LOGINLara's POVThe rays from the morning hit me once in the eye and I gradually opened my eyes, blinking against the light that was coming through the trees in long, warm strips.For a moment I just lay there, not feeling fully in the world yet, my fingers lightly touching the chest my head was resting on. The surface was warm, solid, rising and falling with a steady rhythm, and there was an arm around me while the smell of the forest morning and everything felt calm in the specific way that things felt calm before you were fully conscious enough to remember what had happened the night before.And then I remembered.I came into full consciousness like stepping into cold water. I raised my head off his chest slowly, sitting up, and looked around at the forest floor seeing the morning light and Lucien lying beside me with his eyes open, already watching me.‘Oh God!’ The th
Lara's POVBefore I knew it, Lucien grabbed me and laid my back on the floor.He was over me in a second, both his hands pinning my wrists down on either side, but he kept himself raised enough that the upper half of his weight was not on me. The space between us from the waist upward was still there, deliberately maintained, which was the only thing telling me that somewhere underneath the rut, Lucien was still in there trying.But the rut was winning. I could see it in the way his jaw was set and the way his eyes had gone darker than they normally were, and when his mouth found the side of my neck I felt every nerve in my body respond to it before my brain had even caught up.I tried to pull loose from his grip, but his hand stayed firm around my wrist."Lucien!" I said it sharply. "Lucien, snap out of it."Something in his body registered the sound of his name. Not fully, not cleanly, but enough. He pulled back from my neck gradually, the way someone pulled back from something they
Alpha Lucien's POV"Lara!" I called after her and walked quickly to cover the distance between us instantly.I reached out to wrap my arm around her and pull her back before she got any further into the dark, but neither of us saw the stone in time. It was large and sitting right in the middle of the path, half-buried in the ground and invisible in the low light. And so, the moment her foot hit the edge of it, we both went down.We hit the ground hard. The kind of hard that knocked the breath out of both of us at the same time, and for a moment neither of us moved. The ground out here was not the soft kind. Most of this section of the forest was stony and uneven and it made itself known on impact.We both cried out at the same time. "Ah!"The pain shot through my whole body immediately but what I felt most was the back of my head, slightly toward the neck, where I had landed. It was the kind of pain that sat there and pulsed rather than fading quickly, and when I pressed my hand to it
Lara's POVJust as I was getting close to the ground from the fall, a hand caught me.I managed to turn in shock and it was Lucien, right there, crouching beside me and pulling me upright before my knees hit the dirt."Lara!" He steadied me on my feet and then looked at me with the kind of expression that sat somewhere between relief and genuine frustration. "Are you suddenly out of your mind? What are you doing wandering around the forest alone?"I could not hide the shock on my face. Out of every person in the world who could have shown up in this forest right now, it was him.He looked me over as his jaw was tightening. "Are you trying to feed yourself to the beasts?""Go." I pushed him off me immediately. "I need to find my son."He held my arm again before I could move. "Look. I have my men mobilized and they are already searching for him in the other part of this space. I joined up to help too."I was not taking that from him. Not right now. "No! I need to find him. He needs me!
Lara's POVUpon hearing that Vale had gone into this deadly area, I had no other option than to go in after him. Although I got the news of that from an anonymous source.So, I did not stand at the edge and think about it. I did not weigh the risks or remind myself of everything I had heard about what lived inside this stretch of forest when the season turned. Because none of that was relevant anymore. My son was in there, and that was the only calculation that mattered.Beta Draven and I had split at the entrance … he took one side of the space and I took the other, because covering more ground was the only way to find him faster and we both understood that without having to say it. We agreed on a signal if either of us found him, and then we went in opposite directions and the trees closed around me while the search began.That had been hours ago.The forest did not look
Alpha Lucien's POV"Alpha Lucien." Beta Remy's voice came from behind me, carrying that particular careful tone he used when he had something to say that he was not entirely sure I wanted to hear. "That's a sacred necklace crafted by our high clan mountain artisans to keep you safe."I was still in the mirror, fixing the tip of my suit, and I let him finish. There was no point interrupting him as I already knew where he was going, but my mind was already made up on the other side of it.He added, "It's the only one of its kind. Are you sure that you want to give it to Lara?"I turned from the mirror. The necklace was in its case on the table beside the flower bouquet I had also picked out, and I reached for it and opened the necklace casing properly, looking at it one more time. There was something about looking at it that settled the decision rather than shook it … just the way certain things did when you had already arrived at a choice and needed your eyes to confirm it rather than
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
Lara's POV"Lucien, mark me."I moaned the words like a prayer I had been holding back for five years, helpless and wanting as we were both soaked from the shower. I had woken up from sleep and come to him in my nightwear — the thin kind that could be pulled off with one hand — and somehow we had e
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







