LOGIN“Stop! Don’t do this!” They can’t hear me, can’t feel my desperate attempts to stop this. I’m trapped inside the worst moment of my life with no way to change it. The world fractures around me, and for the briefest second, my mother’s fingertips brush mine. “Live, Poppy.” Then darkness explodes
** Poppy’s POV ** I blink against the darkness surrounding me. The cabin is gone. The smell of dinner. The warmth of the fire. The laughter in the kitchen. All of it has vanished. Instead, cold asphalt presses against my bare feet. I know this place. Not because I’ve seen it before, but because I’
“It seems our timing,” Leo says, looking between us, “is perfect.”“No, it’s terrible,” Alaric corrects flatly.“That depends on who you ask,” Jake shrugs.Alaric ignores him, turning back to the stove to flip the chicken with far too much focus.“So, what were you saying about defence lessons?” Leo
** Poppy’s POV **I thought Alaric would have been pissed at learning his brother had my number all along and had been messaging me, but he’s amused, and maybe even a little proud. He shakes his head again and laughs; it’s so contagious that I can’t even be mad.“Come on,” he says, standing from the
** Poppy’s POV **Bastian has been gone too long for a simple perimeter check of the cabin. I don’t know why that bothers me, but it does. I catch myself rubbing my thumb over the rim of my coffee mug again. It’s gone lukewarm, but I haven’t taken a sip in several minutes. Instead, I keep glancing
“I only detected five scents in the pack centre,” Bastian says. “The sixth entered here.”He points to a patch of flattened fern that none of us had even looked at.“They were already travelling together.”“That’s what we thought,” Leo says.Bastian doesn’t answer. He simply keeps moving, following
I press my forehead to his again, catching my breath, but I don’t pull away. His eyes are glassy, lips red and kiss-swollen. I don’t know where we go from here. How we navigate this with Paige in the picture now. I only know that my feelings for him are real. Right now, in this moment, he’s as r
** Paige’s POV ** The moment the word leaves my lips, the energy in the room shifts. Callen gets to his feet, far too graceful for a regular human male. He looks predatory as he looks down at me, but when he extends a hand to me, it feels more like an offer than a demand. He’s still giving
** Paige’s POV ** I stare at Ryder for a long moment, my chest tight and my heart beating way too loud in my ears. Can they hear it with their superior hearing? Everything he just said should terrify me. It should push me further into the little fortress I’ve built around my heart. I’ve sp
** Callen’s POV ** I find Remy where I knew I would. Not far into the woods, just beyond the clearing where we used to meet up to be alone. He’s sitting on a fallen tree, elbows on his knees, head down. The hoodie he wore earlier is bunched around his arms, like he pulled it off in frustration.







