로그인GraceThe battlefield still smells like her blood. It follows me all the way back to Vale. Not on my clothes. Not on my hands. Not on my skin. But in my lungs. Every breath tastes like it.The warriors fall into step behind me as I leave the field. No one questions it. No one stops me. No one speaks.They think I am retreating to regroup. They think I am returning to lead. They do not understand. I am returning for answers.The gates of Vale open at my approach. Wolves bow their heads as I pass. Normally, I would feel satisfaction. Today I feel nothing.My mother’s last breath still echoes in my ears. I fear that it is a sound I will hear for the rest of my life. It didn’t just sound like death; it sounded like betrayal. Not only had she left the Vale Pack and fled to Fern, but she had also asked me to stop fighting her. The request didn’t sit well inside my chest. It burned almost as much as her request to stand beside Fern.My boots strike stone as I walk the familiar h
FernGrace doesn’t look like the sister I grew up fearing. She looks like someone who is lost. She breaks free from the Vale warrior trying to hold her back, with a defiant snarl. Her feet carry her to my side. She dodges the battle, refusing to be stopped by the chaos around us. The panic and rage etched onto her face would be enough to scare anyone but not me. I am not afraid that she is going to hurt me. She isn’t even looking at me. Her eyes are focused on our mother. The woman she got to know growing up. The woman I just found out loved me. Grace tries to push me to the side, but I won’t let her. She has taken too much from me; I won’t let her take this from me as well.“Let me have her,” she snarls.I tighten my grasp around Iris. “No.”When she realizes that I won’t be moved, she settles on the ground beside us and takes our mother’s hand in hers. She squeezes it tightly. I don’t doubt that she feels how cold it is. She can feel that Iris is fading away.“You d
GavenWar has a sound. It isn’t the clash of steel. It isn’t the snapping of bones. It isn’t even the screams of orders or pain that rip through the air. It is the moment discipline breaks and instinct takes over.That is the sound I hear now. Our formations have fallen, and now everyone is fighting for their lives. They are fighting to see tomorrow. The order of things has disappeared, and in its wake is only chaos.Riddick surges through me like a storm, finally allowed to break. Bone tears and reforms. Muscle stretches. My vision sharpens into scent and heat and movement. My senses are overwhelmed with the blood and fear for a split second. The scent of our enemies has surrounded us. I try to remain focused on the battle raging in front of me, but it is impossible. Beneath all of it. Beneath the claws and fangs is… her. I can feel her pain, her grief, rattling through the mate bond as if it were my own.It hits me like a blade through the ribs. My eyes dart around t
FernThe world doesn’t slow, but it should. It should stop. Time should stop to give me a moment to breathe. My mother is bleeding in my arms, and the world should stop.But it doesn’t. It gets louder. War explodes around us, loud and scary.The moment Justin pulls the blade free, the forest erupts. Wolves burst from the tree line like a flood breaking through a dam. They are dressed in enemy colors: Vale gray, Frostveil pale, Eastmarch dark.They weren’t waiting for battle. They were waiting for this moment. They were waiting for weakness. Justin was merely the distraction. It is hard to say whether he knew the plan or not, but he is too stunned to move. “AMBUSH!” someone shouts behind me.Gaven’s roar splits the air, deep and furious, bones cracking as he shifts mid-charge. Riddick tears into the first attacker with terrifying violence.Steel clashes. Wolves howl. The smell of blood fills everything, but I don’t see any of it. I only see her.My mother collapses again
FernSomething feels wrong. It is not dangerous. Not yet. It is the king of wrong in the way the air changes before a storm. The kind of pressure you feel in your lungs before thunder ever touches the sky.Isara has been restless all morning. Not afraid, just alert. She is watching from behind my eyes, taking in everything that I might be missing.‘Someone is coming,’ she tells me softly.“An enemy?” I ask her silently.She pauses for a moment before she responds. ‘…No.’That answer unsettles me more. Isara rarely sounds unsure, but the tone of her voice is wrong. She is uncertain.I am in the courtyard helping Mara organize incoming supplies when the feeling sharpens. My skin prickles. My heart beats faster for no reason I can explain.Then Isara speaks again. ‘He is here.’My breath catches. I know who she means before I even turn. I don’t want to believe it, but I know. I lift my head slowly toward the forest line beyond the training fields, and there he is.Justin.Sta
GavenBlackmoor does not look like the same place anymore. I don’t mean the walls, or the patrol routes, or the war preparations. No, I mean the feeling. Backmoor used to feel like a fortress, because that is what it used to be. Now it feels like something alive.I stand on the upper balcony overlooking the main courtyard as morning settles over the pack lands. The air carries the sounds of rebuilding instead of just training. Hammers, voices, and the laughter of children echo in the air. Children.We never had children in the main courtyard before. Not like this. Not in these numbers. Not laughing.Now they run between the supply tables while warriors pretend not to watch them.Pretend is the keyword, because every one of those warriors is tracking movement. They are ready to protect everything in these gates. Not just the territory, but the people. That is new.Below me, Omegas move freely between buildings without lowering their eyes. No one forces them to the edges. No one
GavenI’m already waiting when the door opens.I’ve positioned myself in the corridor outside Maelis’s exam room under the pretense of routine oversight, but we both know that’s a lie. I’ve been here since Fern went in. Long enough that two guards have rotated past me and pretended not to notice.
GavenI don’t go to breakfast.The decision is made before I’m fully awake, settling into my bones with the same certainty as a command. I dress quickly, efficiently, and divert down a side corridor that bypasses the dining hall entirely.Cowardly. I accept the word without flinching.My office is
FernI notice his absence immediately. It’s foolish, really. Alpha Gaven doesn’t owe me his presence. He has an entire pack to run, borders to secure, decisions to make that have nothing to do with me.And yet, I find myself scanning the dining hall the moment I step inside, my eyes instinctively
FernI wake up gasping. The dream still rings too loudly in my head. It surrounds me like smoke. It is so thick that it makes me choke and my heart race. My chest burns with the memory of it. I can still see it when I squeeze my eyes shut. The thousands of shadows closing in, hands reaching fo







