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
JACKSONWhen he finally crawled out to go play with a stick he’d found outside, I sat by the front door, blade balanced across my thigh, eyes fixed on the treeline. He stomped around the front porch yelling spells at birds, then came back in and asked if dragons were real.I said I used to know one.
LILAI stepped forward. My grip tightened on the bars.She unfolded the paper, its a rough sketch of Gavin, drawn in charcoal, probably from memory. Beside it, a map of the Packhouse. My bedroom marked. His school marked. His path between the two circled. She looked up. “But he’s gone. Vanished into
LILAI waited until the hall outside my door was empty. Then I unrolled the speech.I’d only glanced at it back in the storage chamber, but now, I read every word slowly, line by line. His writing was clean, the same even lines he used in council memos and war room reports but the words weren’t for
LILAI heard her before I saw her. Bootsteps across cracked stone. Janet emerged from the smoke like she was stepping through curtains, not ruins. Her cloak dragged behind her, torn at the edges. Her sword was sheathed now.Dominic stood taller, straightened his coat and smoothed his hair back with







