LOGINIan's POV “TUEHH!” I spat full in his face, the act raw and feral, defiance boiling so hot in my veins it burned away my fear for a heartbeat. “Go to hell, you moron!” I shouted, my voice cracking the chamber open like a curse hurled at the gallows. Even standing at death’s edge, I would not bow. I would not beg. Shabari’s face went still. Too still. Then it shifted, not like flesh, but like a puzzle wall grinding inward, rearranging itself with malicious intent. The black energy coiled around him surged upward, unfurling from his sides and spine, rising high and wide until it loomed over him like a living nightmare, a towering, grotesque silhouette of a vast, winged abomination clawed from shadow itself. My courage withered instantly, shrinking like a candle drowned in sudden rain. Selene! My breath stuttered. Was that a bat? The shape loomed and twitched, wings stretching, leathery, stirring the air with a stench of rot and old magic. Its shadow crawled along the walls,
Ian’s POV One, two, three. That was all it took, three seconds of palpitating terror, and whatever fragile calm I had left shattered. “STOP!” The word tore out of my throat before sense could leash it. Did he stop? No. Not even a flinch. It was as if I’d screamed into a void that refused to echo. Hysteria slammed into my gut, brutal and breath-stealing, and another scream ripped out of me, louder, sharper, edged with desperation. “Stop, you old fool!” I tried to move toward him, tried to rise, but pain answered first. A sharp, pricking agony speared my chest, sudden and merciless, driving the air from my lungs. My eyes squeezed shut as my hands shot out blindly, clutching the side frame of the bed for support while I dragged in a harsh breath that did nothing to dull the fire spreading through my ribs. Moon dust. The residue of moonbane. I’d forgotten. I was still healing. I forced my eyes open again, breath trapped in my throat as I stared at him. Shabari. He didn’t
Ian’s POV Before I could utter a word, the door creaked open and Kaelric strode in, Shabari trailing behind like a foul shadow. "My prince... I know you care for him, but he should be buried immedia–" Shabari's words twisted and died in his throat the moment his gaze fell upon me. He froze. His eyes ballooned from their sockets, popping out like two boiled eggs hurled into hot oil, and for a split second, he looked like a bald chicken that had just been baptized in fire. His entire body stiffened, as if every muscle had signed a ceasefire agreement. Kaelric saw me, and he gasped. "Small wolf!” Alarm lanced through me like a javelin. They’d seen something. No, someone. Ashval.My head snapped sideways, heart slamming against my ribs. But he wasn’t there. Not beside me. Not behind me. Not anywhere. The panic rose, fast and raw, a roaring tide that swallowed sense and breath and thought.Where had he gone?Before I could scream his name through the bond, it flared – warm, sudden, a
Ian's POV “Ian. Ian. Ian…”The voice slid over me like silk over steel."Ian. Wake up. Wake up."My lashes fluttered. First light. Then shape. Then presence.A white-cloaked figure stood at the foot of the bed. Her hood masked her face, but her gaze burned through it – and through me. My heart stuttered. Cold licked my spine.“W–who… who are y–you?” I rasped. "I believe your wolf could answer that."Ashval.My chest locked. I turned toward the toilet door.Nothing. The bond was silent.I turned to her, panic exploding in my chest. "What have you done to my wolf?! What have you done to him?!"I tried to rise, but agony lanced through my ribs. I collapsed back into the bed with a strangled grunt.“You don’t need to move,” she said calmly. “Just listen.”She tilted her head toward the door. “Your wolf is alive. Asleep. Like the guards outside.”My pulse spiked. Ryker. Maro. She’d subdued them?“You’re still healing,” she added softly. “The moonbane wasn’t diluted. It was raw. Death in
Thorne's POV The door screeched open like a dying beast, and I was shoved inside the cell like a sack of rot.My feet skidded across the blood-slick ground and I glided, losing balance. My back hit the cold stone with a sickening thud. Chains rattled behind me. Omaru's boot nudged my side as he stepped away, followed by Nikolai. Vanyel entered last – slow, sure, and gleaming with malice."Remember what I told you earlier, wretch," came his voice – oily, gloating.His footsteps were slow, deliberate. He walked past me like a ghost and made his way to the heavy oaken table that waited in the shadows.I watched him carefully. His silhouette, lit by flickering torchlight, moved with aristocratic arrogance. There, he began to unwrap a dark velvet cloth draped over the table with reverent care, as if revealing holy relics. But they were anything but holy. Beneath it lay an array of instruments – steel gleamed, some jagged, some curved, some stained a rust-brown that didn’t come from age.
Thorne's POV Darius’s roar cracked like a whip through the hall. “For years after your mother’s death, I had the high matrons shape you. They were handpicked, tasked with softening your edges, breaking the wild in you, turning you into something... respectable. But you spat on all of it. Learned the blood arts behind my back. You rebel, you disobey, and now–” he thrust a trembling finger at Shanura’s bloodied form on the floor. “–you have shamed me before the kings. You interfered in a blood fight. In my pit!” He was no longer speaking. He was seething, his words boiling out of his mouth like venom, blistering the air around him. Shanura lay crumpled on the stone floor, hair matted with sweat, her breathing shallow. Still, her voice came – low, but steady. “I do not regret my actions, father. I take full responsibility.” Those words scorched him. Darius let out a guttural snarl and lashed her again. And again. The whip cracked through the air, slicing her back open in brut
Ashval's POV Just then, the doors of the shrine groaned open once more with that serpentine exhale, the sound of breath slipping between the fangs of gods. Cold air slinked through the shrine, heavy with secrets. I froze. Even within the cage of Ian’s flesh, I felt it, that sacred air shift and
Ashval's POV My vision twisted. And the world unraveled into green fire. Blinding. Liquid. Divine. The air thickened, and every stone in the chamber bled with eldritch colors, swirling like a cursed kaleidoscope. I looked through his eyes. Moved with his limbs. But it wasn't Ian breathing any
Ian's POV Every footfall I took echoed not just ahead, but behind me. Twice over. As if the air itself was imitating me, mocking my presence with phantom steps. Something was following. I could feel it. No matter how many times I twisted around, eyes scanning the shadows, nothing was there. I h
Ian's POV I lay still on the bed, the air thick with the taste of iron on my tongue. The blood from my split lip still burned, but it was the bells that held my mind prisoner. The shrill clanging echoed like a war drum in the back of my skull, each ring sharper than the last. But even stranger th







