登入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.”
LeahI glanced at Keanu, who was now pretending to be deeply interested in the texture of his cereal bowl. He looked sheepish. Good. He should.“The spirit parasite showed up.” I kept my voice calm. “Eyera. That's her name. She came to the castle while you were gone.”The silence on the other end was lethal. I could feel the shift through the bond even across the distance. The warmth hardening into something sharp.“She came to the castle.” His voice was dangerously controlled. “To my home. While I wasn't there.”“Yes. She tried to place a tracker on me. A rune forged by demons so Korvax could find me.” I paused. “I removed it. Then Andromeda and I had a conversation w
"If you are still needed?" His silver eyes flashed with confusion. "What does that mean? Leah, we are mates. You aren't going to deny that. Not after that kiss. Surely you know—"I reached out and gr
Keanu was sitting up when we entered, looking completely unharmed and far too energetic for someone who'd been unconscious just moments ago. His eyes lit up when he saw me."Leah!" He bounced slightly on the bed. "Did you see me? I was a dragon! An actual dragon! I can feel my dragon side so much b
One of the healers followed me in, launching into a clinical explanation. “We’ve run every test we have. Blood work, scans, toxicology screens. There’s no sign of poison in his system. No physical injury. No virus or infection. His body just shut down.”
LeahI was watching the fight that seemed to be dragging out forever. Minutes felt like hours as Keanu's dragon and Darien's lycan clashed in displays of power that should have terrified me. Should have made me want to look away. But I couldn't. My eyes tracked every movement, every strike, catalogi







