Kira’s POV"Mommy, wake up!"Trisha’s voice rang in my ears, high and urgent, followed by the rapid thumping of her tiny hands shaking me like she was trying to restart a dead engine.I groaned, my head splitting in two as I rolled slightly, only to hiss and bury my face in the pillow. The world was spinning. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a flame. And my brain? A battlefield between memory and regret."Let Mommy sleep more, darling," Ashton’s voice cut in, low and too damn calm for the chaos in my head. “She’ll be awake soon.”“No! She promised to take me riding today! She promised!”Ashton chuckled softly. “She probably didn’t expect to drink four bottles of wine last night.”Make that five, I wanted to grumble but even my thoughts slurred.Wolfroot. Ugh. My entire body felt like it had been hit by a magical train and then thrown into a burning lake. Goddess, what the hell was in that stuff?Then it hit me.Last night.The wine. The fire. The kiss...Alex.I sat up so fast I near
ASHTON’S POV"How dare you touch my woman?!"My voice tore through the room, shaking the damn walls as Alex staggered back. His smug face was gone. Good. The bastard looked exactly how I wanted him to, terrified.My claws pushed through my fingers, bones cracking, muscles stretching beneath my skin as my wolf surged forward, begging to be let loose.And I was this close to letting him.I’d never trusted him.Not once.That quiet charm, the lazy smiles, the fake respect, he’d been waiting for a moment like this. And now… he kissed my mate. My fated mate. My woman.“Ash…” Kira’s voice broke through the fury clouding my mind.I turned to her sharply.She looked pale. Disoriented. Her lips were parted like she couldn’t catch her breath, eyes barely holding focus. Her body swayed slightly like the ground was shifting under her.Realization slammed into me.She was drunk.No, more than drunk.She was wasted.But that didn’t make sense. Her Lycan blood made it nearly impossible. What the hel
Kira’s POV“Why is it so damn hard to get drunk?” I yelled at no one in particular, tossing the empty glass across the study table. It clinked off a stack of files and rolled uselessly onto the floor like it too had given up on life.Of course, no one answered.Because no one was here.Ashton had left a few minutes ago for a night hunt with some of the elite guards. Said it was routine. Said he’d be back by morning. Said I needed rest.He really needed to stop saying shit like that.Trisha was with Alex, supposedly finishing her lesson but I checked the monitor a few minutes ago and Bella had already taken her to bed, said she fell asleep mid-pronunciation drill with a crayon still stuck behind her ear. Typical.And now?Now I was stuck in this oversized estate, with no one to kill, no one to yell at, no Ashton to annoy and no daughter to spoil.Just me. And my very frustrating inability to get even the slightest buzz off four bottles of liquor.I slammed the fifth bottle down on the
Kira’s POV"Wrong information, madam. I'm sorry for bringing you out here because of the fake lead." Jonas bowed deeply, guilt written all over his face.I waved it off lazily, my expression calm but my heart anything but.“It’s alright, Jonas. Call Ashton. Let’s head back home,” I said with a small smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “We’ll get those two soon. I can feel it in my blood. Tell the men to retreat.”He nodded quickly, grateful, and disappeared into the corridor with urgency.But I didn’t move.I stood perfectly still, in the middle of the grand hall of the old mansion we’d just torn apart with runes, spells, and steel. The place reeked of age and dust, but beneath all that... I caught it. Faint. Subtle. Familiar.And enraging.They were here.Not long ago either.Jonas thinks it was a bad lead. He thinks it was a waste of time. But he’s wrong. Nicolas was here and he had one of my sons with him.I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.Yes.There it was.The faintest edge of my
Kira’s POV"Mommy!" Trisha’s voice rang through the halls like a siren, high-pitched, dramatic, and way too powerful for a five-year-old.I groaned, sinking lower into the bathtub where I had been hiding, yes, hiding, for the last two hours. No meetings. No mate. No Ashton. No chaos. Just bubbles, silence, and my sanity desperately clinging to the last five percent of peace I had left in my life.“Trisha, focus on your homework with Alex!” I shouted back, loud enough to echo through the entire estate. “Mom’s busy!”Crack!Thunder snapped outside the window, rattling the tiles around the tub.Oh hell no.I sat up, blinking through the rising steam. “Was that…?”"Yes," Morana deadpanned. “That was thunder. Your daughter just summoned a localized lightning bolt.”I slapped water. “What the fuck is wrong with her?! Who the hell does she think she is...summoning storms over homework?!”"You." Morana answered simply. “She thinks she’s you.”“Why does everyone in this house have attitude pro
Kira’s POVMy whole damn body was thrumming with need.Not just a passing wave of heat...no. This was a full-body ache that pulsed beneath my skin like fire licking through my veins. My thighs clenched on instinct, and I hated it. Hated how weak it made me feel. Hated how this morning's little… incident had wrecked my entire internal system.One look. One growl. One whisper of “shoot if you can,” and now I was sitting in the middle of a boring, gray-as-hell meeting, grinding my teeth and silently begging for the clock to move faster.Damn Ashton.That smug bastard had no idea what he’d done. Or maybe he did. Maybe he knew exactly what he was doing when he stood there naked, all toned muscles and confidence, looking like sin and smirking like he’d won a damn war and goddess, his mouth working on me was bliss. And I let him get to me.I let him turn my morning into this...an uncontrollable storm of hormones and heat I couldn’t shake."Just allow him to mark you and all this shit will r
Ashton’s POVThe scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the air, rich, dark, and sinful. My eyes snapped open on instinct. Kira. It had to be her. No one else dared wake me up with my favorite roast unless they had a death wish ...or a death wish and a death glare, which she carried equally well.I blinked through the sunlight and found her already dressed for the day, standing by the window like a goddess in a fitted navy suit that clung to her curves and screamed danger with every line. Her hair was tied up in a sleek twist, not a strand out of place. Red lips. Smoky eyes. That gun strapped to her thigh? Pure art.“Hello, sleepyhead,” she purred, sauntering over to my side of the bed with a cocky grin. “Looks like I wrecked you last night.”She winked.I grunted, sitting up slowly and taking the mug she handed me. “Thanks,” I muttered, still trying to blink the images of last night’s chaos from my head. She was trouble. Soft, deadly, addictive trouble.“You look like shit,” she comme
Kira’s POV“And you trust him enough to tutor Trisha?” Ashton asked, voice calm, too calm, the kind of calm he used right before someone got mauled.I didn’t flinch. I knew that tone, knew him.He was pissed.But trying to be polite about it.I leaned back in the armchair, swirling the champagne in my glass lazily before taking a sip. “Yeah, I trust him. Enough, at least.”Ashton’s jaw flexed. His eyes hadn’t left me once since I’d finished explaining everything. The kidnapping. The rescue. The healing. The werewolf reveal. And finally… the part where I decided to make the walking mystery our daughter’s personal tutor.“I’ve run every kind of scan on him,” I added, keeping my tone light. “Magical, physical, blood lineage, you name it. He passed them all. Even his memories were clean. No ties to the brothers. No curses. No shady backdoor deals with witches or warlocks. Just a regular lone wolf trying to live a boring life teaching about ancient wars.”Ashton didn’t blink.I pressed on.
Kira’s POV"Well, he's telling the truth, ma’am," Jonas reported, his voice crisp as he tucked the clipboard under his arm and stepped back. “His ID checks out. Staff records confirm he’s been here for years. No known criminal affiliations. And… Yes, he’s a werewolf, but he’s registered under the neutral pack treaty. Low threat level.”I exhaled through my nose, glaring at the man slumped on the infirmary bed like he personally offended me by existing. My jaw ticked as I crossed my arms, hating the way he just laid there...alive, breathing, and smugly intact despite nearly bleeding out an hour ago.Alex glanced over at me with a faint grimace, one side of his mouth twitching in what might’ve been a sarcastic smile if he wasn’t half-dead. “You always treat your heroes like this, or am I just the lucky one?”I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not a hero. You’re a man I badly want to kill.”Jonas looked like he wanted to evaporate from the tension in the room, but I waved him off. He gave me a