Mai – POVThe fire had long since turned to embers, but I kept watching it like it might give me answers. Like it might do what Kael couldn’t—stay quiet and warm and dependable.But no, even flames betrayed. Even they burned too hot and left you with ash.I sat curled in the armchair like a storm packed tight into a dress two days too old and a braid that hadn’t been redone. My hands were cold despite the heat, but it wasn’t the kind of cold a hearth could cure.Kael was here. Still.That Flameborn bastard didn’t know when to quit.Good.I didn’t need a prince.I needed someone who would fight for me. Not just in a ballroom or a battlefield—but in the quiet. In the silence after the storm. In the days when I wasn’t gentle or easy or anything close to loveable.He had looked like he might.But I’d seen better men with prettier words rot from the inside out. Titles didn’t impress me. Loyalty did. Pain endured. Promises kept. Choices made when no one was looking.I’d give him one chance—
Kael – POV The orchard wind bit at my skin, sharper than it had any right to be in early spring. But it wasn’t the cold that kept me rooted there, long after she walked away. It was her. Mai. My mate. Fates be damned. I flexed my hands, slow and deliberate, as though trying to wring the sensation of her voice from my bones. It clung to me. Brash. Defiant. Beautiful. I’d meant to leave the market quietly. The bond had other plans. The moment I turned and saw her—saw her—standing in dust-streaked skirts, with a cloak that had clearly weathered too many seasons—I knew. My wolf knew. The bond hit me with a force I hadn’t prepared for. It struck through me like molten glass, all fire and brightness, and something deep and ancient that I’d been taught to silence. And instead of embracing it—I recoiled. Like a coward. No, worse. Like a prince. Because that’s what I was, wasn’t I? Kael of the Eastern Flameborn. Son of High Lord Merek. Heir to a dynasty older than half the te
Mai povThe village market bustled with chatter, boots scuffing against cobblestone, and the scent of ripe apples and leather mingling in the air. The sky was bruised blue with dusk, and the sun had begun its slow descent over the slanted roofs and vine-covered chimneys of the Crescent trading district.I clutched my coin pouch in one hand and smoothed my skirts with the other, grateful for the freedom to breathe. Isabella had gone to speak with Alpha Asher—about him. And though a part of me felt bare knowing the truth had finally slipped from my lips, another part felt lighter. As if some great stone had been pulled from my chest.I needed air. I needed people. I needed to feel alive again.So I came here. Where bartering echoed like song and children darted between stalls, sticky with honey and freedom.A pair of elderly she-wolves argued over the price of wheat, a boy with a missing front tooth offered carved wooden wolves for a single silver coin, and somewhere near the butcher’s,
Isabella – POV He stared at me like I’d spit poison into the river. Asher’s jaw was clenched, eyes unreadable, knife still gripped in one hand. The moonlight shimmered off the blade, casting pale reflections over the rushing current behind him. "You’re sure?" he said, voice tight. "Yes," I lied smoothly. "She didn’t say his name. But I know who she meant." It wasn’t about justice. It wasn’t even about Mai anymore. It was about control. About pressing on the soft, breakable parts of each alpha until they cracked wide open. Maybe that made me twisted. Maybe that made me dangerous. But it also made me smart. Asher’s fingers twitched around the hilt. He was always the easiest to ignite. “He touched her?” he asked, his voice trembling not from fear but the fury he was trying to suppress. “She won’t say,” I whispered, lowering my eyes like I couldn’t bear to meet his. “But she’s scared. I think she’s ashamed.” He tossed the blade into the dirt like it burned him. “We’re supposed
Isabella pov "Mai, you don't have to keep repeating yourself. The twins—Alphas Demian and Asher—have their own decisions to make. I’m just a mate, not a commander," I said gently, zipping the last of my bags. “It’s not like I can sway their every move.” The leather strap creaked as I tightened it around my satchel. I was preparing for a short visit to my parents’ estate, nestled on the edge of Alderwood Forest—a small village that didn’t carry any scent of power, royalty, or command. Just fresh earth, sheep, and the smell of roasted meat at supper. A forgotten slice of peace, far from the blood-soaked politics of the Crescent Moon Court. They’d sent word through Mai two nights ago. A handwritten letter from my mother, smudged in the corner like she’d spilled tea in a rush. She missed me. My father had taken ill, she said, but then added a line that made me pause: He says he dreams of you. Please come. I’d packed that very night. But Mai had been off ever since. Distant. Her
Enzo’s POVIt started with the silence.No wind. No birds. Not even the steady hum of the river. Just a suffocating stillness that wrapped around the territory like a noose.I stood on the balcony outside my war room, staring into the forest as the sun began its descent. The sky was orange, bleeding into gold, and yet my instincts screamed.Something was coming.“Alpha,” Marco’s voice called behind me, urgent and sharp.I turned. One look at his face told me everything I needed to know.“Western border. Smoke. Three outposts down. And—” he hesitated “—they’re using magic.”The word dropped like a stone in my chest.Magic.Not just wolves. Not just claws and teeth and brute force.They were playing dirty now.I was halfway to the staircase when the first explosion rocked the eastern edge of the territory.The entire pack house shuddered. Cracks split along the stone walls. Windows shattered in a shriek of glass. Screams followed—high-pitched, panicked, familiar.My people.I shifted mi