MasukCalla'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
Calla's POVThe pain woke me before the light did.It started in my wrist, the way it always did now, a deep burning that crawled up toward my shoulder. I lay still on the bedroll for a moment, breathing through it, listening to Brynne’s slow breaths beside me. He was still out cold, sprawled on his back, dead to the world. He’d drunk enough last night to fell three men.I eased myself up without waking him and reached for the small pouch I kept tucked in my dress.It was Brynne’s idea, the remedy. A few days ago, when the pain first got bad, he’d cut his own palm and let a little of his blood drip into a cup of water and crushed herbs. Alpha blood is strong, he’d said. It won’t cure it. But it might hold it back.It had sounded strange to me at first. Mad, even. Drinking his blood like some creature out of an old story.But it worked.Not completely. The veins still spread. But when I drank it, the burning dulled. The fever eased. I could think straight again, could stand without
Calla's POVBrynne stormed out of the tent first.“Fuck,” he said under his breath. Then louder, to no one. “Fuck.”I slipped out after him, keeping my hood up. He was walking fast, his shoulders tight, his hands still curled like he wanted to hit something. The whole camp seemed to lean away from him as he passed. Even the wounded went quiet.I had to half-run to keep up.He didn’t head back to his tent. He cut across the hollow toward the far edge of the camp, where a larger tent sat with its sides rolled up and a few rough tables set out front. It was the closest thing this place had to a pub … a supply tent that someone had turned into a drinking spot, with barrels in the back and tired soldiers hunched over cups. The smell of cheap ale drifted out into the cold.Brynne walked straight in and slammed his hand on a barrel.“Drink,” he told the man behind it. “All of it.”I stopped at the edge of the light.I should stop him. That was my first thought. He was the Alpha. He had a
Calla's POVThe meeting tent was bigger than Brynne’s. A low fire burned in the center, and the air was thick with smoke and the smell of too many bodies. Brynne’s commanders stood along one side. Across from them, near the entrance, the enemy’s messenger waited under a white cloth tied to a stick … the flag of truce.I stayed close behind Brynne with my hood low, just like I’d promised. Just another guard. Just a shape in the shadows.Then the messenger turned his head, and the firelight caught his face.I froze.I knew him.I knew him so well it made my blood go cold. I had seen that face a hundred times. In Tyson’s halls. At Tyson’s table. Standing at Tyson’s shoulder while Tyson spoke to me soft and kind and told me I was safe.He was Tyson’s right hand. His closest man. The one who never left his side.And he was standing ten feet from me.My heart slammed so hard I thought everyone could hear it. I wanted to run. I wanted to disappear into the ground. Coming here had been a m
Calla's POVI pushed open the flap of Brynne’s tent and stepped inside.“Oh, fuck. What the hell.”Cass was sitting on the bed. The one with the scar across his jaw and now he just looked scarier. He sat there like he owned the place, elbows on his knees, watching me with calm eyes. The little fire in the corner threw shadows across his face.My hand went straight to my back pocket. Brynne had given me a small knife earlier, just in case. My fingers closed around the handle.“What are you doing here?” I asked. My voice came out steadier than I felt.Cass smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile.“I have a little message for you, dear Calla.”My stomach dropped. He knew my name. Brynne had told me to keep it secret, and this man was already using it like it was nothing.“From who?” I asked. I kept my hand on the knife.“Oh.” Cass leaned back, slow and easy. “Just our future Alpha. Tyson.”The name hit me like cold water.My knees went weak. I had to lock them so I wouldn’t drop. Tyson. Out
Calla’s POVThe cab rolled to a stop at the edge of Central Station and I had the door open before the wheels had fully settled.“Thank you,” I told the driver.He didn’t respond. His eyes were already back on the road, his radio already being switched to a different station. Whether that was guilt
Calla’s POVI had never been a woman who packed slowly.In another life, before Ash Creek, before Blade Blackthorn and breeder arrangements and gilded cages dressed up as fairy tale rooms… I used to help my mother pack up the house every time my father’s debts caught up with us. We moved four time
Calla’s POVI don’t want to let her go. Every instinct I have screams at me to keep holding her but I force myself back, pressing myself against the foot of the bed as the healer drops to his knees beside Adele.His name is Godfrey. He’s been the pack’s healer for thirty years. I have never seen hi
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







