Mag-log inSophia's POV
"I love you Sophia."
"Everyone who loves you will abandon you,"
I sat in the dingy dungeon staring at the tiny window above me as those words echoed in my head painfully.
Outside this window was the forest that I had died in such a short time ago at the hands of that conniving little whore.
Who would've thought that even with the help of the Moon Goddess, I would live again but still suffer the very same betrayal! It was he who had convinced me to become his
chosen mate under the watchful eyes of the moon goddess herself!
When I was 18 I told him how I felt. "Let's break up Marcus, there's no way this can work in the long run. We won't be happy together."
Those were the very words I had said to him!
"No Sophia, not a chance! Fuck the mate bond! I will only marry you, Sophia, if I can't do that, then I'll remain alone for eternity."
I had been utterly speechless, capable of only murmuring his name as I hugged him tightly and shed tears of happiness.
I firmly believed that even though we had not been fated for eternity by the Moon Goddess, we would still be able to keep
our vows to each other for the rest of our lives.
What a heap of delusional nonsense.
I wrapped my arms around myself tightly, trying to stop myself from thinking about all of the good times that I had spent with Marcus, but the memories kept flooding into my mind unwanted.
The cold look of the man at the banquet was such a huge contrast from the loving man in my memories that I couldn't help but sob in despair.
"Sophia... please don't cry." my wolf spoke to me gently.
"It's ok Zyra, don't worry…”
"I'm sorry, I failed to protect you."
"Don't say that, I don't blame you at all." I replied, trying my best to reassure her that none of this was her fault.
The only people that could be blamed for all of this fuckery were that stupid whore and her traitorous mate.
That vicious little witch and Marcus with his cold indifference... mark my words, I was not going to spare either of them when I got out of this.
I wiped the tears from my face and stood up, suddenly smelling the faint scent of Cedar as I froze in place, the silence settling around me like a veil with only the rapid beating of my heart to keep me company.
What was happening to me? My heart was beating so fast and Zyra also seemed to be picking up on whatever it was. She was restless, pacing excitedly in my mind.
Then without warning, she screamed excitedly in my head. "MATE! MATE!"
"What do you mean mate? Is this some sort of joke? How can you meet your own mate when I'm stuck here in this embarrassing situation?"
Without caring about my embarrassment, the pulsating feeling seemed to become stronger and stronger, and the aroma of cedar only seemed to become more intense.
The sound of hurried footsteps echoed through the corridors of the dungeon and when I raised my head, the sight of a tall and strong figure appeared outside of the cell window.
The moonlight was reflected on his broad and strong shoulders, leaving half of his face wreathed in shadow which accentuated his chiseled jawline.
Looking up, a pair of brilliant golden eyes were transfixed with my own.
I looked up at the noble man in front of me, my beating heart and Zyra's low whine telling me that this man...he was my fated mate.
I walked towards him without even thinking and through the railing, the man's hand reached through, stroking my cheek
with the palm of his hand as his rough fingers traced the outline of my face gently. "My mate," He whispered almost reverently.
"His wolf... Sophia, this man's power is extraordinary!" Zyra exclaimed excitedly.
"I know... even within our pack, such strength is rare!" I replied, equally as shocked at the appearance of the man who was desperate to reach me.
He leaned closer, his warm breath carrying the scent of cedar along with it as it breezed across my ear.
The feel of his skin against my own was driving me crazy and I suddenly took a step back so that I didn't do something completely out of character.
"Don't be afraid, little mate," his chuckling voice came from above me, "I am Ethan Stormridge, Alpha of the Embermoon Pack."
He paused and his beautiful eyes stared at me seriously. "Are you willing to come with me?"
My mind was all over the place. I had been discarded, abandoned and betrayed only minutes earlier and now, in the blink of an eye, I was mated to the strongest pack in the country, if not the world!
"I..."
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"
Before I could even finish my sentence, Marcus's furious voice interrupted me and
He appeared in the corridor leading a large group of people towards me and Ethan.
Ethan's POVThe attack came at midnight.Not at the border, not at a supply point, not through a messenger or a carefully placed act of sabotage designed to look like something else. It came straight through the eastern tree line toward the pack house itself, forty wolves moving in coordinated formation with the kind of disciplined aggression that didn't come from anger alone but from planning, from someone who had spent time thinking about exactly how to hit a target that had been preparing for a hit.I was already awake. I hadn't slept properly since Thornfield and I wasn't going to tonight either, not with Lila in holding and the news of her capture having gone out through channels I couldn't fully control. I'd known Marcus would hear it. I knew it would land hard. What I hadn't fully accounted for was how fast he'd move, the hours between Lila going down and Marcus deciding that patience was finished.The pack bond lit up all at once, every ranked wolf on the eastern perimeter reg
Sophia's POVFor about three seconds the exhibition hall held its collective breath and nobody moved.Then Lila moved, and everything happened at once.She didn't run for the door. That wasn't Lila's way and it wasn't her instinct, the instinct of someone who had spent her entire adult life turning bad situations into managed ones through aggression and control. She turned on the nearest cluster of people and her hands came up and what came out of them was not the careful, precise magic she usually deployed but something raw and panicked and enormous, the kind of power that came from a practitioner who had stopped calculating and started reacting.The force of it threw three people sideways. An elderly Alpha from the northern territory hit the display table behind him and went down with it, jewelry and glass scattering across the floor. Two others were knocked off their feet by the perimeter of the blast, not at the center of it but close enough to feel the impact. The screaming start
Violet's POVThe hardest part was the waiting.I had positioned myself near the far display table with a clear sightline across the full length of the room, close enough to the eastern corridor that I could move fast if I needed to, far enough from Lila that I wasn't in her peripheral awareness. I had a glass of water I wasn't drinking and an expression I'd been carefully maintaining for the past forty minutes and a clock running in the back of my head that I couldn't turn off no matter how many times I told myself to stop counting.Lila had taken the glass from Sophia at seven fifty-two. I knew because I'd watched it happen with the particular focus of someone who had spent two days preparing for a single moment and needed to be certain it had actually occurred. The lift of the glass, the drink, the easy social smile Lila wore while she swallowed, none of it looking like anything other than a woman enjoying champagne at a lovely event. She hadn't hesitated. Hadn't paused. Had taken i
Sophia's POVThe exhibition hall looked exactly the way I'd imagined it when I first sketched the layout three months ago, before any of this, before the war council and the messenger and Thornfield and all the weight that had accumulated around what was supposed to be a straightforward celebration of work I was proud of. The long display tables ran the length of the room with clean white cloth under each piece, the lighting was warm and directional the way the consultant had suggested, and the champagne was already poured in long elegant rows on the table near the entrance, each glass catching the light in a way that was almost unreasonably beautiful given what one of them was going to do tonight.I moved through the room an hour before the guests arrived and checked everything twice, not because I thought anything was wrong but because moving helped and standing still did not. The jewelry itself was genuinely good, I could see that clearly in the way you sometimes couldn't see your
Ethan's POVThe call came in at four in the morning, and the way the patrol leader's voice sounded on the other end of the line was enough to tell me everything before the words did. There was a specific quality to the voice of a wolf who had seen something they couldn't unfold in their mind, something that sat outside the range of what even years of pack life prepared you for, and that quality was present in every syllable before he'd finished his first sentence.Border village. Thornfield settlement. Fire.I was dressed and out the door before Sophia was fully awake, and I had Max with me by the time I reached the vehicle, because Max had heard the same thing I had through the pack bond, that low urgent frequency that moved between ranked members when something was genuinely wrong rather than just difficult. We drove without talking much. The sky was still fully dark and the road to the eastern border cut through dense tree cover that blocked what little moonlight there was, and the
Sophia's POVViolet knocked on my office door at a time that suggested she hadn't slept, and when I opened it she was already talking, notebook in hand, the particular energy of someone who had been alone with an idea long enough that it had outgrown the space in their head and needed somewhere else to go. I stepped back and let her in without interrupting, and she laid the coven text and her notes on my desk and walked me through all of it in the methodical, unsentimental way she approached most things, facts first, complications second, questions at the end.I listened to the whole thing without speaking. When she finished I was quiet for a moment, looking at the ingredient list she'd copied out in her small, precise handwriting, and then I looked up at her. "You came to me first," I said. "Before Max, before Ethan."Something shifted in her expression, briefly, the kind of shift that happened when someone noticed they'd revealed more than they intended to. "The exhibition is yours,
Sienna's POVI was in my apartment, reviewing contracts for an upcoming campaign, when my phone started buzzing. Not just once or twice, but constantly. Message after message. Notification after notification. Something was happening, and whatever it was, it wasn't good.I picked up my phone and my
Richard's POVI was sitting in the living room when I heard Mom's key in the lock.It was late. Almost nine thirty. She'd been gone for hours."Out with a friend," she'd said when she left. But she wouldn't say who.I knew though. I wasn't stupid.It was him. Dad. It had to be.The door opened. Mom
Violet's POVI spread the evidence across the table in Sophia's study.Bank statements. Letters. Photographs. Witness testimonies.Everything we'd collected against Thorne. Against Lila. Against Marcus.It was substantial. Overwhelming even.The Alliance would have no choice but to act. To strip Ma
Ethan's POVThe witch sat in the interrogation room.Silver chains bound her wrists to the table. More chains wrapped around her ankles. Attached to the floor.She couldn't use magic. Couldn't escape.But she could talk.I walked into the room. Max followed behind me. Closed the door.The witch loo







