เข้าสู่ระบบRonan’s POVBy the time Darius and I hit the lower level, the dungeon was already in chaos.One of the guards was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall while another pressed a folded piece of cloth to the side of his head. Blood had soaked through it and was running down his neck. Two more men were farther inside, checking cells and shouting back and forth, and the iron gate that should have been locked was hanging wide open.I stopped so hard Darius nearly ran into me.“Fuck me.”“Yeah,” he muttered beside me. “That about covers it.”The guard on the floor saw us and tried to get up.“Don’t.” I crossed the distance to him. “What happened?”“I don’t fucking know, Alpha. It happened fast.”That, at least, sounded like the truth. He looked furious with himself more than scared, one eye already swelling where somebody had hit him.“Start wherever you can.”He dragged a hand over his mouth. “The bells started, then we got word there was someone inside the fortress. A few min
Ronan's POVFor a second, nobody moved.The man in my grip coughed against my forearm while Darius stared past me into the dark passage.“That is not the bastard who stabbed Helene.”I looked at him.“You’re sure?”“I almost ran into the son of a bitch on the stairs.” His eyes came back to the man I was holding. “I remember his face.”The bastard smiled again.Small.Bloody.Satisfied.My hand tightened around the front of his jacket.“There’s another one.”He laughed.Not loud.He didn’t need to.The sound crawled straight under my skin.I slammed him into the wall.“Where is he?”His head bounced off the stone, but the smile stayed there.“Ronan.”Darius’s voice stopped me before I hit him again.Barely.Elia was still behind us.I could hear her breathing.Too fast.Too shallow.She’d already been dragged through these tunnels, threatened with her sister’s life, hit hard enough to leave blood running down her face, and now she was watching me crush the throat of the man who’d done
Ronan’s POVThe bells started before I reached the old records room, three heavy strikes rolling through BloodHowl, followed by a pause that made every warrior in the corridor look up before the next three came.One of my captains appeared at the far end of the hall at a run.“Eastern watchtower.”I kept walking toward him. “What happened?”“Signal fire’s out. They’re not answering the inner bell.”Men were already turning toward the eastern side of the fortress.“Stay where you fucking are.”Boots stopped across the corridor.The captain looked at me. “Alpha, if somebody’s taken the tower—”“Then what do you think they want us to do?”His mouth shut.Darius came up beside me, his hands finally clean of Helene’s blood, although he’d scrubbed them hard enough that his knuckles were still red.“Run east,” he said.I pointed at two warriors. “Take four men. Check it from inside the walls and report back. Nobody opens that gate.”The captain frowned. “What if we have warriors outside?”“T
Selene’s POVThe door shut behind Ronan, and for several seconds I stared at it like I could somehow see through the wood and follow him down the corridor.I hated that he had gone.I hated even more that I understood why he had to.Xavier moved somewhere behind me, but I barely registered it. My hand was still warm from Ronan’s, and my lips still carried the pressure of that kiss he had used instead of answering me because apparently my husband had decided kissing me into silence counted as an Alpha strategy.Usually I would have informed him exactly how ineffective it was.Right then, I wanted him back badly enough that I might have let him try again.“He’ll be fine.”I looked toward Xavier.“I didn’t ask.”“No. You’ve only been staring at the door like you’re considering ripping it off the hinges.”“I could.”Kieran snorted from beside the window.Xavier gave me a look.“You’re not following him.”“I’m aware.”“Are you?”“I said I’m aware, not that I’m happy about it.”“That sounds
Ronan’s POVI had given the order to lock BloodHowl down before I even knew whether Helene Carey was going to survive.The words had come out of me automatically, every gate sealed, every entrance watched, nobody in or out until I said otherwise, but the second Darius said Selene’s name, every carefully ordered thought in my head disappeared beneath one image I couldn’t stop seeing.Helene on the dungeon floor with blood covering Darius’s hands.Only it wasn’t Helene anymore.It was Selene.I hated my own mind for putting her there, hated Cassius even more for giving it a reason to.“Go,” I told Darius.He was already halfway to the stairs.I turned to the warriors crowding the corridor. “Nobody moves Helene anywhere except directly to the healer’s rooms, and she has four guards with her at all times. Men I know. Not uniforms I recognize. Faces.”They understood the difference now.So did I.Some bastard had walked through my fortress wearing BloodHowl colors and we had trusted the cl
Darius’s POVI heard Mira scream before I reached the bottom of the stairs.I had been watching the back of the warrior who had just shouldered past me on his way up, debating whether I felt like dragging his ass back down and reminding him that rank still existed even when someone was in a hurry, when her voice tore through the dungeon hard enough to wipe every other thought from my head.“Help her!”I turned and ran.The corridor opened in front of me, and for the first few strides I couldn’t tell what the hell I was looking at because Garrick was against his bars shouting something I couldn’t make out, Mira had both arms shoved between hers, and the door to Helene’s cell was hanging wide open.Then I saw Helene.She was crumpled on the floor with one shoulder against the wall and her hand clamped beneath her jaw.Blood poured through her fingers.There was so much of it that my mind rejected what my eyes were seeing until another stream slipped over the back of her hand and ran dow







