LOGINLark's POVMy hand was shaking when I woke up.Not violently. Just enough to be noticed when I reached for the water jug on the bedside table and I had to use both hands to keep it steady. I set it down carefully and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment in the grey morning light, willing it to stop.It stopped eventually.It always stopped eventually. That was the part I held onto. It always passed. The shaking, the dizziness, the pressure that gathered behind my eyes some mornings was like something pushing from the inside out. It came, and it went, and I functioned in between and nobody had to know.Cassie was still sleeping. I watched her for a moment before I stood up. She looked younger when she slept. She'd been watching me since we left Vale Pack. I knew she had. I could feel it, those small sideways glances she thought I didn't catch. .I got dressed quietly and left before she woke up.Mark found me in the courtyard before I'd even had a chance to settle back into the
Cassie's POVWe left Vale Pack just after sunrise.Jamie stood at the gates to see us off. He looked better than he had when we arrived. Still not fully himself, but the fog was gone from his eyes. He stood straight for the first time since we'd gotten there.He looked at me for a long moment before I mounted the horse.There was so much sitting in that appearance. Years of it. Things that probably deserved to be said out loud and never would be.A lot is better left unsaid."Thank you," he said finally."Take care of yourself," I told him.That was all.I took the reins, steadying myself. A gentle squeeze of my legs set it moving.I didn't look back.The ride home was quiet.Lark set the pace. Steady and unhurried, moving through the tree line where the morning light came through in broken pieces. I rode beside him without talking. I didn't have much to say, and he seemed to feel the same way.I was too busy watching him when he wasn't looking.It started with his hand. The one hold
Cassie's POVI didn't sit.Neither did she, after a moment. She had realized that sitting across from me like two people having tea wasn't going to work. She stood by the window instead, arms loose at her sides, looking out at the Vale Pack grounds like she owned them.Maybe she thought she did.I stayed near the door.Not blocking it. Just close enough that I knew exactly how many steps it would take to reach it if I needed to move fast. Old habit. The kind you develop when you've had to run before.The silence stretched.I wasn't going to fill it. That was her job. She called this meeting.She turned from the window eventually. Looked at me the way you look at something you've been thinking about for a long time and are finally seeing up close."You look like her," she said. "Our mother. Around the eyes."Our mother? What on heck is she trying to do? I said nothing. She smiled slightly. Like my silence was the answer she expected. "You didn't know her long enough to remember t
Cassie's POVI literally froze to the spot. My expression must have given her pleasure. The smile on her face was evident as she strode.Nobody moved. The shock rooted our feet to the floor.The room had gone the kind of still that happens when something impossible walks through a door and everyone present has to decide at the same time whether their eyes are lying to them.Jamie saw her first.Or maybe he'd heard her voice before I turned around. Either way when I looked at him his face had gone completely white. The cup in his hands tilted without him noticing. The warm liquid spilled over his fingers and he didn't feel it."Alexa." Her name came out of him like something he'd been carrying for a long time and had no idea how to put down.She looked at him briefly. Something moved across her face. Quick and complicated and gone before I could name it."Jamie," she said simply.That was all. Just his name. Like an acknowledgment. Like checking a box.He stared at her. His newly cle
Cassie's PovCord shifted the linen in his arms.He had the look of a man who wasn't sure if he was in trouble or not. That careful stillness people get when a Luna stops them in a corridor and looks at them the way I was looking at him."Is everything alright?" he asked."I just need to ask you something," I said. "Walk with me."He fell into step beside us without arguing. That was the thing about betas. Obedience was built into them the same way loyalty was. He didn't ask where we were going or why. He just followed me.I kept my pace easy. Unhurried. I didn't want him defensive."How long have you been Jamie's beta?" I asked."Six years," he said."So you were here when Alexa was."A slight pause. "Yes.""Were you close to her?"Another pause. Longer this time. "She was my Alpha's mate. I respected her the way you respect someone in that position." He chose his words carefully. "We weren't close."I nodded like that was all I needed. Let a few seconds pass."Jamie asked you to h
Cassie's POVI didn't sleep well that night.Vale Pack gave us quarters in the east wing. Clean rooms, good beds, everything a visiting Luna and her Alphas were entitled to. The staff assigned to us was quiet and careful not to look at me too long.A young lowly omega. Our room was guarded by two guards, plus the ones that followed us from our pack.Their hospitality was amicable.I lay on my back in the dark staring at the ceiling.The ring was out there somewhere in this pack. I could feel it the way you feel a storm coming before the clouds arrive. Lark's voice came quietly from beside me. "You're thinking aloud.""Ohh, I'm sorry.""Don't be." He paused and then sat erect. "What is it?"I breathe out."The curse feels too alive," I said. "Too fresh. Someone is still feeding it from somewhere inside this pack,” I turned to look at him in the dark. “Which curse?” He looked utterly confused.He wasn't a healer , so he was oblivious of what I was talking about, as well as everyone
(Three Months later)The rain had not abated for three days running.Rivers of silver mist hung from the forest like cobwebs as Cassie stumbled along the trail, hand wrapped around her distended belly, the other holding the edge of her sodden cloak. Every step sent shudders of lightning down her s
The forest was cold during the first months, its breathing heavy and thick with snow and silence. Cassie made slow journeys through thick thorns, her hand always placed on her belly as if it were encircling the life within. Six months—it had seemed an eternity and the glint of an eye.She hadn't li
The chill of the early morning stung Jamie's flesh as he stood on the border of Vale Pack lands, the tall forest rolling out before him as a sea of green life.Jamie's feet left no mark upon dew-covered earth, but his mind burned in agony high enough to smother out the external world.The biting sm
The cabin in the middle ground was smaller than Cassie recalled. Or perhaps she had merely grown beyond her own skin.She slumped over the fire, pen over paper, journal in her lap. The fire spat mindlessly to one side of her, but its heat could not possibly melt the bitter chill in her breast."To







