เข้าสู่ระบบBehind us, children shrieked as someone brought out the cake.Rowan and Sera dove for the largest slices, using their Luna status shamelessly.Morwen pretended not to care until a piece “mysteriously” appeared next to her elbow.Naomi gave a toast that involved three inside jokes, one inappropriate anecdote and a heartfelt, “To not dying on stones anymore.”Later, when the sun had dipped and the first stars had pricked through the dark, I slipped away for a moment.Back to the edge of the clearing.Back where the trees met the sky and the pack, house lights glowed warmly behind me.Footsteps followed.Of course.“Thought I’d find you up a tree,” Ronan said.“Too old for that,” I said. “I’d sprain something.”He snorted. “Never stopped you before.”We stood together in the dim.Packs change.Stories fade.But this—this moment—felt like something I wanted to imprint in whatever part of my magic had been keeping score all these years.“Do you ever think about… other lives?” he asked soft
POV: Lilah Years later, I went back to the beginning.Not the bar.Not the hospital.Here.To the place they’d dragged me after that first night. The edge of pack territory where the truck had jolted to a stop and my whole world had narrowed to a line of trees and the smell of wolves.The dirt road was the same.Rutted. Flanked by tall pines. A faded NO TRESPASSING sign leaned at an angle, now accompanied by a newer one with friendlier lettering: PRIVATE LAND – ASK BEFORE ENTERINGRowan had designed that one.I stood just inside the tree line, fingers brushing the rough bark of the nearest trunk.If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear it:The crunch of boots on gravel.The slam of a van door.The scrape of my own breath as I’d tried not to make a sound.Back then, this place had been a threshold into someone else’s story.Tonight, it felt like… a bookmark.“Talking to trees again?” Naomi’s voice floated toward me, threaded with amusement and the faint creak of the wagon she was ha
POV: Lilah If someone had told me years ago that I’d end up arguing about crayon budgets and curriculum instead of curses and prophecies, I’d have kissed them on the mouth.“Whiteboard,” Naomi said, slapping a marker against it. “Every good revolution needs one.”“This is not a revolution,” Lena said. “It’s a school.”“Hybrid,” Naomi said, writing the word at the top in all caps. “Human. Wolf. Preschool. It’s all the same thing: indoctrination with extra steps.”“Positive indoctrination,” Bella corrected primly.We stood in what used to be an unused storage room off the main hall—a long, low space with one wall of windows and another of old shelving.Now the shelves were gone.In their place: low tables, scattered cushions, a reading nook Tamsin had secretly built on her off hours, complete with pillows and a basket of well‑thumbed storybooks.A corkboard on one wall held a hand‑lettered sign: MIXED LEARNING DEN.Under it, in smaller script (Naomi’s): No biting. Unless consensual an
POV: Ronan There were nights the scars itched.Not literally—Morwen’s salves had long since handled the physical side of things—but in my head. Like old stories tugging at the edge of sleep, wanting to be told again.That night, the house was quiet.Rowan had finally surrendered to exhaustion after a spirited argument about why bedtime was “a human construct.” Lilah had fallen asleep beside them for a while, hand curved protectively over their back, breath slow.I’d carried Rowan to their own bed, tucked them in, and watched their little chest rise and fall until my wolf finally accepted that they were safe.Now, with the moon a thin smear behind high clouds, I found myself in the small washroom off our room, shirt off, and the lantern turned low.The mirror over the basin was old and slightly warped. It had seen different faces. Different Alphas.Tonight, it reflected mine.And all the lines carved into me.The long pale slash over my right ribs from Malric’s first “lesson” when I
POV: Lilah The letter came folded into thirds, smelling like old smoke and pine sap and something metallic underneath.I found it on the council table one morning, tucked under my copy of the charter, a small stone weighing it in place.Someone had written my name on the outside in a hand that was too precise to belong to any of ours.“Who left this?” I asked, holding it up.Leo glanced over from the window. “Courier from the east ridge,” he said. “Said it was from… him.”He didn’t need to specify who.The scent already had.Jax.My stomach did a small, complicated twist.It had been years since the last time I’d seen him in person: wild‑eyed and snarling, magic crackling off him as the Severing Rite tore through more than just him and Ronan.We’d heard things since then.Rogues pass through with rumors of a broken pack out east. A wounded alpha with fewer followers and more scars, clinging to power with teeth instead of threat.I’d filed it away under “problems that aren’t currentl
POV: Lilah Legend arrived in the form of a badly drawn comic.“Mama, look,” Rowan said, barreling into the kitchen with a stack of crinkled paper clutched in both hands. “We made history.”I glanced up from the pot I was stirring—Morwen’s “approved” stew recipe, which apparently involved exactly seven herbs and no substitutions unless you wanted your eyebrows hexed off.“Oh?” I said. “What did you burn down this time?”“Nothing,” they said, affronted. “We drew you.”That was, in its own way, more alarming.They slapped the comic down on the table.Naomi, already sitting there with a mug of coffee, leaned over eagerly. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “I have never loved anything more.”The first panel showed a stick‑figure version of me with extremely dramatic hair, standing on a boulder, arms raised. My eyes were enormous circles with jagged lines coming out—lightning, maybe.Underneath, in Rowan’s careful, wobbly handwriting: THE KERSED LUNA.The second panel had a moon with angry eyebr
*Ronan*I don't sleep.After Malric's shadow retreats down the corridor, I carry Lilah to the bed, settle her under the blankets, and sit in the chair by the window until the moon sinks and the first gray light bleeds across the sky.She sleeps fitfully. Sometimes, her fingers twitch, nails flicker
*Ronan*For a breath, all I can do is stare.Half‑moon grooves scar the floorboards where her nails dug in. Her fingertips are tipped in blunt, half‑formed claws. The air in the room crackles with the echo of her scream.And her eyes—Gold. Not a flicker. Not a trick of the light.A full, predatory
*Lilah*He walks me back to my room in silence.Leo falls in behind us without a word. The tension in the corridor follows like a ghost—cracked stone, torn fabric, the echo of a boy’s scream, and the memory of Ronan’s hand on my face.My heart hasn’t quite figured out how to calm down yet. It stutt
*Lilah*The dining hall looks like something out of a dark fairy tale.Long wooden tables stretch the length of the room, lit by iron chandeliers and the glow from a massive fireplace at one end. Wolves fill the benches—some rowdy, some stiff, all too aware that this is more than just dinner.It’s







