyes, a deep burning that pulsed with every heartbeat. The black veins had spread past my shoulder. I could feel them under my skin like hot wires, threading toward my heart.I pulled myself forward another foot and felt something warm slide down my lip.I touched it, and just like I suspected, it was blood from my nose. It dripped onto the pale sto
Cass POVI leaned against the cold stone wall and watched him.Tyson sat in the high chair at the end of the hall like it was already a throne. The fire threw long shadows across the room, and from where I stood I could see what he didn’t want anyone to see. The way his hand trembled when he thought no one was looking. The gray tinge creeped into his skin. The way he held himself, careful, like someone whose body had started to turn against him.“Do you think she’ll do it?” I asked. “Betray her mates. For you.”Tyson didn’t look at me right away. “She doesn’t have a choice. Not if she wants the child to live.” He smiled, slow and cold. “A mother will tear the world apart for her pup. She’ll bring me the Book. She just doesn’t know yet that she’s already mine.”“But can you really save her, though?”That was the question I shouldn’t have asked. I knew it the moment it left my mouth.Tyson laughed.He threw his head back and laughed, holding his stomach like it was the funniest thing
Brynne's POVMy wolf woke me before dawn.He nudged at the edges of my mind, insistent, a low growl rolling under my skin. Up. Up. Wrong. I came awake all at once the way I’d trained myself to on the front lines, hand already reaching for the warmth that should have been pressed against my chest.There was nothing there.The space beside me was cold. She’d been gone for hours.“Calla.” Her name tore out of me before I was even on my feet. The fire had died to gray ash. The cave was empty, the blanket I’d wrapped around her folded back as though she’d left it neatly, deliberately, like an apology.I scrambled out into the thin morning light, my heart slamming against my ribs. “Calla!”Nothing answered but the wind in the pines.I checked everywhere. The treeline, the stream at the base of the slope, the rocks where I’d posted myself the night before. I dropped to all fours and dragged the cold air into my lungs, hunting for her scent, and there it was, faint and sweet and threaded th
Calla's POVI waited until the camp went quiet.The fires had burned low across the hollow. Somewhere out in the dark, a wounded wolf was still moaning, the sound was thin and steady, the way it had been all night. Two more tents stood empty at the eastern edge … the wolves who’d slept in them were on the cart now, or in the ground. No one had said it out loud. No one had to.Inside the tent, Brynne slept.I sat beside him in the dim light and looked at him for a long time. The lines of his face had gone soft in sleep, all the Alpha hardness melted off him. He looked younger like this. I had everything ready. The gloves were on, drawn up past my elbows to hide the veins. The knife was tucked in my back pocket. The little pouch with the vials sat against my hip, and a small bundle of food and a waterskin waited by the tent flap. There was nothing left to do but go.But I couldn’t make myself stand up yet.So I leaned down instead, and I kissed him.I meant it to be quick. A goodbye h
Bianca's POVI turned over in bed and stared at the wall.I had been awake for hours, but I couldn’t make myself get up. The morning light crept across the floor, and the palace stirred to life around me… footsteps in the halls, voices, it was just the ordinary noise of a place trying to pretend everything was normal.It wasn’t normal. Nothing had been normal since the news about my sister spread.I finally pushed myself up and dressed. I needed to do something with my hands, something useful. I always helped around the palace in the mornings … in the kitchens, with the laundry, wherever they needed an extra pair of hands. I liked the work. It kept me busy. It made me feel like I belonged somewhere.But the moment I walked into the kitchens, the talking stopped.The women I’d worked beside for days now turned away from me. One of them pulled a basket of bread out of my reach like I might poison it just by being close. Another whispered something to the girl next to her, and they bo
Third Person POV Blade’s chest heaved against hers, the heavy oak door still rattling faintly from the force with which he’d slammed it shut. His body caged her perfectly…tall, broad, radiating raw Alpha power…yet the second his thumb brushed the delicate skin beneath her ear, something inside hi
Third Person POV The grand hall erupted into pure chaos the second Calla’s words landed.Gasps exploded like fireworks. Chairs scraped backward as wolves half-rose in shock, then sat again, unsure whether to cheer or snarl. Whispers detonated into full-blown arguments…some people looked confused
Third-Person POV Today was the best day of her life. She had decided this before she even opened her eyes this morning. She had lain in bed in the grey of early dawn with a smile already pulling at the corners of her mouth and she had simply decided … today was the day everything she had worked f
Calla’s POVThe word lands like a stone thrown into still water. Engaged.For a moment, I don’t breathe. I don’t move. The phone feels impossibly heavy in my hand, and somewhere far away, I can hear Bianca still talking … rapid, breathless words that blur together into meaningless noise.“Calla? C







