LOGINHayden's POV"Alpha Hayden."The healer's voice was careful. I heard the tremors in it. I was fuming. Walking up and down like I was crazy. "She is gone."I already knew. I had known from the moment I heard the sound and saw the angle. “I don't care about her! What of the pups!? That is the only news I want to hear!” I looked at the healer and waited for the rest of it because the rest of it was the only part that mattered.“Ermmm… er…” he strutted."The pups," I snapped. "Can we save the pups?"The healer's face twisted as he shook his head. "The cervical fracture caused immediate cessation of maternal cardiac function. Without the mother's heartbeat sustaining placental circulation, the pups have been experiencing acute hypoxic deprivation. In simple terms, they have been without sufficient oxygen since the moment of impact." He paused. "The likelihood of viable survival is extremely low, Alpha. The longer we wait…"His big grammar was giving me a headache. I only wanted results! "I
Hayden's POV"You two, stop it!"A familiar female voice lashed in the air like a slave whip.I turned around to look at her just to be sure my ears were hearing right. Who gave her the guts to involve herself in the matters of he-wolvesShe was walking slowly, both hands on her waist, her stomach arriving before the rest of her in the way it had been doing for the last two months. The crowd parted for her the way it had parted for MoonBlood except this time it was not fear driving them back. It was the particular instinct that made wolves step aside for a heavily pregnant womanZenith.I looked at her and said a silent prayer to the moon goddess so genuine and so complete that I felt it move through my chest. She had come. She had seen what was happening from wherever she had been standing and she had decided to intervene, walking into the middle of it with her protruding stomach and her hands on her waist.She walked past me without looking at me; not that I expected her to look at
Hayden's POVThe coronation ceremony had been running for two hours and everything was going exactly as planned. The priest had just put the Alpha Crown on my head and the pack were cheering.The pack square was full. Every IronPeak wolf within territory had come. I chose the pack square instead of the council hall because I needed a crowd. I wanted them to see me become their Alpha. I needed so many television stations to attend. I wanted it witnessed by every set of eyes in the pack so that when the elder placed the Alpha Crown on my head, there was no room left in anyone's mind for the word unofficial.The oldest elder was congratulating me. He mid sentence when the ground shook with footsteps One voice cut through the ceremony like something thrown."What I want, I must collect!"The square went silent.Bastard!He came through the crowd. The rogue had come to cause trouble. He was walking towards us. He wasn't stopping briefly or adjusting his path for the bodies in it. People m
Hayden's POV_Twenty Years Ago_The road was empty.That was the first thing that should have told me something was wrong. Even if it was night already, the road between the elder council building and the pack house was never empty at this hour. There were always patrol wolves, always pack members moving between territories, always someone. Tonight there was nobody. Just a dark road and tree line and my headlights cutting through it as I wondered what was happening.I was almost home.I thought about my coronation in eight months. I had done it. Years of positioning and patience and careful documented research into bloodline records that nobody else had thought to look at. I had found the flaw in MoonBlood's lineage three years ago and spent those three years building the legal case around it quietly and alone and tonight the elders had ruled in my favour. The Alpha seat belonged to me. Clean. Official. Uncontestable. I didn't need to fight the blood fight against MoonBlood to get the
Wren's POVPlease Alpha, don't harm me or my grandmother. I will do whatever you want. I will stay away from your sons. I will go along with everything you tell me to do. Please just let me walk out of here. I had been reciting it in my head the entire way from the car to the door. Like a prayer. Like a script. Like a litany. Like a mantra. Those words were going to save me. Those words would keep me alive.I had fought the guards, refusing to come out of the car, but they were stronger. I kicked and kicked, but it was futile. Finally I let them take me. I was weak compared to their strength. I knew if I wanted to survive, I should stop fighting and use my head instead.I was going to kneel. I had decided that in the car. I was going to kneel and bow and make myself as small as I already was and I was going to say every single word without pride. I was going to massage the Alpha’s egoThe guards dragged me through the huge golden doors. Before them we looked so small. If I was under
Wren's POVWho is Cal Voss?I lay on the ground of the clearing covered in slime. I stared at the sky through the tree canopy and asked myself that question genuinely. Who was this boy that even in his complete absence, even when he was nowhere near this clearing and had no idea I had been kidnapped and driven into rogue territory and nearly swallowed alive, just the mention of his name made MoonBlood stop mid swallow and reconsider his life choices.Just his name.Cal had not thrown a punch. Had not shifted. Had not even shown up. His name had done the work for him and I was alive because of it. The smell of onions and the slime covering me wouldn’t let me think straight. MoonBlood had regurgitated me. I had felt my body rising up back to his mouth, his muscles pushing me with force. I had wondered if he had decided to chew me instead of just swallowing He spat me into his palm, looked at me once, and said, “I love the vomiters, you were one of them. Sometimes they piss themselves,
Zade’s POVZade | 2:14 AMThe third batch was supposed to be focaccia.I was not sure what it was now. Something flat and dense and disgustingly grey, sat on the counter. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't rest. I was going to bake but now it sat there ugly; like a judgment. Flour on my forearms. Flour o
Rook’s POVI knew how Eden cried. I had mastered how warm her tears felt on my chest; because I had held Eden a hundred times before when she cried. I had held her after her father's funeral, after her sister Lyra stopped returning her calls, after every small grief that found its way to her, after
Cal's POV"Cal."I didn't stop."Cal, are you serious right now…?""Cal!"Rook's voice bounced off the corridor walls. I didn't want to stop walking, or turn around or even explain anything to them. I had not figured out how to explain myself yet."Bro, you just told Dad to back off! What is wrong
Wren's POV"I kissed a boy, Grandma."The venison stew on the stove had been bubbling for twenty minutes and Grandma was supposed to be resting but she was sitting at the kitchen table in her house robe with her reading glasses on her head and her full attention on me instead. She was not resting a







