LOGINLilahThe pack is too quiet.Not in the way it was when I first arrived—suspicious, simmering. This is different. The quiet of braced muscle, of lungs, held somewhere between inhale and exhale.By sunset, patrols are doubled. Evacuation routes are set. Non‑combatants have been moved to deeper holds under new wards Morwen carved herself.The sky is painfully clear. Stars pricked sharp overhead. The moon is not quite full—but close enough that my skin feels stretched too tight over bone.War drums outside. War drums inside.Naomi and Bella and I hole up in the guest room for a while, pretending we’re just three women killing time, not three threads tied into the heart of a curse.Naomi sprawls on her bed, head hanging off the edge, hair nearly brushing the floor. Bella sits cross‑legged against the headboard, sketchbook open but blank, pencil idle in her hand.I sit on the floor between them, back against the side of the bed, legs stretched out, fingers picking at a loose thread in th
LilahStorms don’t always start at the horizon.Sometimes, they start in your own walls.The first sign is small.A latch is not set.Naomi finds it on morning perimeter checks—east‑side service gate, the one used by kitchen staff to dump scraps and by pups to sneak out to dare each other to climb the old trees.The bar is resting in its hooks but not dropped into place.She jiggles it. The wood rattles.“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mutters.When she tells me, my stomach goes cold.“Could be an accident,” Bella offers as we walk to check it ourselves. “Someone tired. Distracted.”Naomi snorts. “Or someone very interested in making sure the next push from Jax’s side has a convenient opening.”The wards along the gate hum faintly when I run my fingers over the hinges. The magic is intact. The physical barrier? Not so much.I lean in, sniff.Scent clings to the metal and wood—old oil, damp, a faint trace of omega sweat.And under it, thinner but there: incense and stale bitterness.
LilahMorwen doesn’t wait long to call the council of the damned.She gives me half a night to sleep on her warning—half a night of shallow dozing and staring at the ceiling, feeling the bond coil tighter with each breath of the Moon outside the window.By mid‑morning, she has us all in one of the old stone chambers off the main hall—the kind carved deep into the hill, where the walls still remember older wars.Ronan. Cassian. Leo. Naomi. Bella.And me.We stand around a circular table scarred by decades of maps and bad decisions. Candles gutter in iron brackets. The air smells of wax and stone and the faint, metallic tang that always means Morwen is about to ruin someone’s day.She leans on her staff, gaze moving over each of us in turn.“The curse is done waiting,” she says. No preamble. “The Moon’s been patient long enough. The next full moon will close this cycle. One way or another.”The bond under my sternum gives a low, ominous throb.Ronan’s jaw tightens. Cassian exhales throu
RonanThe worst blood on her isn’t hers.That’s the only reason I can keep my hands steady.Mostly.The war room emptied hours ago. Reports given. Numbers tallied. Casualties counted.We didn’t lose as many as we could have.That doesn’t make the list shorter.Now we’re in one of the smaller healer rooms off the main hall—stone walls, a narrow window, shelves stacked with salves and bandages. The air smells of alcohol, herbs, and iron.Lilah sits on a low stool, forearms resting on her thighs, and a shirt peeling back at one shoulder where a rogue’s teeth get too close. There are scratches along her ribs, a shallow slice at her upper arm, a bruise forming at her hip where she took a hit to keep a pup from being trampled.Bella wanted to tend her.Morwen raised a brow.I said, “I’ll do it.”No one argued.Now she watches me from under lowered lashes as I soak a cloth in warmed water.I can feel Naomi lurking just outside the half‑drawn curtain, pretending to be arguing with a healer ab
LilahThe alarm sounds at dawn.Not the clean, sharp peel of a training bell. This is lower, uglier—three blunt gongs that vibrate in my bones.War.I’m halfway into my boots before my mind catches up.Naomi tumbles out of her bedroll in the guest room, already reaching for her knives. Bella jolts upright, hair a tangle, eyes wide, hand going for the satchel where she keeps her herb kit.“What—” she starts.“Border,” I say. The wards are screaming at the edge of my awareness—hot, bright spikes along the eastern line. “East outpost. Rogues.”I can smell them even from here.Blood.Unwashed fur.And under it, faint but unmistakable—Jax’s people. More disciplined. Less wild. Like steel threading through rot.We hit the yard at a run.Warriors are already mobilizing, streaming toward the armory in controlled lines. Cassian is in the center of the flow, shouting assignments. Leo is at his shoulder, directing with clipped hand signals.Ronan stands on the raised step outside the hall, confe
RonanWar makes every decision feel like a scale.Lives on one side. Lives on the other. The trick—if there is one—is deciding which weight you can live with when the dust settles.The elders are very fond of presenting those scales.“Alpha.”Hael’s voice cuts into my review of the latest reports. I don’t bother to hide the fact that I’m tired of it.“What,” I say.He steps into the war room with two of his usual satellites at his back. Malric isn’t with them, which somehow makes this worse. The old fox doesn’t always attend in person when he wants levers pulled; he sends others to test the ground.Hael lays a map scrap on the table. Thin ink lines mark one of the outer patrol routes, near the eastern woods where Jax’s people hover just beyond scent range.“New intelligence from the ridge scouts,” he says. “There have been repeated signs of movement here.” He taps the route. “Tracks at the edge of our patrol paths. Deliberately visible. They want to be seen.”“They’re baiting,” Cassia
*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
*Lilah*The dress stares at me like it has opinions.Cream‑colored. Long sleeves. Soft and deceptively simple, the kind of fabric that will cling in the right places and float everywhere else. A “Luna dress,” if there ever was one.*Fake Luna uniform,* I think again.I don’t put it on right away.I







