LOGINAURORA"Mom."The word barely left my lips.For a moment, nobody moved.Nobody spoke.The mist continued drifting lazily across the Hollow Lands as though the world hadn't just tilted beneath my feet.I couldn't breathe.I couldn't think.I couldn't look away.The figure stood motionless beyond the border, half-hidden behind twisting gray fog and dead trees. I couldn't see her face properly. I knew that. A part of me understood that the distance was too great and the mist was too thick.Yet none of that seemed to matter.Because somehow I knew it was her.The certainty hit me with a force that left me shaking.Years.I'd spent years imagining this moment.Years wondering if she was dead.Years wondering if she was alive.Years wondering if she ever thought about me at all.Now there was a woman standing inside the Hollow Lands and every part of me wanted to run to her."Aurora."Draven's voice came from somewhere beside me.I barely heard him.My chest felt tight.Painfully tight.The
AURORANobody spoke for almost an hour after we left. The packhouse disappeared behind us slowly.First, the walls vanished then the towers then the rooftops until eventually there was nothing left except forest and sky.I kept looking back anyway. I don't know why. Maybe because despite everything that place had done to me, it had somehow become home.The realization was disturbing.I hated it.My horse shifted beneath me as we followed the narrow mountain path leading north.The air felt colder and sharper here. Like winter had settled over this part of the world and refused to leave.Ahead of me, Draven rode in silence. Behind me, Darius kept scanning the forest. Selene and Lyra followed further back.Nobody was relaxed, not after what we'd learned.Not after hearing hundreds of Hollow Ones were moving toward the border.The silence lasted until Lyra finally snapped."I'm bored."Darius groaned, "There it is.""There what is?""The reason nobody likes traveling with you."Lyra look
AURORAI didn’t sleep not even for a minute. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw something different.My father, the notes, the spiral symbol, and the dead scouts hanging from the border markers.Then there was my mother. The woman I had spent years grieving, the woman I hated for leaving.The woman I was now crossing into the most dangerous place in existence to find.By the time dawn arrived, I was already dressed.The sky outside my window was still gray when someone knocked.Three sharp knocks then silence. I already knew who it was.“Come in.”The door opened immediately.Darius stepped inside carrying two travel bags over one shoulder.He looked annoyingly awake.“Have you slept at all?”“No.”“Good.”I frowned, “How is that good?”“It means I won’t be the only one miserable today.”I rolled my eyes, “You’re impossible.”“That’s what Draven says.”“Because it’s true.”A grin spread across his face. For a second, he looked younger and less like an Alpha. More like the reckless idi
AURORAI should have gone to sleep.Everyone kept telling me that.Draven told me.Selene told me.Even Lyra, who usually treated every situation like a joke, had looked me straight in the eye and said, “If you collapse halfway to the Hollow Lands, I’m leaving you there.”But the moment I stepped into my room, I knew sleep wasn’t happening.Too much had changed.The room was quiet.The same room that had once felt like a prison.The same room where I had cried myself to sleep wondering if I would ever see my father again.The same room where Draven had first started sneaking in to check on me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.Back then, I hated him.Or at least I tried to.Now everything felt different.I walked over to the window and pushed it open.Cold air rushed inside immediately.Outside, the packhouse was alive.Guards moved across the grounds carrying weapons and supplies. Wolves ran messages between buildings. Horses were being saddled near the stables.Nobody was sl
AURORAThe meeting should have ended after that.It didn’t because apparently wolves could argue about anything including something that had already been decided.“I’m still against it.”The elder who had spent the last hour trying to lock me up folded his arms stubbornly.“This is reckless.”Darius looked exhausted, “Then stay here.”The elder glared at him, “I wasn’t speaking to you.”“That’s never stopped you before.”Several wolves coughed suspiciously into their fists. I was fairly certain they were hiding laughter.The elder looked ready to throw something. Honestly, I was rooting for him.It would at least make the meeting interesting.Malrik sighed.The sound immediately silenced the room.“I wasn’t asking permission.”The elder’s face darkened.“You are not the Alpha King.”“No,” Malrik nodded, “But I’m the only one in this room thinking ahead.”That started another argument.I tuned most of it out. At some point, all the shouting started sounding the same.Protect the pack.
AURORANobody spoke after the guard delivered the message.Return the Bloodline.The words lingered in the council chamber like smoke after a fire.I could feel everyone’s eyes on me again.Honestly, I was getting tired of being the center of every disaster.The injured guard remained on one knee, breathing hard as a healer rushed forward to examine him. Around him, the council sat frozen.For the first time since I arrived at this packhouse, the elders looked genuinely frightened.Not cautious, not suspicious. Genuinely afraid. The distinction mattered because fear made people dangerous.One of the elders rose slowly from his chair.“We cannot allow her to leave.”The silence shattered instantly.Darius laughed.A harsh, disbelieving sound.“You heard an army is marching toward us and that’s your conclusion?”The elder ignored him.“If they want the girl, then sending her away would be reckless.”“No,” Darius replied, folding his arms. “Keeping her here would be reckless.”The argum
AURORA“No… that can’t be right,” I whispered, horror clawing up my throat as the guard pointed toward my father.My blood turned to ice when Darius’s silver eyes fixed on him. I shook my head violently, ready to rush forward but a firm hand clamped down on my shoulder, forcing me to remain seated.
AURORA“Halt!” Darius’s voice rang out. Everyone stopped walking even Calypso stopped dragging me while the guards held my father in place as Darius walked up to me, his eyes narrowed into slits. “What did you say?” he asked me. “I… I…” I blanked out, stuttering with the intense way he was stari
DRAVENToday has been terrible. I have never been an advocate of violence and seeing how today has gone so violently it made me feel terrible. Then there was this fact that the girl I'd been trying to win over my brother had tortured and humiliated her before everyone. I saw her stumbling to her
AURORA“…along with attending to the Alphas as their maid. Do you understand?”I nodded, forcing myself out of my thoughts even though I barely heard what the wolf woman had said. I hadn’t even gotten her name, just that she looked like some kind of brown-skinned goddess.Her skin was deep bronze,







