ログインLIAMDawn came cold and gray. Two convoys assembled in the Iron Valley driveway. Engines rumbling. Warriors checking weapons. The controlled chaos of soldiers preparing for war.Caleb led the Iron Valley contingent. Forty wolves. Battle-ready. He stood at the head of his convoy with Vanessa beside him. The young Alpha had grown into his authority faster than I expected. Maybe desperation was a good teacher. Maybe love was.Jax commanded the Shadow Peak forces. Twelve wolves who escaped with him plus reinforcements from allied packs. Seasoned fighters. Men who had bled for Shadow Peak before and would do it again.I rode in a separate vehicle. The tunnel team. Neah, Theo, Shane, and me. We would approach from the east while the main forces hit the compound gates. Precision over power. Surgery over assault.The drive was three hours. I spent them briefing the team on Shadow Peak's internal structure. Guard rotations that Marcus might have changed but probably hadn't because Marcus was a
NEAHThe packhouse felt different tonight. Heavier. Like the walls themselves knew what was coming and were bracing for impact.I found moments with each of them. Not planned. Not orchestrated. Just gravity pulling me toward the people who mattered before the world tried to take them away.Shane found me first. I was in the training building sharpening my knife. The rhythmic scrape of blade against stone was the only meditation my brain accepted. He sat beside me. No jokes. No grin. Just Shane with the mask off."My mom died during a rogue attack when I was ten," he said. No preamble. No warning. Just the truth falling out of him like something he'd been carrying too long. "My dad raised me alone after that. Trained me to fight because laughing wasn't enough to keep you alive."I stopped sharpening. Looked at him."He taught me
LIAMThe plan was solid. I hated every inch of it.Not because it wouldn't work. Neah's tactical instincts were sharper than wolves who had been planning assaults for decades. The tunnel approach was the right call. The frontal distraction was the right call. The timing, the positioning, the extraction route. All right.The part where the woman my wolf had crossed three territories to find crawled alone through a collapsed drainage tunnel into enemy territory was the part that made Kain claw at the inside of my skull until my vision went red.I stood in the hallway after she walked away. Her scent lingered. Lavender and honey and sweat from the war room. My fingers still held the ghost of her skin. The trail down her forearm. Wrist to palm to fingertips. Each point of contact seared into my nerve endings like a brand.She said she'd try. Not a promi
NEAHI stared at the photo until my vision blurred. Then I turned around and walked back downstairs.Liam was still at the island. He looked up when I entered. Read my face. His body went rigid."What happened?"I put the phone on the counter between us. Screen up. The photo of Mara glowing in the dark kitchen like an accusation.He looked at it. His control fractured. Not the dramatic, explosive fracture of a man who wore his emotions on the surface. The deep, tectonic kind. The kind that happened underground. His jaw clenched so hard I heard the bones grind. His hands gripped the counter edge. The wood creaked."That's Mara," he said. His voice was barely a sound. "Ryan's mate.""I know who she is. You told me.""She's seven months pregnant.""I know that too."
NEAHI couldn't sleep. My brain wouldn't shut off. Guard rotations and tunnel dimensions and fifty-one hostages and a mole in our ranks spinning through my head like a machine with no off switch.I gave up at 1:47 AM. Pulled on a sweatshirt and padded downstairs for water. The packhouse was dark. Warriors sleeping in every available space. Bodies on floors and couches. The air heavy with the restless energy of people preparing for war.The kitchen light was off. I filled a glass by feel. Drank half of it standing at the sink. The cold water hit my empty stomach and reminded me I hadn't eaten since morning."There's leftover chicken in the fridge."I didn't jump. My body had already registered his presence before his voice confirmed it. That shift in the atmosphere. That pull. The way the air got heavier and warmer and charged with something that liv
NEAHNobody asked me to take charge. I just did. Because nobody else was moving fast enough and fifty-one wolves didn't have time for Alpha egos and territorial posturing.I stood over the map and let my brain do what it did best. Patterns. Angles. Blind spots. The compound layout was military grade but military grade didn't mean perfect. Every fortress had a weakness. You just had to think like water and find the crack."Guard rotations run on a six-hour cycle," Jax said, standing across the table from me. "Four positions on the perimeter. Two inside the cell block. Marcus has about thirty wolves loyal to him plus whatever mercenaries the Bloodline Project supplied.""Thirty wolves against how many do we have?""Iron Valley has sixty combat-ready warriors," Caleb said from behind me. His voice was measured. Controlled. The Alpha stepping up despite the chaos in his personal life
NEAHThe nightmare started the same way. Screeching tires. Metal folding. Glass exploding.Then it shifted.The car disappeared. I was standing in a forest. Dark. Dense. Barefoot on cold ground. Behind me, howling. Not one wolf. Many. Moving through the trees like a coordinated hunt.I ran. They we
THEOI sat with the footage for six hours before I made my move.Not because I needed time to decide what to do. I knew what to do. The question was how. Strategy wasn't about knowing the right answer. It was about knowing the right sequence.Option one: tell Neah immediately. Show her the footage.
THEOFacts don't lie. People do.I learned that when I was eleven and my father told me my mother left because she needed space. She didn't need space. She needed a different man. But facts were inconvenient for my father so he rearranged them into a story he could live with.I never rearranged fac
NEAHI knew the pattern because I lived it.The walls going up. The distance growing. The slow, methodical withdrawal from everyone who cared. The smile that showed teeth but never reached the eyes. The laughter that was performance, not joy.Neah was doing exactly what I did when my mother walked







