LOGINDANTE'S POVOpened across three screens in my office were Diana’s corrupted file. The data had taken me days to decode.At first it looked like nonsense, but Diana never left nonsense behind, she only left traps, and instructions disguised as chaos.I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my temples.“Talk to me, Diana,” I muttered under my breath.As if she could answer, as if the dead ever did.The file finally stabilized after I ran the last decryption layer, and everything clicked into place at once.My eyes moved slowly across the screen, tracking shell companies, hidden subsidiaries, and internal Blackthorn travel records that should never have existed in the same dataset. Yet there they were, interlinked and entirely deliberate. My stomach tightened. This wasn't random data corruption. This was mapping. Someone hadn't been attacking Blackthorn from the outside; they had been building a network from within, guiding the blade from the inside out.Standing up, I walked over to t
LENA'S POVI never expected to be the one demanding peace, especially not after all the blood, the lies, and the graves. Yet, three days after the Hunter's warning, I was standing in the war room and staring at maps covered in red markers.None of those markers belonged to Blackthorn, and none belonged to Kingshade.Instead, they belonged to something worse: the hunter syndicates.For years, these hunters had hidden in the shadows, making money from conflicts between wolf territories. While Blackthorn and Kingshade destroyed each other, the syndicates grew stronger. Now, they were moving openly. Entire settlements had vanished, scouting teams were disappearing, and supply routes were under attack. The reports arriving every hour painted the same picture. They were not preparing for small raids; they were preparing for a war against everyone.Dante was sitting across the table with his arms folded while Jax remained beside me, silently. The familiar warmth of his presence stead
CALLUM REYES POV The fortress of Kingshade had survived three wars, multiple famines, blood feuds, and Alpha rebellions. I told everyone who would listen that it would survive whatever was coming next. But the truth was far less comforting. While standing on the highest balcony of the keep, I watched hundreds of warriors training below. Preparations were accelerating because war was already coming. The distinction mattered. Blackthorn thought they were preparing for a standard invasion, but they were wrong. They were preparing for an awakening. And those were two entirely different beasts. I closed my eyes, tightening my fingers against the stone railing. Even now, after all this time, the memory of Diana remained entirely intact. It wasn't fading or weakening; it was just waiting, like an old wound that never truly healed. Most people believed Diana Blackwell had been the great mistake of my life. They were wrong. She had been my greatest joy and my greatest terror. The
JAX POVThe morning after felt worse than the battle.I'd been stabbed before, shot, nearly torn apart by rogues but none of that compared to walking through my own territory and feeling the doubt in people's eyes.The moment I stepped into the main courtyard, every conversation stopped. Not all of them though but just enough. A group of warriors standing near the training grounds fell silent as I passed them, one of them looked away immediately when my face fell on him. Another held my gaze a little too long. The message they passed was was clear.They were wondering about the same question that was spreading through Blackthorn like a disease.Was I still Jax? Or had Lena already changed me?I kept walking with my jaw clenched. My wolf hated it but i tried to ignore them along with their reactions. A part of me understood why they were questioning me. The entire territory had watched wolves kneel before Lena, all through pure instinct not even through force. They had seen her
LENA'S POV I stopped counting the days after the third sunrise because the tower had become my prison. It was my choice but still my punishment. It was the highest room now in Blackthorn and I could overlook the entire territory. From the narrow windows, I could see forests stretching for miles, I could see mountains rising beyond them, and the distant walls of the estate below. Being able to see all of this freely should have felt like freedom to me but it didn't, instead, it felt like I was being put in a cage. Because every hour I spent alone gave me more time to think, and more time to remember what the Hunter had told me. It gave me more time to remember the wolves kneeling, more time to remember the silver eyes staring back at me from the mirror. I wasn't afraid for myself anymore, I was afraid of what I could do to everyone else, especially Jax. The books scattered across the room offered no comfort, neither did the old journals Dante had sent me, every story always en
DANTE'S POV I was at the head of the table with my hands resting flat on the polished wood. I didn't sit. Sitting gave the illusion of comfort, and there was absolutely no comfort to be found in this room anymore. One of them was a ghost. One of them was the shadow billionaire who had funded the slaughter of our youth, balancing the scales of our misery to line their own pockets. I scanned their faces slowly, letting the silence stretch until the younger elders began to shift in their seats. On my left sat Elder Thomas, his old hands trembling slightly as he adjusted his spectacles. Next to him was Elder Victoria, her expression was a mask of cold stone, her fingers tapped a rhythmic, irritating beat against her teacup. Across from them were the others, men and women who had run the logistics, the finances, and the food supplies of Blackthorn for decades. I had trusted them. I had buried friends alongside them. Now, every smile they gave me felt like a blade waiting for
LENA’S POVThat morning when Dante came to my room and said it's time to return home, I didn't know how to feel. To be honest, I've come to enjoy it when it's just me, Jax and Him. There were less guards, less drama, just meetings and fun activities. I guess all that is about to change now. Dante
LENA'S POVWhen I returned to my room, it felt different. It felt very much like someone had been inside my room. I realized it the second I stepped through the door.At first, nothing looked wrong. The bed was perfectly made, the curtains stayed half open and the lamp glowed softly beside the couc
LENA'S POVKeeping the hoodie was a big mistake which became painfully obvious by the third day.Because right now it was sitting folded carefully on my bed like a physical evidence of my declining mental stability. Every time I looked at it, I thought about Jax carrying me upstairs, his heartbeat
LENA'S POVThe estate had never felt normal. It was always too guarded, too tense, too filled with dangerous people pretending they were not dangerous.So when Dante announced movie night at dinner, I genuinely thought he had finally lost his mind."A what?" I asked flatly."Movie night," Dante rep







