LorienI gasped, pressing my back flat against the wood of the stairs as I scrambled into the shadowed nook beneath. Every breath trembled through me. I dared not look up. I dared not listen. But I could feel them—Isabella’s low voice, Julian’s breathy moan. A disaster waiting to happen. I needed to disappear. Now.My fingers brushed the edge of the short window at the base of the stairwell—the one that opened onto the overgrown grove behind the pack house. I forced myself to move, silent as a ghost. My foot caught something. A shoe tread squeaked against the floor. Too loud. Too distinctive.I froze.A massive shadow shifted by the staircase. Julian. My blood thundered in my ears. I swallowed panic deep, tighter than steel.No options left.I lunged forward to the window and shoved. It resisted, then gave with a hard creak. My fingers dug into the ledge as I shoved my shoulder into the center. The frame rattled. I let out a sound—not a scream, but something close to one—when the top
LorienI couldn’t let him go.Not yet. Not now.But my arms were full of Caius, and the warmth of his body anchored me like a tether in a storm. The moment he’d said Pops, something inside me had broken and stitched itself back together at once.I held him tight, maybe too tight, but he didn’t complain. My fingers trembled against the soft curve of his back, my cheek pressed to his wild curls. His heartbeat was steady—strong—and I realized then just how close I’d come to losing him.The pang in my chest wasn’t gentle. It was sharp. Cutting. Like a blade twisting behind my ribs.I didn’t want to let go.But I had to.Eventually, my arms loosened. Slowly, carefully, I let Caius wriggle from my embrace and stagger toward Lucian, who caught him with a delighted squeal. The two of them clung to each other like they’d been separated by centuries instead of hours.And me?I was crying now.I didn’t even bother to hide it.The knot at the back of my throat burned like wildfire as I sank back
LorienBlood.It clung to the edges of my watch, soaked into the leather band, flaked across the ticking glass like dried guilt.I stared at it, that vintage thing I’d gotten from my mother’s old box when I first left Blood Fang. I hadn’t worn it in years. But when Caius collapsed, I’d grabbed it from my drawer without thinking—like it might ground me somehow.Now it ticked past midnight with a soft click that felt louder than thunder.I didn’t want Cassius to see me like this.But it had happened.He’d seen the guard—broken, breath wheezing through blood-soaked teeth, bones jutting at wrong angles like snapped twigs beneath his skin. He’d seen the storm in me. The one I kept caged so well, until someone tried to hurt my sons.My children were off-limits.Always.And I knew this pack. Knew how they watched, how they whispered. Weakness was an invitation for war. And I’d be damned if I let anyone see me as prey again.Still… I couldn’t stop the sour taste of regret from coating the bac
CassiusWe were standing too close—dangerously close.I could feel the heat of Lorien’s body, the tremble in his arms as he held Caius like a shield between us. He didn’t look at me, not really. His eyes were blazing, stormy, focused entirely on guarding the small figure in his grasp.But he was distracted.His fury was pulsing off of him in waves, each breath shallow and tight with anger. I could see it, feel it, almost taste it.And in that moment, I did something reckless.I reached forward and snatched Caius gently but swiftly from his arms before he could process the movement.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Lorien snapped, his voice low and venomous. “You don’t get to touch him—not after touching her!”I flinched.Right.Her.Isabella.The name made my jaw clench.I rolled my eyes—not at him, but at the situation. At everything I’d let spiral out of control.“Is she your lover?” I asked, my voice softer than I expected, more bitter than I wanted it to be.Lorien stif
LorienI heard Caius scream.And then I saw it.A guard—one of Cassius’s—shoved him. Shoved my son. My baby hit the ground hard. The thud echoed in my skull, loud and wrong. Like a crack of thunder in a closed room. My body went cold and hot at the same time. A sharp, blinding burst of something primal surged through me.Time stopped.My vision tunneled. The edges of the world blurred into nothing. No sound. No people. Just that guard—and my son lying on the ground, eyes wide in fear and confusion.I moved without thinking.The dirt exploded beneath my feet as I lunged, shifting in a blur of speed and fury. He turned to face me, confused, maybe even amused for a second. That second cost him.His body began to shift—bones cracking, fur sprouting—but it didn’t matter.I slammed into him like a force of nature. He staggered back from the blow to his jaw, claws flashing out as his snout elongated. I ducked under his swipe and drove my fist into his ribs. I felt something break. He howled,
CassiusI couldn’t breathe.The truth clung to my skin like a second layer, suffocating me with every step I took outside Elder Hadrian’s house. My vision blurred—not from tears, not yet—but from the whirlwind storm inside me.Everything Julian said. Every single word about Lorien being weak, helpless, unworthy… they weren’t just lies. They were calculated daggers. And I’d believed them. Gods, I swallowed them like gospel, because it was easier than facing what I felt.What I had always felt.I didn’t even remember the path I took back to the pack house. My body moved on instinct, muscles locked and tight like I was dragging chains behind me. Once inside, I went straight to my study, slammed the door shut, and twisted the lock. The echo rang through the silence.I collapsed into the chair behind my desk and stared at the parchment I had clutched the entire way.My hands trembled.The seal had already been broken. My eyes had skimmed it before—just enough to realize everything I though