LOGINChapter 22“Heavens, there has to be an antidote for a racing heart. And if there is, send two doses.” — Sh.Rivera ~•The first thing I noticed when he stepped into the courtyard was his golden brown eyes which seemed a little deeper now. The moment he saw me his eyes lit up and in a single step he swooped me into his arms in a long embrace.I let myself settle in it before I stepped back and straightened.“You look terrible,” he said.“Thank you Rico,” I smiled rolling my eyes.“I mean it.” His eyes moved over my face again. “You’re pale.”“It’s the north. There’s less sun.”There was an untouched cup of coffee on the small table in the yard.I looked at it then back at him.“You didn’t—”“I am not having anything these bastards give me.” He cut me off, to which I nodded.“Let’s walk.”We walked to the east garden. A guard trailed at a distance close enough to be present and far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening. Rico clocked him immediately and adjusted without being told, keep
“The most dangerous man in any room is the one who has decided exactly how much of himself he is willing to lose.” — Sh.Zayen~•“Please, please Alpha. I have a family. Children. I didn’t know this would happen I swear to the Moon I didn't No—“ The man’s screams had been going on for nearly twenty minutes now. I stood with my back to him, looking at the far wall of the ground pit while he worked through his plea behind me. The chains were secure around him and the room smelled of sweat and fear and the particular desperation of a man who had realized too late that the money wasn’t worth what came after it.“I didn’t even know what it was, I swear. If I had known in any way it would harm her I swear I wouldn't have agreed—““Who paid you?”I finally looked at him. He stopped.“I — I don’t know his name. I swear I don’t. He came to me a few hours before. All I wanted was to pay off people I owe.” His voice cracked. “He said it was just a drink. That nobody would… that she wouldn’t…
“If you were to ask any woman her worst nightmare, it would probably be my current reality.— Sh.Rivera ~•My skin felt flaky and hollow, like something had been slowly drained out of me while I slept.I opened my eyes to the ceiling of my room. I stared at it for a long moment before anything else caught up with me. The light coming through the curtains was wrong. I’d lost time somewhere and I didn’t know how much.My head was doing something slow and terrible behind my eyes.I tried to sit up but my body had other thoughts. I made it halfway before my arms gave out and I dropped back against the pillow, breathing harder than I should have been from the effort of six inches. There was something taped to the inside of my elbow, I looked down. An IV line. Two of them. One clear, one faintly green and herbal smelling.My wolf. I couldn’t quite hear her. She was there, only just distant and low. The door opened.A girl I vaguely recognized from the household staff stopped dead when
“They say the north grows on you. They probably haven’t been there.” — Sh. Rivera ~• The Frostfang territory was nothing like South Rosta Coast. I’d spent my entire life in the south in warm streets, sunny skies, and a busy city. The north didn’t have any of that softness. The air carried a bite that didn’t ease even under full morning sun. A city with buildings that seems to form rather than being built. Pack members moved through the street with phones out, earbuds in, stopping outside a small convenience store wedged between two older stalls. A group of younger wolves on a low wall with coffee cups, someone’s speaker playing something low and unhurried from an open window above. A woman arguing pleasantly with a vendor over pricing while her kid pulled at her sleeve. I took it in and said nothing and kept walking. Zorah moved beside pointing things out with the casual authority of someone who found her own home only mildly interesting. “Pack hall.” She nodded toward a
“The most elegant rooms always hide the ugliest intentions.” — Sh.Rivera ~•The dinner had been Zayen’s idea.Or rather, it had been presented to me as a formality by one of the older maids who appeared at my door that afternoon with a pressed silk dress draped over her arm and an expression that made clear refusal was not a real option.“The Alpha requests your presence at the formal table this evening, ma’am.”I looked at the dress. Deep burgundy. Off shoulder. Floor length. The kind of dress chosen with a deliberate telling I was Luna of this house whether you like it or not. I put it on moments later after debating whether or not I was ready to provoke Zayen again. In the end, my fears got the better of me and headed to what seemed like the Frostfang council room. The formal dining room was nothing like the smaller one Zorah had walked me through on my first morning. This one was a long obsidian table running the full length of the room and burning golden lights across every s
“Mama always said curiosity was unbecoming in a Dacian woman. She was probably right.” — Sh.Rivera.~•The problem with being a wolf, even a cursed one, was that the nose never lied. You could train your face into stone. You could swallow every feeling down until it sat like a rock at the bottom of your chest. But the scent of another wolf pressed that close for that long embedded itself whether you wanted it to or not.By the time Axel and the convoy had arrived to pry open those steel doors, I’d already memorized the exact frequency of Zayen’s breathing, a slow and infuriating rhythm, like being locked in a rotting building with a woman who hated him was just another Tuesday. Meanwhile I’d been fighting my own lungs for the last hour, mouth dry, skin damp, hyper-aware of every inch of space between us.Survival tip from Rivera Dacian: do not get locked in a fifty-degree warehouse with your enemy-husband. Especially not one that looks like that with his shirt off.I’d looked. Once.
“There’s a line between control and surrender, and I could feel it tremble.”—Sh Rivera's POV What in the world will I be doing in a locked warehouse with the devil right in front of me? My thoughts ran through countless possibilities of what might happen. My chest tightened when his eyes lande
“Of all the places he could’ve stayed away from, he chose the one I was in.”—Sh Rivera~• “What are you doing here?” The rage that burned inside me was unmatched. He slid into the empty space next to me. “It’s a Rosta Coast gathering, I am supposed to be here.” Right. If anything, I was the
“The enemy of my enemy isn't my friend, he’s just another man waiting for his time to strike.” Rivera~• “—The party’s set for tonight. Every Alpha in Rosta Coast will be there,” Axel to Zayen. “You sure you want to go through with it? After last night—” Zayen cut him off without even looking u
“Everyone in Rosta Coast knows better than to test a Morozov wolf.”-Sh.Rivera~•I tried to pull away from the brunette dizzy from alcohol and the reckless burn still humming under my skin, but someone beat me to it, both men were shoved back, stumbling into the crowd.Before I could process what w







