LOGINEMBER’S POVRafael’s jaw tightens. Something moves behind his eyes, a strange hurt that twists my chest in the wrong way. Nonetheless, he steps back and raises both hands, palms out.“Fine.” He drops the manila envelope at my feet. It hits the floor with a heavy thud. “I’m not taking it back with me. It’s yours. Your truth. Your choice what to do with it.”He walks to the door and pauses.“But when he breaks your heart today — and he will, Ember, because that’s what he does — don’t say I didn’t try to save you from it.”He leaves. The door clicks shut behind him.I stand there for a long time, staring at the envelope on the floor.The temptation is almost torture. A gravitational pull toward the answers I’ve been chasing since yesterday morning, since I crouched in the snow and heard Nathaniel say words that rearranged everything I thought I knew.I could pick it up. Open it. Read whatever’s inside and KNOW, finally, definitively, what 2016 means and what Knox did and whether the man
EMBER’S POVI turn on the shower. The water runs cold for the first few seconds, then scalds, and I step under it and let it burn.“Ember.” Rayana’s voice again, softer now, closer to the bathroom door. “For what it’s worth… I’m here. If you want to talk. I know we’re not—” She pauses. “I know I haven’t earned that. I know I’ve been difficult. Manipulative. Probably awful, if we’re being honest.” Another pause. “But I meant what I said about this trip. I want to learn what it is to be a good friend. Even if that starts from just being a good listener.”Water runs down my face. Possibly tears mixed in. Hard to tell.“I was jealous of you yesterday,” I say, and I don’t know why I’m saying it. “At the clinic. When you were delirious and calling his name and he was standing at your bedside like the world was ending. I was jealous of a woman who was literally unconscious from a medical emergency. That is how pathetic I am.”Rayana is quiet for a moment.Then, very softly: “That’s not pathe
EMBER’S POV“Wakey wakey, sunshine.”The voice cuts through my sleep, bright and shrill and entirely too alive for whatever ungodly hour this is.“I said wakey wakey. Rise and shine. Up and at ‘em. Carpe diem. Seize the—”“Rayana.” My voice comes out like gravel dragged across sandpaper. “What are you doing.”“I’m waking you up. Obviously. Now — breakfast. I have options. Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and capers, or a traditional Finnish porridge with lingonberry compote, or — and this is my personal recommendation — pain au chocolat that Rafael’s chef makes fresh every morning and which I have been reliably informed will change your entire relationship with pastry as a concept.”I pry one eye open.Rayana is standing in my doorway, fully dressed, fully made up, radiating the specific manic energy of a woman who has decided that today will go according to plan by all means.She’s wearing cream cashmere and her platinum hair is swept into something elegant and she looks, by all acco
KNOX'S POVThe door isn't locked.Nathaniel doesn't lock his door on the compound — a small vulnerability from a man who doesn't believe in vulnerabilities, a costly oversight on his path.Fine. I'll bite.The cabin is minimal. Clean lines, no clutter, the living space of a man who keeps everything organized because mess in the external world reflects mess in the internal one.I know this about Nathaniel. I've known it for twenty years. It's one of the reasons I trusted him — a man that disciplined, that controlled, that careful with his surroundings must be equally careful with his loyalties.I was wrong about that.I search the desk first. Operational paperwork — rotations, assessments, manifests. Standard. Boring.The kind of material Nathaniel would leave in an unlocked drawer on purpose, just thorough enough to satisfy a casual search and just boring enough to discourage a deeper one.But the bottom drawer catches. There is something wedged behind it, between the drawer and the b
KNOX'S POVThe truth is that I saw Ember Aragon at a pack gathering in 2016 — a territorial summit Gale dragged her to, a miserable event where she stood at his elbow in a dress that cost more than most people's cars and smiled at people who didn't see her and didn't speak unless spoken to.I watched her for an entire evening from across the room and wanted her with a violence that shocked me.The optics are murky.The line between wanting her because I could save her and wanting her because I could take her was truly a matter of perspective. Not one I cared about at the time.Optics didn't matter when I'd always had my way.Optics of a good and noble man imply conscience — both of which I severely lacked, and proved just right when I drove a selfish bargain with her husband.I wanted her the way I'd wanted things my entire life — totally, consumingly, with the absolute conviction that anything I desired should be mine to take.I didn't know about Gale. Not then.She was his wife and
KNOX'S POVNothing."I know you're in there. I can hear you breathing."I press my palm flat against the wood. The surface is freezing cold and rough against my torn skin."I fucked up." The words come out unsteady. Raw in a way that would humiliate me if I had any dignity left. "At the clinic. I know I fucked up. You asked me something simple — something you had every right to ask — and I threw a fucking tantrum and slammed a wall and I saw your face when I did it and I know what you were thinking. I know the look. I've seen it before, on you, directed at another man, and the fact that I put it there is — fuck, Ember, the fact that I made you look at me like that—"My voice breaks. I press my forehead against the door, right next to my bloody handprint, and close my eyes."And I didn't come after you. You walked into the woods in the freezing cold, spiraling and scared and I stayed at the clinic because going after you meant ripping myself open. It meant running through the snow and
EMBER'S POV"That sounds like a terrible investment.""The best ones usually do.""And if I told him you bribed your way into this?""He'd probably challenge me to a duel. Very dramatic. Lots of growling." Rafael glances back at me, amused. "Would you like to watch?
EMBER'S POVNathaniel's jaw tightens. "If the council rules in Gale's favor, he has legal grounds to demand your return. Physically. The council can compel it—they have enforcement mechanisms that even Knox would have trouble circumventing, especially if it's a formal ruling. You'd be back in Shado
EMBER'S POVThe breakfast terrace has been transformed into a holiday explosion that looks like Santa's workshop threw up on a five-star resort.Christmas decorations drip from every available surface—garlands wrapped around railings, oversized ornaments dangling from trees, some kin
EMBER'S POVI'm terrified this will ruin the moment. This fragile, beautiful thing we've built under the Northern Lights.But I'm tired of everyone telling me what to think about Knox. Tired of Gale's poison and Rayana's warnings and rumors whispered behind hands at cocktail receptions.We don't ow







