ログインDawn broke over the Whisperwind mountains like a blade of pale gold, slicing through the lingering shadows of the night before. The forest around Aria and Kaelen stirred with cautious life—birds beginning tentative songs, leaves whispering as if trying to reassure the world that morning had truly come. But peace was a fragile illusion. Beneath the beauty of sunrise lurked the unmistakable tension of a future soaked in blood.Aria walked beside Kaelen as they made their way back to the pack compound. His arm was wrapped around her waist, supporting her as much as she supported him. He had regained most of his strength thanks to her Luna aura, but the wounds he’d endured—physical and emotional—still glimmered beneath his skin. Aria felt them all through their bond, every ache, every flicker of pain. He felt hers, too, though he tried fiercely to hide it.Ahead, smoke curled upward from the pack’s chimneys. Guards spotted their approach and sent a roar of warning, then recognition. Warri
The world lurched sideways as the fortress walls finally gave way under the pressure of clashing Alpha power. Dust rained from the ceiling. Torches flickered violently, and the stones beneath Aria’s feet trembled like they might bolt from the earth altogether. Kaelen’s roar still echoed through the ruined chamber where Lucien had tried to mark her, a furious sound that had rattled the marrow in her bones and driven fear into whatever was left of Lucien’s brittle patience. Now, in the immediate aftermath of that clash, the air simmered with the remnants of Alpha dominance—Kaelen’s fierce and grounding, Lucien’s poisonous and lingering.Lucien stood opposite them, eyes gleaming with the kind of unhinged delight only a man who believed himself untouchable could wear. His armor was cracked, blood dripping from a shallow cut across his cheek, but he still managed to smile as if he were the victor rather than the one forced back. Aria leaned into Kaelen as he shielded her with his body, but
The world blurred around Aria as Kaelen thundered through the forest in his massive wolf form, each stride fueled by desperation and primal fury. Cold wind whipped against her face, but she clung to him tightly, burying her forehead into his neck as though the closeness could erase what had happened inside Lucien’s fortress. Her body trembled not from fear alone, but from the violent drain of power she had unleashed. Every breath burned her lungs, yet she didn’t want Kaelen to stop.His wolf snarled deep in his chest, vibrating through her bones. She felt his rage in the bond—hot, blistering, murderous. He didn’t speak in words; his wolf rarely did in this state. Instead, she felt fragments of emotion pouring into her in jagged bursts.Mine.Safe.Never again.Never.But they were still too close to Lucien’s territory. She sensed the dark magic pressing at their backs, the echoes of Lucien’s howl chasing them through the trees. Kaelen slowed only when they reached a ravine where the e
The forest should not have been that quiet.Aria sensed it before she saw anything—an unnatural stillness, the kind that presses against the skin like a hand trying to smother breath. She had come out with a group of trackers to scout the northern ridge, a region Kaelen suspected Lucien had been testing with small incursions. The morning air was cool, threaded with pine, the kind of briskness that usually made her wolf hum with alert contentment. But today her wolf paced inside her restlessly, tail low, ears pinned.Something was wrong.The trackers fanned out, sniffing for signs of rogue infiltration, but Aria’s senses tugged her farther, deeper, toward a clearing where light filtered in silver strands through the canopy. Her heart tightened. Every instinct told her to return to Kaelen immediately. Yet duty held her, even as unease pooled in her stomach.She pushed through a stand of old cedars. The moment she stepped into the clearing, her breath stopped.Someone was waiting.A man
The border fires still smoldered when the first whisper came.Aria had barely slept after healing dozens of survivors. Her limbs ached with exhaustion, her magic flickering low and unsteady, her mind still heavy with the Elders’ warnings about prophecy. Yet dawn had barely touched the sky when one of the omegas burst into her chambers, breathless and trembling.“L-Luna Aria,” she stammered, clutching a velvet-wrapped box. “This arrived at the gates… addressed only to you.”Aria’s stomach dropped.“Who delivered it?” she asked.“A stranger. Hooded. His scent was masked.” The omega swallowed hard. “He… he said it was a gift from your admirer.”Aria’s blood turned to ice.Kaelen wasn’t in the room—he was still outside with warriors, securing the traumatized villages. But through the faint tether of the bond, she felt a pulse of cold rage that told her one thing.He had sensed something.“Put it on the table,” Aria said gently.The omega nodded and placed the box down before fleeing the r
Firelight stained the horizon long before the alarms rang.Kaelen stood atop the eastern watchtower as flames rose in a jagged line across the distant trees, turning the night into a hellish mirror of Aria’s nightmares. Smoke billowed upward, spiraling like dark serpents toward the moon. The crackling roar of spreading fire carried even across miles of forest, and beneath it—faint but unmistakable—came the anguished screams of villagers.Lucien hadn’t just sent scouts this time.He had sent destruction.Kaelen’s jaw tightened until pain shot down his neck. His claws pushed through his fingertips, his wolf scratching frantically for the chance to ravage something—anything. His entire body pulsed with the instinct to sprint straight toward the fire, tear into the rogues, and not stop until their blood slicked the earth.But Aria was behind him.Aria, who had just broken free of Lucien’s mental intrusion.Aria, whose fear had hit him through the bond like an arrow to the heart.Aria, who







