LOGINELENA'S POV, The door swung open and the noise hit me like a wall before I could recollect my thoughts. The events unfolding in the main hall weren't the clean, controlled chaos of a fight with established rules and regulations. It was the other kind, the wild kind of chaos that I was expecting t
ANDREW'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,The palace had finally fallen quiet.The unnecessarily loud laughter and the clinking of the glasses from the grand hall had faded after hours of fake smiles and small talk. Now, silence was engulfing most of the palace as the guests were shown to their respective bedrooms. My body ache
He nodded, and when he finally turned to look at me, his eyes darkened. “The Werewolf Nation and the Lycan Kingdom are about to hold peace talks soon.”I blinked in confusion because that wasn't what I was expecting to hear. “What do peace talks have to do with Julian?”“A lot, actually,” Ryan said,
“So…” I said quickly, thinking about kittens to wash out the horny thoughts in my head. “How are your guests? Any complaints about our hospitality?”He didn’t notice my distraction, or he pretended not to because his voice lacked that teasing tone when he answered. “They are resting for now, without
“We'll be late,” I said lightly and heard him exhale a soft laugh before following me down.The drive was long—almost half an hour—and for most of it, we talked about the stupidest of things and laughed. The night outside was calm, and the scattered city lights looked like fallen stars. Every few mi







