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
LILA forThe door creaked when I pushed it open.Lyric’s old room had been locked, after her death—her disappearance—the room had been treated like a mausoleum. No one entered and n one touched it. Until now.I stood in the doorway, the air stale with old perfume and ghosted sunlight. The room was s
It was warm, safe. Beautiful, even but I kept waiting. Waiting for the moment it would fall apart.For a letter to arrive or Jackson to appear.For Tyler to say, “What aren’t you telling me?”But none of it came.Tyler only held me tighter. Kissed my shoulder in the morning. Whispered, “I love you,”
LILAThe inn hadn’t changed.Still perched like a forgotten thought on the slope of the mountain, its wooden beams worn by years of weather and silence. The kind of place people came to disappear, if only for a night.I hesitated outside the door, hood pulled low, hands shaking inside my sleeves.I
LILAThe last letter sat on the floor in front of me. The one addressed to Dominic.My hands didn’t want to touch it. As if just holding it would change something inside me permanently. But it was too late for fear.I had already learned that my sister had slept with two of Tyler’s brothers, possibl







