LOGINCassie'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
Cassie's PovThe room was dim.Heavy curtains pulled almost all the lights across the windows, leaving just a thin blade of light cutting through the gap. It took my eyes a moment to adjust.The beta was standing near the wall. His physique is quite big but with a quiet face.He has a kind of steady presence you put near a sick Alpha because the pack needs to see someone keeping it together.Daisy was sitting on a stool beside the bed.She saw me the moment I walked in. Something moved across her face, complicated and fast, there and gone before I could name it all. She stood up slowly.I didn't look at her long enough to give it meaning. I looked past her.Then glanced at Jamie. He was propped against the pillows, his eyes open, looking at the doorway. My presence made him look towards me.I don't have a clean word for it.He looked like someone had taken Jamie and turned the brightness down. Everything was still there, the face I used to know, the broad shoulders, the jaw I'd onc
Cassie's POVI'd told myself it wouldn't feel like anything.It was just a place with buildings and trees.A pack land like any other. I'd lived in dozens of places since I left. I'd built something real somewhere else. I was a Luna now, not the girl who used to walk these paths with her head down hoping somebody would notice her.Now, even without saying a word, my presence always gets noticed.“It's just a ride, take it like a vacation outside your pack,” I told myself as I sat on the chariot.I believed about half of it.The gates of Vale Pack came into view just as the morning mist was starting to burn off. They were the same. That was the first thing that hit me. Everything exactly where I'd left it, like the place had just been sitting here waiting, unchanged, while I went off and became someone else entirely.My horse slowed without me telling it to.Lark pulled up beside me on my left. Mark on my right. Neither of them said anything. They didn't need to. Through the bond I fe
Cassie's POVElla was awake by midday.Not fully. She drifted in and out, her eyes opening for a few minutes at a time before sleep pulled her back under. But by the time the afternoon light was coming through her window at that low slanted angle, she was sitting up against her pillows and asking for water.I was there when she did.I'd come back to check on her after the meeting with the elders. I needed somewhere quiet to put myself and Ella's room was as good a place as any. I'd pulled the chair close and just sat, not thinking about much, letting my mind rest for once.When her eyes opened and stayed open, I leaned forward."Hey," I said.She blinked at me slowly. Like someone trying to remember how the world worked. "Luna,”"I'm here."I poured water from the jug beside the bed and held it out. She took it with both hands, the way someone does when they don't fully trust their grip yet.“Thank you very much for all you do,” She appreciated. Her voice had a tone of sincerity in
Cassie's POVThey arrived before breakfast.I heard the commotion from our chambers before I even saw them. Voices carrying down the hall, Jonas speaking in that careful measured tone he used when he was trying to manage something delicate.I was still pulling my hair back when Lark appeared in the doorway."You have visitors," he said.Something in his voice made me stop. "Who?""The Vale Pack elders. There are about three of them." He paused. "With gifts."I stood very still for a moment.Vale Pack.My pack. The one I'd grown up in, trained in, believed in. The one I'd slipped away from in the dark like something ashamed of itself.I hadn't heard that name out loud in a long time. It sat strange in my ears. Like hearing a song you used to love before something ruined it for you."Where are they?" I asked."The receiving hall. Jonas put them there. He didn't know where else to put them."I looked at myself in the mirror for exactly two seconds. Then I straightened my shoulders and
Cassie's POVThey carried Ella to her room after.She was breathing on her own. Sorin said that was the most important thing right now. I sat beside her bed for a while, just watching her chest rise and fall. I needed to see it happen a few more times before I could relax.My hand felt strange. The one I'd pressed to her chest during the ritual. It wasn't painful. More like that numb, heavy feeling you get after holding ice for too long.Sorin noticed when he came back to check on Ella. He took my hand without asking and turned it over slowly."It'll pass in a day or two," he said."What is it?""Recoil." He set my hand down gently. "When a tether breaks that hard, the energy has to go somewhere. Some of it came back through you.""And Alexa?" I asked. “What happened to her at her end?”He paused and exhaled heavily."Much worse," he said. He was quiet for a moment, like he was choosing his words carefully. "When someone is forced out of a tether that deep, it doesn't just sting.
Cassie's PovThe council meeting was a special kind of torture, each minute stretching like frayed elastic. Across the polished table, Mark’s voice was a steady, professional drumbeat, outlining hunting rotations. A perfect Alpha. But the words dissolved into meaningless noise before they reache
Cassie's PovThe lists were trying to kill me. Not with a sword, but with words. Each name was a weight. I felt like I was drowning in paper.Then I heard it.Music. Real music. Not a war drum. A fiddle and laughter.I dropped my pen. It was a stupid list anyway. The dead already knew they were de
Cassie's POVMy eyes were feeling heavy as I tried to open them. The sting of medicine in my nose. A deep, grinding throb in my shoulder.Alive. I was alive.The infirmary hummed with low moans and the quick steps of healers. The beds were full. Our guys. Their guys. It doesn't matter much now. T
CASSIE'S POVThe shadow blade fell like death itself.Time moved slowly. Each second stretched out forever.I watched it come down. Sharp. Cold. I closed my eyes steadily, ready to end it all when boom….Everything blew apart.Silver and gold light slammed into Alexa's barrier. The magic wall sh







