LOGINGraceI hissed when I opened my eyes to a bright light.Was I finally dead?Was it heaven?I doubt it. Never in my life had I felt like I was anywhere righteous enough to make heaven, not after all that I had put my children through. Besides, heaven was not meant to hurt this much.I tried to stand up but I groaned in pain, it was that kind of excruciating, paralyzing pain. My body felt foreign, heavy, like it no longer belonged to me.“I’ve got you Angel,” a gruff voice said, and hands quickly moved to help me up.I was attacked by those familiar sparks and he sent evaded my senses. Everything, it was just too much.I flinched away from his touch as if it burned.When I looked up, Declan was standing there with a pained expression. He looked like he was still trying to decide between moving to touch me again, and staying put. Good thing he chose the latter.My throat got tight again and I had to look away so I did not cry in front of him. I didn’t know if I could bear to hear how muc
Declan“Wait, how did you figure that out?” Rhys asked.“I asked around,” I said. “One of the guards said that Harper cornered Grace and they had some kind of argument. Something happened, and after that Grace began to act strangely. He said he tried calling her name but she seemed lifeless, like a zombie.”Rhys ran a hand through his hair. “We messed up,” he said. “Declan, we really fucking messed up.”His eyes had turned red. He was one step away from breaking.“What did you find out?” I asked.He produced a small glass bottle with some dark liquid in it. It looked thick, almost alive, like it clung to the glass.“What is that?” I asked.“I found it in Harper’s room and according to Jonathan, this is an elixir that feeds on one’s negative emotions and makes them lose control of themselves.”“So that means Harper may have gotten to Grace first and used this on her.”“Grace will never forgive us,” he said. “I should have never allowed Harper to stay here in the first place.”My wolf h
Rhys Are you sure you won’t regret it?Fuck Declan for putting those thoughts into my head. They had been echoing ever since he said them, bouncing around my skull like an uncomfortable feeling I could not shake off. It was like he planted something rotten in there and just walked away, leaving me to deal with it.Why on earth was he trying to take the side of the woman who not only hid away our kids from us for five whole years, she also wanted to kill them?That was not something you just forgot. Not when I could see it with my own eyes the way she heartlessly wrapped her hands around their throat.We were actually making progress, and I was willing to move past what had happened. I was getting there too, slowly. And I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could have the old Grace back.The one that used to hide behind me whenever she got overwhelmed, he one that was scared to even hurt a fly.Turns out I was just fooling myself.That Grace was long gone, she had left five years ago an
Grace How long had I been here?Time had stopped making sense.Nothing made sense at this point anymore. Between the screaming, the suffocating silence and the tears…. I don’t even know.I don’t even know how many times that I have passed out at this point…Was I lucid, was I not? I did not even know.All I knew that whenever I opened my eyes, it felt like waking into a worse version of the same nightmare.I couldn’t tell what was real anymore.Was I thinking clearly? Was any of this actually happening, or had my mind finally broken under the weight of it all? The questions circled endlessly, feeding on themselves until I couldn’t separate one thought from the next.I tried to focus on something simple. Something solid.My hands.That’s right. I could feel them. I think. My fingers twitched weakly against the cold floor, scraping over rough concrete. That had to be real. My body felt distant, like it belonged to someone else, but it was still there. I was still there.I think.I was
DeclanI wanted to believe there was some kind of foul play.I really did. I wanted something that made sense, something I could hold on to so I did not have to accept what I saw with my own eyes. Grace loved her kids. That was never in question. I had seen it too many times to doubt it. The way she held them, looked at them like they were the sun and her entire life revolved around them.There was just no way on earth that she would want to harm them.But that image kept clashing with the one burned into my mind.The fear in their eyes. The way her hands were wrapped around their necks, tight, unrelenting. The look on her face was the worst part. She looked like a woman on a mission.She was not planning on stopping.If we had not walked in when we did, would she have killed them?“This is fucked,” I muttered under my breath.The words felt weak compared to the storm inside me.I looked down at Faith in my arms. She had finally fallen asleep, but even then, there was no peace in it.
GraceThis was all a mistake.That was the only thought running through my head as I stormed out of the pack house, the heavy doors slamming behind me with a force that echoed far too loudly in the silence that followed. It felt final, like something inside me had snapped shut along with them.Coming here, believing things would change, convincing myself that maybe, just maybe, I could start over… it was all a lie. A stupid, desperate lie I told myself because I wanted to believe I deserved something better.Opening up my heart again, letting people in, and trusting them.God, what a mess.What a complete, unforgiving cluster fuck.The tears came before I could stop them.Hot, relentless, blurring my vision as I stumbled forward into the open air. I wiped at them angrily, my chest tightening with every uneven breath. I hated crying. I hated what it meant. It meant that I was weak.When I was alone with my children, I never cried, not once and now here I was sobbing like I was a child.







