LOGINRAVENI’d been pacing the edge of the northern woods when the news reached me. A scout…mud-splattered and trembling, came running through the trees, his chest heaving. The look in his eyes told me everything before he even opened his mouth.“They let him go,” he gasped.For a moment, I didn’t move. The wind shifted, carrying the scent of pine and blood…faint, but there.“What do you mean they let him go?” I asked, my voice calm, though the tension in my jaw betrayed me.He swallowed hard. “Alpha Kieran’s men… they released the spy. Left him at the border…half dead, Alpha. He’s barely hanging on.”My hands clenched at my sides. I felt that familiar heat crawl up the back of my neck…the one that came every time Kieran reminded me who he was. He didn’t kill the spy because he wanted to send a message. I knew him too well. Death would’ve been mercy.“Where is he now?” I asked tightly.“With Lucian’s healers,” the scout replied. “They say he might not make it through the night.”I turned a
ROWENAI was stacking plates by the counter when I heard two of the kitchen maids whispering by the hearth. Their voices were low, but sharp enough to cut through the clatter of pots and the hiss of the simmering stew. I tried to ignore them at first…Kieran’s business was his, not mine…but something in their tone made me pause.“Did you hear what happened to that spy?” one of them, Mara, whispered, glancing around before leaning closer to the other girl.“Alpha Kieran let him go. Said he wasn’t worth killing.”“What? Let him go?” the other gasped. “After what he did?”I stilled, my hands hovering over the stack of plates. Let him go? That didn’t sound like Kieran at all. He wasn’t known for mercy…especially not when it came to rogues sent by Lucian.Mara shook her head quickly. “No, not like that. They left him half dead, apparently. The guards said the man could barely crawl when they dumped him by the eastern border.”My breath hitched slightly, and I forced myself to keep wiping th
KIERANThey brought him in staggering, chained and thin, eyes wild like a cornered animal. I watched from the doorway because I wanted distance…because distance made me feel in control; and yet every time he cried out something in that room cut across me like a blade.“Kieran,” one of my men spat, hauling him to his feet. The spy’s voice was raw, cracked from whatever they'd already done to him.“Please…please, I don’t know anything; please…” He tried to fix his stare on me as if I were the only anchor left. I let the silence sit for a beat longer than was polite, then stepped forward until my shadow fell over him.“Name,” I said quietly. “Start talking.” His mouth opened, closed, opened again.“I don’t…” he whispered, and then, with a sound that was half sob, half plea, “All right. All right. I’ll talk. I’ll talk.”They wanted details; they always wanted the spectacle of a man unraveling. I heard commands barking; someone jabbing, someone cursing but I kept my voice slow, close to th
RAVENI sat across from Lucian in his study, the scent of burning cedar filling the air. The flicker of the fireplace cast sharp shadows across his face, and for a long moment, he said nothing…just stared into the flames like they held the answer to a war none of us could win. I took a deep breath, knowing I had to say it even if he didn’t want to hear it.“Lucian,” I started quietly, my voice rougher than I meant it to be, “the only reason Alpha Kieran might release that spy is because he wants to make an example of him. You know how he operates. He’ll send him back half-alive…just breathing enough to remind us what happens when anyone crosses him.”Lucian’s jaw tensed, and he closed his eyes, leaning back against his chair. His hand came up to rub the bridge of his nose, a tired sigh escaping his lips. “You think I don’t know that, Raven?” he muttered, his voice low but laced with frustration. “I sent that man because I trusted him. Because I believed he could handle himself. And no
RAVENThe night was silent… too silent. The kind of silence that presses against your chest until you can feel your own heartbeat echoing in your ears. I sat up in bed, gasping for air as though I’d been drowning in my sleep. My room was dim, lit only by the faint glow of the moon seeping through the curtains, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was.Then the memories came; swift, brutal, merciless…dragging me back to the one night I’d spent my whole life trying to forget.I pressed a trembling hand to my forehead, trying to steady myself, but it was useless. His face… Kieran’s face…burned in my mind like fire. The way he’d looked at me years later, so composed, so damn righteous, as though he hadn’t been the monster that turned my world to ashes.“You think I forgot?” I whispered bitterly into the darkness. “You think I ever could?”I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the flashbacks. The screams. The smell of smoke. My father’s voice shouting for me to hide. I could still
KIERANThe room was tense…one of those mornings where every council member seemed to have something to argue about. Papers scattered across the long oak table, voices clashing and overlapping until it felt like the walls themselves were pulsing from the noise. I sat at the head, hands clasped together, pretending to listen while my mind drifted somewhere else entirely.“Alpha Kieran,” Marcus, my beta, called sharply, jolting me back. “You’ve been quiet. What’s your stand on the border expansion?”I blinked, trying to recall what we’d even been talking about. “The border stays as it is,” I said flatly, rubbing the bridge of my nose.“We don’t need another confrontation with Lucian’s men right now.”Marcus frowned. “But if we don’t push forward, they’ll…”“I said, leave it,” I snapped, cutting him off. Silence fell like a heavy curtain. I sighed, feeling the weight of their stares, and forced my tone to soften. “We’ll revisit it later.”And then, out of nowhere, it hit me. A flash…quick







