MasukKNOX’S POVMy jaw locks so tight something in my temple pops and my eyes burn with a heat that has nowhere to go because I haven’t cried since I was a child in this hallway and I’m not going to start now.I’m NOT, I refuse to give this house the satisfaction of—Choose to stay.She couldn’t. She wrote the words and she couldn’t follow them.She told me to stay whole and she broke herself instead, and I’ve spent my entire life proving that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because what did I do this morning?What did I do when the pain got bad enough, when Ember’s words hit the places that were already bleeding, when the room closed in and the only options were stay and feel it or run and numb it?I ran. I said “wouldn’t think of it” and I walked out and I flew to Switzerland.I left her standing in the snow screaming my name, and my mother is asking me from beyond the grave to do the one thing she couldn’t do and the one thing I have never once in my life been able to do, which
KNOX’S POVShe turns and walks back up the path toward the house, and the lights are on — warm yellow through old windows, the house glowing against the Swiss dusk like somewhere people lived and loved and were happy, which is the cruelest lie a house can tell.I glance toward the cemetery. Rayana is still at her mother’s grave, lost in her own grief. She doesn’t know what I’m holding. She doesn’t know what I’m about to walk into.I walk toward the house, and for a moment, it feels like being transported to a older time, not by any chance a simpler one, but one where I at least had a family.The front door opens the way it always did — a slight resistance in the hinges that my father never fixed.The kitchen is to the left. I don’t go in.I can see it from the hallway — the counter where my father lifted me up to watch my mother cook, the floor where they danced, the window where the morning light used to pour in and make everything golden and lying — and if I walk in there the memory
KNOX’S POV“I’m fine, Mathilde.”“You were always a terrible liar.” Her eyes drift toward the cemetery where Rayana is kneeling at her mother’s grave, whispering things and possibly sobbing.Mathilde’s whole face changes, lighting up with pure delight.“Is that — oh my. Is that your lady friend from years back? Rayana?” She clasps her hands together. “I can’t believe it. Look at the two of you, two mischievous peas as always. Your mothers would be beside themselves.”“Rayana and I aren’t together,” I say, and the correction lands heavier than it should. “We’re just here for the graves. We won’t be staying long.”Mathilde’s face falls — a quick, genuine sadness that she doesn’t bother to hide.“Oh. Well. That’s a shame. Katherine and Beatrice would have loved that, you know. They had it all planned from the time you two were in nappies.” She sighs. “But I always told them — always told Katherine, always told Beatrice, rest her soul — you two would eventually decide for yourselves who y
KNOX’S POVThe car is waiting. The driver knows where to go because Rayana arranged everything while I was busy drinking myself into a productive stupor, and the route from the airport to the Volkov estate is one I could drive blindfolded.Every turn mapped in muscle memory from a childhood spent being driven to and from this place in the back of cars with tinted windows, because Alexei didn’t want the neighbours to see his son’s bruises.The gates appear. Iron, old, the Volkov crest embedded in metalwork that my great-grandfather commissioned and my father never bothered to maintain.The Volkov packs have always been in North America — territories spanning half the continent, thousands of wolves answering to the crown — but Zürich was the one bubble outside reality our ancestors carved for themselves.A private estate, a family home, far from the world and the wolves we ruled.Perhaps it was because of the madness that often came in their latter days, but one thing that has been cons
KNOX’S POVThe thing about self-destruction is that it requires commitment. You can’t half-arse it.You can’t run toward the fire and then flinch at the heat — you have to walk in and let it take you, and you have to do it with enough conviction that the people watching think it was intentional.A choice. A power move.The Lycan King, choosing Switzerland with the easy nonchalance of a man who has somewhere important to be, rather than the truth, which is that I strapped myself into a metal tube hurtling toward the one place on earth that could finish the job Ember started this morning.Because I am a coward, and between confronting the truth of her words and running, I choose running.I always choose running.Rayana is across the aisle and she hasn’t spoken in two hours, which is a record for a woman who once talked through an entire root canal.She’s curled in the leather seat with a blanket pulled up to her chin and her face turned toward the window, and in the cabin light she look
EMBER’S POVI storm into the main lodge and find him exactly where I expect to find him — seated in the dining area, coffee in hand, fresh shirt, hair combed, the bruises from Knox’s fists darkening along his jaw but groomed around like he’s styled them into an accessory.He looks up when I walk in and the smile he gives me is warm and sweet, and it makes my blood curdle.“Good morning. You look rested.”“Call off your men.”“Ember—”“Call them off, Rafael. Right now. I’m leaving.”He sets his coffee down with such careful precision.“The weather—”“There is no weather. It’s clear outside. The sky is blue. There is no storm and there are no wolves and we both know this lockdown has nothing to do with my safety.” I drop my bag on the floor between us. “I am not your guest. I am not your responsibility. And I am not staying one more minute. Call off your men or I will walk through them.”He studies me. The amusement in his eyes shifts to something else — something patient and appraising
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
EMBER'S POVThe path is narrow, tucked away from the main flow of guests, designed for staff to move unseen.My heart races from the dance floor, from the decision I've made to leave with him, from the understanding that I'm walking toward something I don't fully comprehend
EMBER'S POVThe electricity between us is suffocating. My breath vanishes. My cheeks flush hot.I can feel exactly how hard he is against my lower back, and my traitorous body responds despite everything—nipples tightening, core clenching, arousal flooding back like it never left."Unhand me," I ma
EMBER'S POVThe Council of Elders exists because power unchecked becomes tyranny.I've learned this in the past eighteen hours, piecing together information from Queenie's whispered explanations and Knox's terse answers.Centuries ago, a Lycan King went mad with power and nearly drove our species t







