《》Selene’s POVSelene — First PersonThe fire burned low, soft embers licking the soil. I moved slowly around it, arms outstretched, bare feet dragging a path in the dirt I’d worn down night after night.My body swayed with the rhythm of the chant — old words, guttural and low, pulsing from deep in my chest.It was a language long lost to this world.Only I remembered.And it remembered me.My skin prickled with heat, but I didn’t mind. I liked the sting. I liked the sweat.I liked the feeling of power humming just beneath the surface.Naked, raw, real.“Highness.”The voice snapped the trance.I didn’t stop the dance, not right away. I hated being interrupted.My concubine, Cassian, lingered at the edge of the tent, head bowed like he might be struck. He’d learned well.“What?” I asked, letting the music in my head dissolve.“The children… refuse to eat again.”I sighed and rolled my eyes, slow and theatrical.Of course they did.I moved toward the corner of the tent, slipping on the
The next morning, I sat at the long, cold table in the council chamber, surrounded by noise I didn’t care to understand.They were all talking over each other. Voices rising. Hands waving. Faces red with urgency and fear.“Selene has made her move—”“We must form the allied lines now—”“She has tapped into something unnatural, something beyond—”“We should’ve burned her in the womb—”I stared blankly ahead, jaw clenched.Not because I had nothing to say. But because none of them were saying anything that mattered.Vane’s sharp, tactical voice cut across the room. “We need full patrols on the eastern border. Her forces are unpredictable. If she breaches again—”“And risk pulling more into open conflict?” Ronan snapped. “She still has Kael and Talia.”Lucien backed him up without hesitation. “We don’t go to war while she holds them. That’s not strategy. That’s suicide.”I looked at them both.Their faces were hard. Focused. Loyal.And right.The tension kept rising until Cael finally la
I was drifting.Not falling. Not flying. Just… drifting.Everything around me was dark. Not pitch black, not empty—just dense. Like I was floating through smoke without a body.I didn’t know if I was moving forward or just circling in place. The silence was so loud it rang in my ears. I couldn’t feel my arms. Couldn’t tell if I had any.I opened my mouth to call out—But there was no voice.Was this it?Had I gotten lost?Had I left my body just to get swallowed whole by this godless void?Panic bubbled in my chest.Then—“Breathe.”The voice came like a ripple through water, soft but sharp enough to cut through the haze.Nyra.My wolf.She sounded calm. Strong. Like she was close, like she was inside me and beside me at the same time.“You’re not lost,” she said. “You’re searching. Trust it. Trust us.”I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. But I clung to her voice.It was enough.And then—there it was.A pull.Thin, almost invisible.But it was real.A thread. A tether.Faint at first. But as I
Two days.Forty-eight hours without Talia’s laugh or Kael’s big, brave eyes.Two nights of not sleeping, not really. Just lying there with my eyes open, hand over my stomach, and a gaping ache in my chest that no one could touch.Lucien hadn’t left my side—not really. When he wasn’t searching the nearby roads and forests, he was back at the war table with Ronan and the others, barking orders and drawing maps and suggesting routes that had already gone cold.It was all useless.They were long gone. I knew that in my bones.Selene hadn’t just taken them on a whim. This was planned. Coordinated. We were already two steps behind, and every minute that passed was like losing a piece of myself.There was a hollow space in my body where the twins should be, and it was getting louder.No one said it aloud, but the silence in the room screamed it.They were running out of places to search.I watched them from the hallway. Lucien and Ronan leaning over a rough-drawn map. Cael standing off to th
Ansel’s door shut with a heavy click.Two guards stationed outside. One female sentry inside. No windows to crawl out of. She wasn’t going anywhere.“She’s secure,” Ronan said to Cael before walking off to coordinate the next patrol.I didn’t follow. My legs were too heavy, my head too loud. Instead, I sank onto one of the worn chairs in the common room, elbows on my knees.The fire crackled like it was mocking me.Cael stepped in a few minutes later, quiet as ever. He didn’t sit. Just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching me.“I was so stupid,” I muttered. “She was right in front of me, and I never once doubted her.”His voice was calm. “You trusted her.”“I shouldn’t have.”“You always see the good in people, Aria. That’s not weakness.”I looked up at him. “Isn’t it? She played me like a song, and I just kept singing along.”“You’ve always been like that,” he said. “Even before all this. You gave people chances. That’s not on you. That’s on them for abusing it.”I sighed.
The room got colder when Cael walked in.Not literally—but it felt like it.He didn’t speak at first. Just stood in the doorway, eyes flicking over me, then Ansel, then Ronan.Then he looked at me like the entire world narrowed down to just my skin.“I’ll help you find them,” he said. “Your children. I’ll bring them back to you, Aria.”I barely nodded.He stepped further in. His voice dropped, softer now. “I love you. That’s all I’ve ever done. In every lifetime, every version of you, it’s always been you. I would serve you, live for you, die for you. You know that, don’t you?”And that was it.That was the moment I wanted to scream.Instead, I exhaled hard through my nose. “Cael,” I said tightly, “focus on the task at hand.”He blinked.The disappointment in his face was so quiet, it was almost comical. But I didn’t laugh.I couldn’t.I was too busy wondering how the hell any version of me—any past life or soul or shadow—could’ve loved this man. Let alone strongly. What was it? What