INICIAR SESIÓNDrogo’s POVMy hand dropped instinctively to the hilt of my weapon as that second howl rippled through the trees. The sound was wrong in a way my wolf recognized long before my head could put words to it. It did not carry the cadence of any Crescent Moon or Silvercrest bloodline I had ever tracked across these mountains. It was something older, carrying the same unnatural echo the scouts had described from the lodge grounds.“Double the perimeter guard right now,” I ordered, turning to the captain at the tent door. “Nobody enters or leaves this camp without my word.”Scouts returned within the hour, their faces drawn and pale beneath the flickering torchlight. They brought a report that bothered me far more than an enemy war party would have. There were no physical tracks, no fresh scent trails leading anywhere near our perimeter fences and no signs of broken brush. Just the howl itself, circling our border at a distance too calculated to be an accident, almost as if something were
Liana’s POVI stared at the crumpled parchment in my hands while the silence inside the war tent grew suffocating. Carl had named the youngest recruit on purpose, knowing that a fourteen-year-old boy sitting in a cold cell would cut through whatever political caution I possessed. I felt the sharp tug of his cruelty right in my chest. It was not a calculated tactical problem to me; it was a child who was about to die simply because my grandmother’s blood ran through my veins.Drogo moved before anyone else could react, stepping his broad frame directly between me and Carl’s messenger. His shoulders blocked my view of the man completely, his hand resting near his sword hilt as his voice cut across the room with a lethal edge.“You will take no answer back to Carl tonight,” Drogo stated, his eyes locked on the envoy.The messenger did not flinch, bowing his head with a cool, mocking grace. “Dawn is a fixed hour, Lord Drogo. My master does not care if you choose to spend it talking or ri
Drogo’s POVMy head snapped toward the northern ridge before the echo of the third blast could die away among the trees. Soren did not need to explain the signal aloud to me. Three short, sharp horn calls was a sequence reserved exclusively for a declaration of open war... a brutal sound Silvercrest had not sounded in over a generation. Whatever was happening at the border had escalated far past small skirmishes or political posturing. The exhaustion of the day’s long crisis at the lodge burned away instantly under a rush of fresh adrenaline. Every instinct inside me recalibrated from being the protector of one woman to the commander responsible for an entire pack.“Get the horses moving now!” I barked, my voice cutting through the startled quiet of the clearing. “Soren, secure the prisoners in the middle of the column!”I organized our return with brutal efficiency, prioritizing raw speed over comfort despite Liana’s visible exhaustion. When I turned to check on her, I caught her w
Liana’s POVI froze as my mother’s fingers tightened around my wrist, the icy sharpness in her voice cutting through the fragile hope I had allowed myself to hold just moments before. I had wanted to believe that somewhere buried beneath decades of calculated cruelty, a faint flicker of actual maternal concern had driven her frantic warnings on the lodge steps. That foolish hope sourly dissolved, replaced by the familiar, weary realization of who this woman had always been. She played the victim only when it bought her leverage and I silently cursed myself for almost taking the bait a second time in one afternoon.I did not yank my hand back right away. Instead, I leaned closer to her face, matching her quiet tone with a steady grip on my own composure.“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “What exactly do you think woke up inside me?”My mother’s lips curved into a thin, humorless smile that did not touch her eyes at all.“You really have no idea, do you?” she scoffed. “You think y
Liana’s POVI was floating somewhere that was not the dirt yard anymore. My mind felt split in half, anchored on one side by the sharp, stinging slice on my palm and pulled on the other by a vast ocean of ancient memories that did not belong to me.Flashing images crashed through my mind in rapid succession. I saw dozens of silver-blooded matriarchs, stretching back through centuries I could not count. I felt their grief, their quiet fury and the sudden, violent ends they met while trying to protect our family line. Decades of stolen power unspooled inside my chest all at once, rushing into my veins like liquid ice. It was far too much, far too fast, as if a dam had burst inside my soul.From somewhere miles away, a voice called to me.“Liana! Please!”I knew that voice. I clung to the sound of it, trying to drag myself toward the warmth in those words while the tide of inherited memories tried to pull me under. I saw my mother’s final moments replay with terrifying clarity... not t
Drogo’s POVI lunged mid-stride straight through the tree line as the invisible barrier snapped into nothingness, my boots tearing through damp earth where an unyielding wall of force had blocked me only moments before. Whatever ancient ward held this sacred ground collapsed under the raw explosion ripping through the yard, shattering like thin glass beneath an iron hammer as the entire clearing exploded into brilliant silver.The scene hit me in fragmented, adrenaline-sharp pieces. Liana stood trapped at the center of the clearing, engulfed in a towering pillar of light so bright it washed out the dirt and bent the thick branches of the surrounding trees back. Corwin staggered across the grass with his curved ceremonial blade still dripping in his hand, his face twisted in a hideous mixture of shock and triumph. On the lodge porch, Liana’s mother twisted wildly against her ropes, her screams swallowed by the massive spectral wolf rearing over the yard with a fury that bent the very







