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
Andrei’s POVThe forest was almost too dark to see, even with my wolf’s enhanced vision, as we made our way through the underbrush. I led the search party deeper into the Thornwood, following the same path that the rogues would have taken when they fled Bloodmoon.My jaw clenched as I pushed aside a
“The rogues will come again,” I said. “But I know that, although they may knock us down, we’ll always get back up. We are strongest when we stand together. When we refuse to bow to fear or grief or pain. Tonight, we light these pyres.”I gestured to the pyres, and only then did my voice break as I w
Natalia’s POVI woke to the sensation of a horrible pain in my head. It throbbed and ached like I was being drilled in the skull with a jackhammer, and I felt immediately sick from it, like I might retch at any moment.Swallowing down the bile that began to bubble up in my throat, I tried my best to
Natalia’s POVWe arrived in Bloodmoon before the end of the second day of traveling. Andrei said it was because we traveled quickly with our numbers, those in front creating a path through the Thornwood for those behind, but we really knew the truth.The rogues were gathering their forces north. The







