ログインEzra pulled me through the garden.Fast.Silent.Certain.I ran beside him with one hand gripping the ledger and the other trapped in his. Branches snagged at my cardigan. Damp grass soaked through my shoes. Behind us, the pack house glowed with too many windows and too many secrets.Victor had seen us.Or he had seen something.With Victor, something was always enough.Ezra did not slow until we reached the west side of the house, where the stone wall climbed beneath a row of dark balconies.I stared up. “No.”He looked at me. “I did not say anything.”“You’re thinking something reckless.”“That is a little unfair.”“Is it wrong?”He glanced up at the balcony above us.I made a strangled sound. “Absolutely not.”“It is the fastest way.”“It is a balcony.”“I can climb.”“Wonderful. I cannot.”His gaze moved over me, and for one awful second I thought he might smile.He did not.That would have been worse.Probably.“You can,” he said.“I have not shifted. I have not trained. I was pu
Victor laughed outside the archive door.Soft.Calm.Certain.The sound slid through the wood and wrapped around my throat.Ezra’s hand tightened around my wrist.Neither of us breathed.The ledger was pressed against his chest, caught there before it could fall. The page with my name was hidden inside it, but I could still see the word burned behind my eyes.Disputed.My life, reduced to one ugly mark.“Aurora,” Victor called.Not loud.He did not need to be loud.The whole house had taught me to fear that voice.Ezra leaned closer, his mouth near my ear.“Do not answer.”His breath brushed my skin.My wolf went still.Listen.This was not the time for her to notice him.This was not the time for my heart to forget there was a locked door between us and the man who had sent me away.The handle moved again.Once.Twice.The lock held.Victor made a quiet sound, almost amused.“You disappoint me,” he said.My stomach twisted.Ezra’s eyes darkened.He shifted the ledger silently into my
Disputed.I stared at the word until the letters blurred.Not blessed.Not recognised.Not properly registered.Disputed.My name sat on the page like a mistake someone had tried to trap in ink.Aurora Vale.Mother: Liora Vale.Father: blank.Then that word.My fingers trembled as I touched the paper.The ink had faded, but the mark was still angry. Whoever had written it had pressed the pen so hard the page had scarred.Disputed.I tried to breathe, but the archive felt too small. Too cold. Too full of dead voices whispering from the shelves.“No,” I whispered.My wolf stirred.Not frightened.Focused.I turned the page too quickly.Nothing.The next records moved on to another family. A birth. A death. A bond ceremony between two wolves I did not know.As if my existence had taken only three lines.As if that was all I was worth.I went back.Read it again.Aurora Vale.Liora Vale.Disputed.My stomach twisted.Victor was my father.He had to be.He had raised me.He had punished me
Victor called my name a third time.This time, I moved.The key felt heavy in my palm, heavier than old brass had any right to be. I curled my fingers around it and walked back toward the training field with Luna Maren’s warning still ringing through my bones.Your life was not the first lie Black Moon Ridge buried.I did not know what that meant.I only knew I believed her.Victor stood at the edge of the field, his expression carved from ice.“Where did Luna Maren take you?”I stopped in front of him and lowered my gaze just enough to look obedient.Not enough to feel it.“She wanted to make sure I was calm.”Victor studied me.Too closely.My fingers tightened around the key. I forced my hand to stay at my side, hidden in the folds of my training shirt.“And are you?”“Calm?”“Do not make me repeat myself.”My wolf stirred.I breathed through it.“Yes, Father.”His eyes narrowed, as if the words sounded wrong to him too.Behind him, the training field had returned to movement. Wolv
“They will bury you.”Luna Maren said it so calmly that, for one awful second, I wondered if I had imagined the words.Then the wind shifted through the trees, cold and sharp, and I knew I had heard her exactly right.My mouth went dry. “Who?”Maren looked back toward the training field.The others were too far away to hear us, but not too far to watch. Wolves had sharp ears, sharper eyes, and a terrible love for secrets that did not belong to them.“Not here,” she said.“That is not an answer.”“No,” she agreed. “It is a warning.”My wolf pressed against my ribs.Restless.Listening.I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how thin my training shirt felt against the morning cold.“You can’t say something like that and expect me not to ask questions.”Maren’s silver eyes returned to mine.“I expect you to ask many questions, Aurora. I am asking you to be careful who hears them.”A laugh slipped from me.It was small and bitter and nothing like amusement.“I have been home f
The growl rolled across the training field.Low.Raw.Mine.For one frozen heartbeat, no one moved.Not Mara.Not Vivian.Not Bianca.Not even Victor.I stood in the centre of the training mat with my knees shaking and my breath caught in my throat, trying to understand how a sound like that had come from me.My wolf pressed against my skin.Close.Too close.Every instinct screamed at me to run.Another instinct, older and stranger, told me to stand my ground.Victor’s face had gone pale.Only slightly.Only enough that I knew I had not imagined it.“Interesting,” Bianca whispered.Vivian said nothing.That scared me more.Ezra stepped onto the field.His movement broke whatever spell had held the pack silent.Whispers erupted.“She growled at the Beta.”“She hasn’t even shifted.”“Did you feel that?”“That wasn’t normal.”Normal.I almost laughed.Nothing about me had ever been normal enough for Black Moon Ridge.Victor turned his head slowly toward Ezra. “This does not concern you.







