LOGINHe spoke first, his tone low but firm enough to carry. “We can wait,” he said. “Children will come when they’re meant to. The Pack already has its heart.” The room stilled for a breath. Mara looked over her shoulder, her hands still sunk in flour, her eyes soft and startled. “You mean me?” she asked
LILAThe house woke before dawn. Old wood shifted, the hearth whispered, and the air felt different—alive again. I stood at the foot of the stairs when I heard them coming. Two sets of steps, uneven from the road, but in rhythm all the same. When the door opened, cold air rushed through the hall. Ga
“I thought I had to be perfect,” she said. “Every step, every word. Like one mistake would make them lose faith in me.”“Then let them,” I said. “Let them see we bleed too. Let them see what real looks like.”Her eyes lifted toward the sky, catching the first streaks of gold between the branches. “T
GAVINHer breath came out in bursts, sharp enough to cut. She pressed her palm to her mouth, like the words might spill if she didn’t hold them in. I moved before I thought, closing the space, catching her hands in mine. Her fingers were cold and damp, her pulse racing under my thumb.“I can’t be wh
GAVINThe scent hit me before I saw the gate—hers, faint and fading, scattered by wind. I caught it the second I stepped into the hall, and everything in me snapped to attention. The council chamber still echoed in my head, the droning voices, the talk of territory lines and alliance disputes. I had
MARAI knelt beside a pool fed by a narrow stream. Moonlight rippled across its surface, silver on black. My reflection flickered there, the same face that wore the Luna’s mask every day, only softer now—bare, unsure, alive. I cupped my hands in the water and let it run down my wrists. The cold snap
LILAI didn’t go back to my room. I walked past the hallway guards, past the east corridor, past the Luna’s garden with the ivy-covered trellis and broken lanterns still hanging from the last celebration. I didn’t stop until I reached the training field, where the dummies stood untouched in the sun,
“Just that?” I asked, keeping my tone light.He shrugged. “That, and a little bit of luck. They left just enough to find them.”“Strange they’d be that careless.”He didn’t reply.Tyler had turned back to the scroll I gave him, making light notes in the margin, not catching the way Thomas’s eyes mov
“You always have to be right, huh?” he muttered, one hand still bracing the wood.“You always have to be close when I’m sweating?” I shot back.He leaned in, barely an inch between us. His breath ran hot down my cheek.“You smell like sugar and firewood.”I didn’t flinch. “You smell like trouble.”T
LILAI woke with heat still curling low in my stomach. I lay still for a moment, not because I was tired, but because I wasn’t ready to get up. I wasn’t ready to think about him.The sheets were wrinkled beneath me, twisted from sleep I barely remembered falling into. I pressed my thighs together an







