LOGINANDREW'S POV, “That seems premature. We're at a delicate point in the discussion—” “Which is exactly why we need a few minutes,” I said, holding his gaze. He looked away first, and I continued. “To discuss your proposals in private and speak our mind without you listening to us. Unless there's a r
ANDREW'S POV, I noticed the guard first. Not his presence, his absence. The post in the east corridor had been manned every time I had checked it since we arrived. It was a consistent, unremarkable detail that I had catalogued the way I catalogued everything in a room like this one—automatically,
ELENA'S POV, The report came in fragments, the way bad news always did. It wasn't clean, nor with the kind of clarity that made decisions easy. Just pieces, arriving one after another through channels that were supposed to be secure and reliable, and each piece landed worse than the one before it.
ELENA'S POV, “I don't need a recess,” I said and my voice came out flat. It wasn't cold, nor sharp, just flat, emptied of the performance of composure I had been maintaining since we walked through the door. Al'thor blinked once, and for the first time since this meeting began, I watched fear fli
ELENA'S POV, I don't know how long I stood there before Andrew noticed. He didn't say anything at first. He just shifted around, closing the distance between us by half a step, the way he always did when he sensed something was wrong but didn't yet know what shape it had taken. It was a small thin
ELENA'S POV, “During what?” I asked, not caring that I cut him off from finishing, or that my voice was loud. I had spent years making sure others were happy with what I was doing, and I wasn't the reason for any of their troubles. Now I wanted to be better than that, for myself, instead of being
RYAN'S POV,‘I should have gone with them.’ I told myself as I sat alone in my SUV, driving through the city traffic, looking for my little princess among the crowd.The guilt of not being with her had been pounding in my head like a war drum since the moment I got the call from my security head. I
ELENA'S POV,Black smoke rose quietly into the grey sky from the small chimney built at the very end of the crematorium, which was an hour away from the pack. I was standing inside the old building, all alone, waiting for my turn while looking outside through the glass window. It was about to rain s
ELENA'S POV,Even after the man said he was her father, I didn’t hand her over right away.The little girl—Ollie, as the stranger called her—was still pressed against my chest, and her small arms were looped tightly around my neck. She started smiling as soon as she saw him, so that put some weight
ELENA'S POV,The new place I moved into was small, quiet, and nothing like the Alpha house of the Blackstone pack that I left behind. Although the apartment was barely enough for one person, it was everything a mother grieving the death of her daughter needed.Most importantly, it was mine, and unde







