FAZER 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
GAVINThe gates swung wide as I rode into the courtyard, my cloak heavy with the smell of forest mulch.Dust clung to my boots, bark scratched along the hem, and my horse’s flanks gleamed with sweat. The men waiting near the stables shouted my name, their hands slapping against my shoulders as I swu
COWRIEI found her in the library again the next day, pretending to read, fingers turning the same page over and over, eyes not moving, jaw clenched. I stepped inside without knocking, closed the door behind me, and walked straight to her. She didn’t acknowledge when I dropped into the chair beside
GAVINI heard my mother’s voice from the end of the hall. It was loud and clipped, the way it got when she’d already asked politely twice and was done repeating herself. My boots slapped against the polished floor, the echo rising under the high ceilings, and when I stepped into the drawing room, bo
“They won’t,” I said, lifting my chin.He pulled me close and kissed me. There was no rush, just lips and hands and skin that hadn’t forgotten the way we used to fit. I pressed into him, melted into the heat of his mouth, the scrape of his jaw, the sound he made when he deepened the kiss. His finger







