LOGINI straightened up. My heart was pounding. I looked around the room and for a single, disorienting moment, I had no idea where I was. The black stone walls, the red sky beyond the window, the dead air of this place—none of it felt right. None of it felt like mine. I felt like a man who had woken up m
Andrei’s POVThe collar of my shirt was pissing me off.I had fastened it twice already and it still insisted on sitting crooked, pulling too tight on the left side. I undid it a third time and redid it, slower, watching my hands in the mirror rather than my own face. My reflection had been botherin
Natalia’s POVHe didn’t hesitate.The moment I swung the rod toward him, his hand shot out and closed around my wrist like a vise. My arm wrenched sideways, and I felt the bones grind together under his grip, and the rod fell. It clattered somewhere on the stone floor, rolling away into the darkness
Andrei’s POVThe room was warm. The bed was soft and plush, the pillows made of feathers and velvet. Everything smelled familiar, the kind of scent that you recognize from a past life but can never put a finger on its source.Home.The woman was laying next to me, just as she always did. Amber hair
But I would do it, because the alternative was my children going through whatever came next, and that was not something I was willing to consider.I wasn’t certain yet. That was the only reason I was still trying so hard now. Because there was still a small part of me that thought that there must be
Natalia’s POVThey came for me after what felt like a full day. I say felt like because it really could have been any amount of time, or none at all. But someone did bring me some slop to eat at some point, so that had to have meant that at least a full cycle had passed.I was on my feet before the
NATALIAIt was a strange thing, planning your own funeral.There was no playbook for it. No checklist. No eulogy to write. Just decisions to make in hushed tones—what kind of coffin, what kind of crowd, what kind of lies would be carved into the stone.I sat across from Damon in the study, the morni
NataliaAfter the recent events, Damon and I had agreed we needed someone trustworthy to watch the twins whenever we couldn’t be there. Not wanting the news to spread too far, we began interviewing various staff around the pack, hoping to find someone who might be interested in the job. But it was p
NATALIAI’d been injured before when my car fell from the cliff—cuts, bruises, and fractured rib—but something about this time felt different.Maybe it was the way the pain lingered beneath my skin like a warning, a slow burn of vulnerability I couldn’t shake. Or maybe it was the gnawing weight in m
I knew what Andrei was doing: he was just trying to seduce me to get me to admit the truth, because he knew I wasn’t telling him everything.Well, he wasn’t going to get what he wanted. Not now, and not ever.Composing myself, I pulled back just before his lips could meet mine and said firmly, “It’







