Se connecterMACEThe forest blurred into a tunnel of shadow and whipping branches, a gauntlet I tore through with reckless abandon. My human lungs burned like bellows pumping fire, the residual poison in my blood protesting every explosive stride, but I fed the pain to my wolf. Fenris devoured it, converting agony into a raw, predatory fuel that pushed my body beyond its breaking point.Beside me, Cassandra was a streak of grim determination, her magic flickering in violet trails around her boots, artificially enhancing her speed to match my partial shift. We didn't speak. The air between us was heavy with the unspoken weight of what we had left behind in that cabin—the husk of my mother, finally freed, finally gone. The guilt was a maggot eating at the back of my mind, but I couldn't nurture it now. If I stopped to grieve, Michael won.The scent of the Blood Moon compound hit me long before we saw the perimeter fence—a cloying stench of too many wolves packed too closely together, undercut by th
MACEThe door of the cabin clicked shut behind us, a final, wooden period at the end of my mother’s tragic sentence.Outside, the night air was bitingly cold, a stark contrast to the suffocating warmth and death inside. I inhaled sharply, the scent of damp pine and decaying leaves filling my lungs, trying to scrub away the smell of ozone and burned magic that clung to the back of my throat.I had left her there. My mother. A victim of Michael’s parasitic ambition, finally at rest, but abandoned in a dusty shack in enemy territory. The guilt was a physical weight, heavy as a stone tombstone chained around my neck. I hadn’t saved her. I had only ended her suffering."He knows," Cassandra’s voice was brittle, like dry kindling. She stood beside me in the shadows of the towering pines, her face illuminated only by the pale moonlight filtering through the canopy. She looked drained, her usual vibrant energy sapped gray. "The backlash... it was immense, Mace. Michael felt that severing. It
MACEWe emerged from the mine into the fading light of dusk, the air thick with the smell of pine and damp earth. My mother, frail and barely breathing, was a dead weight in my arms."We have to get her back," Cassandra said, her voice urgent, her hand on my shoulder. "She needs rest. And protection. Michael will know we were here. He'll feel the energy shift."I nodded, my jaw clenched. I could feel it too—a subtle vibration in the air, a flicker of energy that had been dormant for so long. It was the same feeling I got when I was near Jaynayah. A connection.But this connection was different. It was corrupted, twisted. Michael had been feeding on my mother's energy, on her very life force, for years. And in doing so, he had tainted it."What did you find, Cassandra?" I asked, my voice rough with exhaustion. "What is this place?"She looked at me, her eyes troubled. "It's... complicated," she said, her brow furrowed. "Michael has been using your mother as a power source. Siphoning he
MACEThe anger in my veins was a cold, hard knot, tighter than any wolfsbane Michael could brew. My mother. My blood. A battery.Michael.The name tasted like ash and acid in my mouth. I thought I had known the depths of his depravity. I was wrong. He wasn't just a cruel Alpha. He was a parasite, feeding on the suffering of those he deemed lesser.And now, he had Jaynayah again.The thought was a physical ache in my chest, a constant, dull throb that mirrored the poison still circulating in my system, albeit diluted. My body was a wreck, every muscle screaming in protest as I forced myself to move, but the rage drove me forward."The trail goes cold here, Mace," Cassandra said, her voice tight with frustration. She pointed to a dense thicket of trees at the edge of a forgotten mining road, deep in the heart of Blood Moon territory. "The energy signature is scattered, masked by the earth magic of the mountain."I sniffed the air. It smelled of pine needles, damp earth, and the faint, l
JANAYAHThe dining hall was so quiet I could hear the settling of dust motes in the sunbeams cutting through the high windows. Michael’s hand was still raised, suspended in the air, a frozen testament to his violence.My cheek burned, a sharp, throbbing sting that radiated outwards, making my eye water. But the pain felt... distant. Irrelevant. Like it was happening to someone else, some small, broken creature I used to be.I turned my head back to him slowly, deliberately. My eyes met his, and I didn't look away. I didn't drop my gaze to his chin, or his chest, or the floor, as I had been trained to do for years. I looked straight into his dead, black eyes.I saw the flicker of confusion there. And beneath the confusion, the faintest spark of something else. Something that tasted like fear.He lowered his hand, his face hardening into a mask of fury. "What did you just do?" he hissed, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated in my chest.I didn't answer. I couldn't. The words
JANAYAHTime didn't exist in the dark. There was only the cold, seeping into the marrow of my bones, and the smell of my own degradation—dried blood, stale urine, and the damp, earthy rot of the cellar.I lay curled in the dirt, a tight ball of misery, trying to conserve warmth that I didn't have. My body was a landscape of dull aches and sharp, stabbing pains left over from Michael’s assault. I didn't know how long it had been. Hours? Days? It felt like a lifetime. It felt like I had always been here, and the time in the cabin with Mace, the time of warmth and softness, had just been a cruel hallucination....He forgot you... the voices whispered, no longer screaming, just a constant, oily murmur in the back of my skull. ...They always forget the broken toys. You belong to the dark now...I didn't argue with them. I didn't have the energy. I was thirsty, so thirsty my tongue felt like sandpaper in my mouth, and my stomach had stopped growling hours ago, settling into a persistent, ho
JANAYAH I stayed there longer than I realized. Time blurred into the soft crackle of candle wicks and the steady, fragile sound of Chris breathing. Every rise of his chest felt like a small mercy granted — one I hadn’t known I was capable of earning. My wolf stirred quietly inside me, not rest
JANAYAH It felt like the room tilted.Like the floor dropped.My pulse stumbled so hard it hurt.Unwanted.The word hit like claws scraping down my chest—cold, sharp, deep.But he didn’t look away.Didn’t soften it.Didn’t try to take it back.Because it was the truth.Raw.Ugly.And his.I sucked
JANAYAH Samantha’s scream ripped through the trees—sharp, shaking, terrified.I wanted to react.I wanted to lift my head, tell her I was fine… or at least alive.But I couldn’t move.Not a finger.Not a breath beyond shallow, shaky ones.Then the world erupted.Footsteps thundered toward us—multi
JANAYAH A sharp, piercing cry tore through the air—And I jolted awake, breath ripping from my lungs, my heart racing so violently it hurt.Morning light filtered softly through the tall window, pale and quiet, as if the world itself was holding its breath. I sucked in another shaky inhale and rea







