LOGINDarienThe survivors didn't want to talk.I didn't blame them. They sat in the back of a community center in the neighboring pack's territory, wrapped in donated blankets, staring at nothing. Just a dozen or so people. That was all that remained of the Clearwater Pack. Out of hundreds. Hunters who'd been in the woods. Teenagers who'd snuck out past curfew. A woman who'd been visiting her sister two towns over and came home to find there was no home left.One of them, a man named Garrett who'd been the pack's Gamma, told me what he could. His voice was flat. Mechanical. The way people talk when the only alternative is screaming.“They came just after midnight. No warning. No scouts. They just appeared.” He stared at the floor between his feet. “The first explosion took out the lodge. The alpha and his family were inside. After that it was just fire and chaos. Anyone who tried to fight was overwhelmed. There were too many of them.”“How many?” I asked.“I don't know. Maybe twenty or thi
LeahI couldn’t sleep.Darien’s voice was still in my ears. The steadiness of it, the way he’d kept his tone even while telling me a pack had been burned. The way he’d said “bad” like it was a door he was holding shut with both hands and everything behind it was pressing to get through. He’d given me enough to understand what happened but not enough to see it. I knew that trick.He was protecting me. And I was letting him because I didn’t have the energy to fight it tonight.I rolled onto my side. The bedroom was dark except for the glow of my phone on the nightstand. He texted me right before bed.Remember, we have a date. I’ll see you in my dreams.I pressed my fingers against the bond in my chest. He was far away but I could still feel him. The warmth was muted by distance, stretched thin like a thread pulled taut across hundreds of miles, but it was there. Steady. Hurting.Sometimes I could feel the bond strongly and sometimes it went unnoticed. I was sure the longer we were mated
DarienI kneeled beside the rubble. Cain positioned himself behind me, one hand resting casually at his side in a way that said he could have a weapon drawn in under a second. The two soldiers from the second vehicle spread to the flanks.I moved a section of collapsed wall. Then another. The debris shifted. Beneath it, wedged between a support beam and a section of stone foundation, something moved.Not a wolf.The creature's skin was the color of dried blood, cracked and peeling, with veins of dull orange pulsing beneath the surface like cooling lava. Its limbs were too long for its torso, bent at angles that didn't follow human anatomy. One arm was pinned under the beam, crushed. The other was free, its clawed fingers twitching weakly against the stone.
DarienThe airplane was delayed and I was impatient.I stood near the gate with my phone in my hand, scrolling through the photo Leah had sent me that morning. Her and Keanu in the kitchen, flour everywhere, Keanu looking like he was a powdered donut. She was laughing in the picture. That full, open laugh that crinkled her nose and made her eyes disappear into crescents. She looked happy. She looked healthy. She looked like everything I was desperate to get home to. My heart ached, wanting to be with her.“Stop staring at your phone like a lovesick teenager.” Cain dropped into the seat beside me, two coffees balanced in one hand. He held one out. “You've looked at that picture nine times since we sat down.”“Twelve.” I took the coffee.“Twelve.” Cain snorted, shaking his head. “Even worse.” He stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles, settling into the plastic airport chair with the ease of a man who could fall asleep anywhere. “We should be able to board in twenty minutes. You'l
Leah“The curse changed everything,” I said, thinking out loud. “When the kingdom went underground, the boundaries were preserved as they were at that moment. But this deed predates the wall.” I looked at the man. “When did your grandfather build it?”“He was a young man.”“I think he did build the wall but on the wrong boundary from the looks of it.” I held up the deed. “The original boundary was here.” I pointed to a line on the deed that placed the border six feet closer to the man's house than where the wall currently stood.His face darkened. “That wall is—”“I understand. And I'm not dismissing it. Your grandfather built that wall. B
Leah“You just got shell in the batter.”“Calcium.”“That's not how that works.”“It is in my kitchen.”“This is my kitchen.”“Our kitchen.”We fell into a rhythm. He measured sugar with approximate accuracy. I sifted flour and tried not to micromanage his technique, which was generous in spirit and chaotic in execution. He found chocolate chips in a cabinet and poured half the bag directly into his mouth before adding the rest to the bowl.“Those were for the cookies.”
LeahThe silence that followed my accusation stretched between us like a taut wire, vibrating with tension. I watched Darien’s face, searching for any signs of denial or deflection.Instead, he smiled.And then he chuckled, the sound low and warm, filling the space between us with something that fe
Leah“Who?” I watched as he blinked at me. Like he couldn’t believe I didn’t know who that was.“Asena is a powerful deity of rebirth. Most werewolves come from the Moon Goddess. You have heard about her, right?” Oh, that snarky ass. I nodded my head but could see the hidden smirk in his eyes. “But
LeahThe hot water had washed away the flour, the sauce, and most of the chaos from the kitchen disaster. I stood in front of the mirror in Darien’s bathroom, combing through my damp hair, trying not to think about how comfortable I’d become in this space. How natural it felt to use his shower, to
LeahI led Darien back into the disaster zone that was the kitchen, my heart pounding with a mixture of guilt and something else I refused to examine too closely.“Here, lean down,” I said, guiding him toward the sink.“Is this where you finish me off?” His tone was light, teasing despite the fact







