LOGINOCTAVIA. I continued to go back and forth between the start and the end, studying each move that had been made since Lezdeus was placed on the board.Vladimir was bad enough without any help. An army of vampires with centuries of violence and cruelty carved into their bones, all of them hungry for a war they were arrogant enough to believe they couldn’t lose.Then Lezdeus had arrived. And he hadn’t come alone. He arrived with a massive contingent of demons.Vampires and demons. Two armies stronger than any other, with more soldiers, more power, and more experience. Twice, it had made me question whether we would have come out of this as winners or another chapter in someone else's conquest narrative.But we had. That's what I found myself going back to. For all their manpower, all their centuries of experience, all the bloodthirsty bastards they’d thrown at us, they still hadn’t won. Vladimir was dead. His army had fallen with him. And Lezdeus? He’d come expecting to enslave a Phoeni
ROMAN. ‘Bossy.’Warmth curled around me through the bond, carrying all the affection she didn’t need to put into words.‘You love it,’ she replied matter-of-factly.I did.Goddess help me, I fucking loved it.My muscles groaned in protest as I dragged myself out of bed. After the quickest shower that I’d probably taken since puberty, I yanked on the first pair of clean clothes within reach and went in search of my mate.Octavia looked up at me the second I stepped inside and smiled that brilliant smile of hers. The bright, unguarded one that belonged solely to me. It got me every damn time, knowing I was the lucky bastard who got to make her smile like that."There you are,” she said.Violet perched on the edge of the desk, clutching a mug of coffee as if it were the only thing keeping her conscious. Diera sat in the armchair by the window, looking far more put-together than anyone had a right to after the shitshow that was last night. The dark circles beneath her eyes, however, weren
ROMAN.Octavia was asleep before her head had even finished hitting the pillow.One second she was still talking, and the next her voice just stopped mid-word. Her whole body went slack against my chest. I caught her before she could fully collapse, easing her the rest of the way down, tucking the blanket around her shoulders while she didn't so much as stir.I didn't blame her. She and Storm had spent the entire night bleeding themselves dry twice over—first tearing through Vladimir's vampires and King Douchebag’s demons like judgment given teeth and claws. And then going back out to heal whoever would let her close enough to try, when any sane person would’ve collapsed and called it a night. My mate didn't know how to stop. Never had, and I doubt she ever would. It was one of about four hundred things I loved about her and one of about four hundred things that was going to put me in an early grave.I breathed in her scent, with one hand resting lightly on her hip, and let myself fina
STORM. I was utterly clueless as to what I was doing.Centuries of being called to rise. Of fighting. Of being sent back into another body, another lifetime, another version of the same war, just so I could stand in another field and do it all over again. All of that—every death, every rebirth, every scar the Goddess had stitched onto my soul—had led to this exact moment.Me. I was standing over a dead king, blood drying tacky on my hands, preparing to give a speech to an army of demons who five minutes ago were trying to kill all the people I loved.Fuck my life.No pressure, though.The silence stretched, tension thick and waiting, as hundreds of bowed heads glinted under the dying light of the fires still smoldering across the courtyard. Somewhere behind me, I could feel Creed's presence, held back only by the promise I'd made him, radiating a tension so sharp I could practically taste it down the bond. Reika and Diera had gone still as well, flanking the wreckage of the fight, wai
STORM. I almost laughed. Centuries of cruelty and viciousness. Of destroying others for his amusement. Of collecting pain like it was vintage wine. And it turned out all it took to make the great King Lezdeus flinch was a woman he’d called Littlest Puppy standing in the middle of her own inferno.“Careful,” I taunted him. “Now you’re going to become a cautionary tale.”He reined his composure back in quickly enough that I might’ve imagined the crack in it, but I’d seen it.“You think one clever trick makes you a threat,” he hissed, putting distance between us like that distance could save him from the fire that I commanded. “I have buried far more important people than you. I have buried the best. I have buried legends!” his voice boomed across the battlefield.“Then you should know that this story will end badly for you.”The flame pulsed brighter, hungrier than before.He came at me again, and this time there was a different urgency. No longer was he acting like a cat who loved to t
STORM. The fire answered before I did.It always did. Ever since the Goddess had first breathed it into my bones many lifetimes ago. Tonight it rose from somewhere deeper than instinct, deeper than rage. It stood up from every name that King Lezdeus had named, like a trophy. From Nixon. From Eleanor. He had made all the Phoenix wolves' ends into entertainment.I let it come.Flame licked up my spine, and for one suspended heartbeat, the sounds of the battlefield faded away. It was all reduced to a single point of focus. Him. King Lezdeus's smile didn't waver. It deepened, in fact, if my fire was a compliment directly to him.My body receded as I shifted into Octavia's form. Flames covered me like clothing because I didn't need the entire battlefield to see what was only for our mates' eyes. Something told me that Creed wouldn't have liked the alternative very much. My eyes remained gold, like they did in my wolf form."I wondered how long you would hide."“There was nothing I was hidi
OCTAVIA.Farah came in after we were done eating and checked me over, informing me that I was healing better than expected. It was mentioned that she wanted to keep me for another day but felt comfortable releasing me from the hospital after that.Was it lame that I wanted to stay here because it wa
OCTAVIA.My eyes fluttered a few times before they finally opened. Sunlight peeked out from behind the closed curtain.I looked around the room, disappointment filling me when I didn’t see Roman. He had offered to stay in the room if I wanted him to. I wasn’t certain if Storm told him that I’d been
ROMAN.“Man, that was amusing. Hopefully, you’ll get more opportunities to put people in their places. Watching that is always like watching a sports match where the hits keep coming, but you’re always undefeated. Not to mention that I’m currently in the pool of odds for you making someone piss the
ROMAN.“You good?” Brock asked me, raising a single brow.“Mhm. Just needing to get my head in the game. We need to keep our senses open. Creed feels like this mission will be important.”He nodded in understanding and put a three-way call between us and the guys that came with us so that we could







