Author PoV The estate had never felt so tense. The halls were spotless, the servants were brisk, the table set with a feast more extravagant than most pack gatherings. Yet beneath it all, there was silence. Heavy, suffocating silence.Because today, Alpha Kol was coming home.Two weeks in a coma. Two weeks where his absence had pulled every fracture in the family wider. Now he was back, but not whole. The bullet wound had been patched. The machines had been left behind. Yet his memory still carried gaps large enough to drown in. And everyone in the house knew it.The car pulled up the drive as the family waited outside the estate.Aria stood in the front, crossing her arms tight, her wolf restless. Although she had left his side in the hospital, she wasn’t about to let anyone else dictate how today unfolded.Agatha was beside her, clasping her hand and putting on a perfect mask of a grieving mate turned relieved. Inside, her heart pounded with every passing second. Gina fidgeted, he
Author PoV The news of Kol being awake spread through the estate quickly.At first, no one quite believed it. He had been under for so long, two weeks of silence, two weeks of machines beeping steadily in his hospital room, two weeks of waiting. And then suddenly, the impossible: his eyes had opened. He had spoken. He had asked questions.His family were still gathered in the hospital, emotions were running wild even after seeing him.Aria stood closest to his room with her posture stiff as a guard and her wolf rising whenever someone came too near. She refused to let anyone disturb him too much. Her mate was alive, yes, but he was still fragile.Agatha lingered at the back, silent. Her face was a little too pale but she’d try to hide it once a while. To anyone else, she looked like a grieving wife overwhelmed with relief, but inside, she was unraveling. If Kol remembered anything, if his mind reached back to the night of the attack… she would be ruined. Though for now, it seemed lik
KolAria had left for the next person to enter, after dropping such a bombshell of a news on me like that.And my next visitor was, Emory.He sat beside my bed with a really stiff posture and crossed arms like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be here. His eyes were so sharp, so much like mine, never left my face, but neither of us spoke. The silence continued and it was quite awkward.Then I cleared my throat, forcing a smile. “Well… it’s not every day your father wakes up from a coma. You could look a little happier, son.”His jaw tightened. His lips were drawn in a thin line. I momentarily thought he would simply stand up and walk away. Then he sighed, and ran a hand through his hair.“I’m mad at you,” he said flatly. “And I apologise in advance that I am not projecting the impression that I am very pleased that my father is out of a coma.”It hurt but I nodded. At least it was honest. “Mad at me for what?”His gaze quickly averted to the floor. “For everything. For the lies. For stan
KolI came alive into nothing. There were no walls, ground, sky… just darkness that went on and on, pressing against me without ever touching me.I turned, searching, but there was no up or down here. There was just me, alone, floating in a silent void.My throat worked. I tried to speak, but my voice broke apart before it could echo. I was no one in a nowhere place.And then, right before I was going to despair, I saw light. It was as a thin gleam, remote yet clear, as a door flung wide at the end of the eternity. My chest was filled with hope. And so I ran.I could hear my feet slam against ground that hadn’t been there a moment before. I pushed myself faster, even though my legs ached. The light began swelling larger. It was so close that I could almost touch it, but just when I was about to, it vanished.Just, gone. Like it had never been.I stumbled forward into nothing, choking on my loss.Then another glow came to life at the opposite end.I turned and ran again, desperate, he
Agatha I had gone to my room after the accusation to suffocate in silence. I drew the curtains tight but even with the not so bright light, I could see my own reflection in the glass. My eyes were swollen, my face was pale. I was a woman unrecognisable even to herself.I had cried until there were no tears left, and still they came. I couldn’t believe Gina had done what she did. My daughter. My sweet, sharp-tongued girl had taken the burden onto her own shoulders, no, onto her brother’s shoulders, for me. She had pointed at Emory, her own blood, and offered him up to save me.I covered my face with my hands. “Oh, Gina,” I whispered. “What have I let you become?”I remembered her words in the interrogation room, the way her voice had cracked but still sounded so defiant. She had promised me she would never let an innocent be taken down for my sake. And then she did. And I let her.Just then, a knock on my door startled me from my thoughts. I sat upright, quickly wiping the tears off m
Author’s POVThe air that surrounded the council chamber thickened the moment Gina’s words left her lips.“I know who tried to kill my father,” And then, eyes agape and voice shaken, she had indicated her own brother. Emory.The silence that succeeded was not relief, but shock, and surprise and a new opening that threatened the shaky basis of the family.Detective Hale was quick. His pen snapped against the papers in front of him as he straightened. “Bring him in,” he ordered.Elias swung round and looked at Gina with a tight-fisted frown. He had something in his stare, something which told him that she was not telling the whole truth. Mina sat in frozen amazement as her lips opened in wonder that her twin had sacrificed Emory so easily.And Agatha, Agatha, said nothing. Her eyes were merely down to the table, and her nails were biting her palms under the table. On the inside, she was shaking, relieved and appalled. Relieved suspicion had shifted away from her. Horrified that her daug