LOGIN"Calm your spirit, Master Ashworth."Madam Edith's voice was soft but deliberate, her staff striking the floor with a single, firm tap — less a sound, more a statement. The kind of statement that said 'I am the oldest person in this room, and I will not repeat myself.'Deimon said nothing. His jaw clenched, his chest still tight with something he couldn't cleanly name. Was it the boy's tone? His posture? The lazy, unbothered way he occupied space in a room full of people who could end him? Or was it simply the fact that he had spoken at all — sat there in front of the Blood-moon Scion and opened his mouth like the floor was already his?He couldn't tell. And that, perhaps, was the most infuriating part."His ways are not what we can address as respectful," Edith continued, her gaze steady. "Not before a Blood-Scion. Not before an Alpha." Her eyes moved briefly to Romulus, then back. "But he speaks the truth. He speaks as though the spirits themselves are guiding his tongue. So let us
Romulus's wild, unguarded grin returned, entirely unbothered. His gaze swept the room like a torch passed slowly over faces he had already read and filed away before anyone had spoken a word. He wore a predator's silence — still, comfortable in it, fed by it.The candlelights dimmed."Your Diviner is absent." He broke the silence at last, his voice coming patiently and almost conversational. "I would have loved to have her here.""You are not welcome in this sanctuary by any measure, berserker." Greystone's composure shattered without warning. He rose halfway from his seat, his voice trembling at the edge of something that had stopped being patience a long time ago. "You have no place here. No voice, no standing, nothing whatsoever.""Greystone." Deimon's voice came low and precise, the kind of calm that is colder than anger."Excuse me, Master Ashworth." Greystone did not look at him. His eyes stayed locked on Romulus. "This is not a matter for debate. This boy is a walking testament
------Anna had barely closed her eyes the previous night. Her mind wandered aimlessly through thoughts yet to settle, yet to make sense of themselves. She could still feel it — the tension, the heaviness of the moment, and beneath all of it, the quiet, stubborn joy that refused to leave."Silly girl. Of course you aren't seeing the Big Bad Wolf. Do you want to be served in steaming pieces?"Jebediah's voice echoed in the dark folds of her memory. He had laughed it off when she'd asked him to shift, insisting she wanted to see his true wolf form. She almost laughed at herself now. What was she thinking? Jebediah's aura alone was enough to humble someone stronger than she is. What would happen if he ever let loose of what lived inside him? But still, she couldn't fight the feeling that kept building and building, warm and impossible to ignore. In every honest way she could put it, Jebediah had completely dominated her. Not by force, not by command, simply by existing near her. Her hear
---Silence.Not the soft, comfortable silence of the jazz. This was something else entirely. This silence had weight, it pressed down from the ceiling and up from the floor and compressed the air in the room until it felt thick and difficult to breathe.Deimon and Jabari's eyes met across the room. The same expression mirrored between them — surprise colliding with confusion colliding with something that had not yet decided whether it was disbelief or fury."What did you just say?" Deimon's voice was barely above a whisper. Low, dangerous. The quietest sounds Deimon Ashworth made were always the most terrifying.Romulus opened his mouth—"That is my sister." Deimon did not let him finish. The words came out like a drawn blade. "You dumb fuck—" the curse left his lips hard and sharp, "—that is my sister.""I know," Romulus answered.Just that. 'I know.' Casual, almost bored."My only sister," Deimon said. His voice was shaking now — not with weakness, but with the effort of containing
---That evening, Deimon Ashworth sat deep in the embrace of his penthouse sofa, soft jazz playing through hidden speakers and curling into the air. The notes were slow, unhurried, drifting through the low amber light that bathed the room in gold. After the Lazarus Pit had sealed every psychological wound he had incurred, or had simply patched it up for the meantime, Deimon had decided to savor the evening to himself.Just tonight, before stepping into the storm that inevitably awaits him. But tonight, he needed the calm that it brought.A Blood Scion meeting had been fixed. Romulus would be presented before the inner Council, would state his price, reveal what he carried. A perfect, formal arrangement has been made. Until then, the boy sat in the luxury guesthouse Deimon had assigned him — a suite that cost more per night than most men earned in a year.But tonight was specifically Deimon's.And she was making sure of it.A young Omega — fair-skinned, petite, and breathtakingly beau
"Sorry." Jebediah blinked and straightened in his seat. "Miles away.""Is it the Château?" Anna tilted her head, a quiet smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Did a two-hundred-thousand-dollar vintage wine finally take down the Big Bad Wolf?""Don't flatter the wine." He leaned back. "Alcohol doesn't work on me, not the way it does for everyone else. My body breaks it down before it can take hold. Fast metabolism, I suppose."Anna blinked. "Wait — really? So you could drain this entire bottle —""And feel precisely nothing. Yes.""That is deeply unfair." She slumped back against the bench dramatically, like she had received a genuinely terrible news. "My metabolism is just sitting there doing the absolute minimum.""That's because I'm a special breed," Jebediah said, his voice making it land like a plain fact rather than a boast, with no pride."Whatever, Captain Special," Anna jested."I'll accept that." He winked at her.Anna smiled. It arrived without permission, warm and easy
---Both Jebediah and Emmett stayed the night with the Storm-Fangs. Emmett observed their culture — dwindling in number, maybe, but rich in everything else. Their battle style, their customs, their silences that carried meaning. But the most astonishing thing was their meal. One filled belly from t
---"I think the situation just got worse, JB. This is really, really bad." Emmett kept pestering Jebediah, who stayed quiet and seemed to ignore him with deliberate, practiced ease. "You don't get it, do you? A pregnant Luna is a game changer. Everything changes, everything."They were far fro
"Whoa."The word left Anna's mouth before she could dress it up into anything more articulate.She stood at the entrance of the estate's garage — or rather, what she had assumed would be a garage but which revealed itself, with each passing second, to be something else entirely. Something that defi
The tunnel terminated in darkness and desperation.Anna stared upward at the exit latch, her chest heaving with exertion. Ten feet above her head, maybe more. The vertical shaft mocked her exhaustion, but the faint scent of open air beyond gave her hope—her first real hope in days. Soon they'll dis







