LOGINLara's POVSomehow the blood link had made me find Vale.I don't know how else to explain it …but then, it was that pull that started the moment I stepped out of the hotel and that quiet tug in my chest pointing me in a direction I had not consciously chosen. I had followed it without questioning it, with Beta Draven a few steps behind me, and it had led me right here.And the moment my eyes got to him … that small figure with the kinda oversized bag on his back, standing there like he had not just given me the worst 50 minutes of my entire life … everything else dissolved."Vale!" I cried out and I was already moving before the name had fully left my mouth, crossing the space between us fast, while dropping to my knees in front of him and pulling him in."Mummy." He said into my shoulder, with his arms coming around my neck."Vale." I sa
Beta Remy's POVAlpha Lucien and I had resorted to a space he had insisted on, just the two of us, after the conclave event wrapped up.The night air here was quieter than it had been inside that hall, and the change was ‘welcomed.’I stood a few steps to his left with my hands in my pockets, giving him the kind of space that a Beta learned to give their Alpha when the Alpha was clearly somewhere else in his head even while physically present.He was holding a picture.Not a new one though. I recognised it … or rather, I recognised the shape of his attention when he held it, because I had seen him hold that same image more times than I could count across the years. It was half of a photograph … the kind of clean, scissor-cut edge that said someone had deliberately separated two people from the same image. The half that remained was Lara's side. The other half, from wh
Lara's POV"What?!" The word came out of me a second time, because the first time apparently had not been enough to make what I was hearing make sense.I pressed the phone harder against my ear and moved a few steps down the corridor, away from Beta Draven, not because I wanted distance from him but because my body needed to move and the phone call needed my full attention and I could not give both things the same space at the same time."What do you mean Vale is gone? Have you lost your mind?" I said it at a volume I was not controlling properly, and I was aware of that but I did not care. How she expected me to just hear that and stand still was something I genuinely could not work out."He left a note saying that he went to find his dad," she said over the phone, her voice careful in the way someone's voice got careful when they knew they were delivering information that was going to land badly. "
Lara's POVWe finally got through the Alpha Conclave's proceedings and made it back to the hotel side where we had already booked our rooms, to retire for the day.The corridor was quiet in the way hotel corridors always were at this hour … that particular late-night hush where the only sounds were the soft carpet underfoot and the distant hum of the building. I was so exhausted that I had already removed my shoes somewhere between the elevator and the corridor, and I was holding them in one hand by the straps, walking in my bare feet and not even slightly bothered about how that looked.I was with Beta Draven, walking beside me at that steady pace of his that never varied regardless of the hour or the circumstances."Look, it's…" I started, reaching for the right words through the fog of how tired I actually was. "It's been a really long night. I mean, we have literally been out the wh
Lara's POV"Lara, I ask again." Lucien's voice had gone from persuasive to something with more edge under it. "Is that my son?"The question sat in the room between us and I let it sit there. I was not going to pick it up and hand it back to him with an answer attached to it.I knew the complications of admitting anything to his face right now. I had known them from the moment Vale's voice came through that phone … the way it would change everything if Lucien heard confirmation from my own mouth, the way he would take that single piece of information and run it in a direction I had not prepared for in the middle of an Alpha Conclave with Beta Draven somewhere around here wondering where I was.So I put my composure back in its proper place and looked at him."You know one thing, Lucien." I said it clearly and without flinching. "Not everything is about you. It's not like the world revolves around your selfish ass." I held his gaze the entire time, and then added. "So, he is not yours.
Lara's POVThe way Lucien was taking all of this so personally told me he was definitely up to something. And I needed to get out of whatever feeling he was trying so hard to put me in before it swallowed me completely.So I bit his lip. For the second time.He pulled back immediately, and before he could register what came next, my hand was already moving. The slap connected hard — hard enough that his face turned to the side from the force of it, and the sound of it in that small room was something neither of us was going to pretend we hadn't heard."Fucking asshole." I said it directly at him, not lowering my voice for anything.He touched the side of his face. Then he looked back at me, and — of all things — he chuckled."Oh, Lara." The sound of it was low and almost amused, which was somehow more infuriating than if he had been angry. "
Lara's POVI swiped the screen open fully.And there it was.A photo of Alpha Lucien lying across Raina's body with his eyes closed and completely at ease — the kind of relaxed that only comes when a person feels truly safe where they are. And Raina was looking directly into the camera, front-facin
Lara's POVBy the time the nurse was satisfied that I was steady enough to be left alone, I had pulled myself together enough to look like a functioning person. Breathing was even and my hands had stopped shaking. The face in the small mirror above the sink looked tired but held together.That was
Lara's POVI moved out to the corridors, and guess what?Alpha Lucien was right there, placing a lady into a wheelchair that one of the nurses had just wheeled over — on his instruction, obviously, since that was what all the urgency had been about… The emergency. The ‘quick, I need a doctor.’ That
Lara's POVI didn't waste a single second after that call.I threw on the first decent outfit I could find, grabbed my bag, and was out the door before the thought of breakfast even crossed my mind. Whatever was in that hospital report wasn't something I was going to sit at home and stare at the ce







