เข้าสู่ระบบChapter 443XENOIS"Someone has to make sure you eat something besides coffee and stress," she said, smiling. "The boys asked about you at dinner, by the way. Lake wanted to know if you were ever going to come out of your office again or if you'd 'turned into a paperwork monster.'""A paperwork monster," I repeated, laughing. "That's fair, actually. I feel like one.""Riley's science fair project won first place, by the way," Sophia said, and her whole face lit up telling me about it, the particular glow she got whenever she talked about Riley's achievements. "The electromagnet thing. The judges apparently couldn't stop asking him questions, and he answered every single one without missing a beat. You should have seen him up there, Xenois. So confident. So sure of himself.""That's incredible," I said, and meant it, a swell of pride moving through my chest. "We'll have to do something to celebrate. Maybe that place he likes, the one with the
Chapter 442XENOIS"Do you know if he's a beta or alpha werewitch?" Zade asked."No idea," I admitted. "He's never said, and it's not exactly a casual dinner topic.""If he's an alpha, you probably don't need to worry about that particular conversation," Zade said. "If he's a beta, it depends on where he falls on the spectrum, and honestly the kid himself might not even know yet. A lot of werewitches don't find out their exact affinity until their magic settles fully, which can happen anywhere from their late teens to mid-twenties.""Terrifying," I said. "So there's a chance he doesn't even know if he can get pregnant.""There's a chance," Zade agreed. "Lyn didn't know for certain until he was twenty-three, and even then it was mostly guesswork until it actually happened."I rubbed a hand over my face, feeling distinctly out of my depth. Parenting a human teenager came with its own set of anxieties, but at least I understood the basic s
Chapter 441XENOISThe stack of paperwork on my desk had reached a height that made me seriously consider setting it on fire and blaming Jerome's ghost for the arson.Two years of relative peace should have meant less paperwork, not more. Instead, the opposite had proven true—territorial agreements to renegotiate now that Jerome's old holdings had been carved up among the surviving allied packs, trade routes to reopen, a dozen smaller disputes that had been shelved during the war and were now clamoring for my attention like children who'd been told to wait too long and had run out of patience.I signed off on a grazing rights dispute between two border territories, initialed a request for additional training resources from the youth division, and was halfway through a report on the reconstruction of the eastern barracks when my phone buzzed against the desk.Zade."Please tell me you're calling with good news," I said, answering without
Chapter 440RILEYMom picked us up after school, the same warm smile, the same easy questions about our day, and I found myself talking twice as much as usual, filling the car with chatter about my science project and a book I was reading and a hundred small, inconsequential things, like I could somehow balance out Ollie's silence with my own noise. It was a thing I did without quite deciding to do it. Had done for as long as I could remember. Ollie went quiet, and I got loud, like our whole selves were built to counterweight each other."You're extra talkative today," Mom said, glancing at me in the mirror with obvious affection."Just a good day," I said, and didn't look at Ollie, who was staring out the window with his wolf clutched in his lap.That evening, after dinner, I overheard Grandma Silvia on the phone with Mom in the kitchen, their voices low but not quite low enough that I couldn't catch pieces of it from the hallway."
Chapter 439RILEYOllie went quiet again at breakfast, the way he did most mornings, and I didn't think much of it beyond the usual small worry I carried for him without really examining—the worry you get about your twin, some instinct older than reason, a sense that he was carrying something heavy that I couldn't see the shape of.I was too excited about my magnet project to dwell on it long. Mom had listened to my whole explanation with that focused, delighted expression she always gave me when I talked about the things I loved, nodding along like every word out of my mouth actually mattered, and I basked in it the way I always did, warm all the way through."You're going to blow everyone away at the science fair," she told me as she buckled Lake into the car, and I felt my chest puff up with pride."Riley thinks everything blows people away," Lake said, grinning at me from his booster seat. "Even the boring stuff.""It's not boring,"
Chapter 438OLLIETWO YEARS LATERThe smell came first, before anything else in the dream ever did.Wildflowers. Not the smell of the garden behind our house, which was mostly roses and something my mother called lavender that made my nose itch. This was different. Wilder. Sweet in a way that didn't sit in my chest so much as it wrapped around it, gentle, the way a blanket wraps around you when someone tucks it in tight enough that you can't wiggle free even if you wanted to.I never saw a face in the dream. That was the part that bothered me most, more than the smell itself, more than waking up with my heart going too fast and my sheets twisted around my legs like I'd been running somewhere in my sleep. There was just warmth, and the smell, and a voice that hummed instead of talking—no words, just a tune I could never remember once I was awake, no matter how hard I tried to hold onto it in the first few seconds before it slipped away like water down a drain.I had the dream maybe onc
Chapter 198: A Necessary AllianceXENOIS"That's exactly what I'm asking," Marcus replied without hesitation. "I need your help getting these werewolves into Shadow City undetected."All three vampires took an immediate step backward, their friendly demeanor evaporating."Are you out of your mind?"
Chapter 197: VoicemailsXENOISI pulled out my phone to check on Lumina before we left for what could very well be a suicide mission. The boys would be at their therapy appointment by now, and I wanted to hear her voice one more time, just in case things went wrong in Shadow City.The phone rang on
Chapter 195: Hired KillersRILEYI sat in the therapist's chair, my fingers were silently drumming against my leg as Dr. Sloane continued asking questions that felt like they were coming from very far away, like I was in a haze, and nothing seemed real to me. My mind wasn't really in the room anymo
Chapter 155: The Long DriveXENOISThe drive to Zade's territory felt endless, every mile stretching out like an eternity as guilt gnawed at my conscience. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles white with tension as I replayed the events of the past few days over and over in my mind.Be







