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
“Push,” Jake urges. “That’s it. That’s it… keep going…”Paige’s body bows, every muscle straining. I feel it all through the bond, the effort, the fire, the sheer will it takes not to break under it.“I’m here,” I keep saying, over and over. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”“That’s the head. Well done,
** Paige’s POV **If someone had told me eight months ago that the thing most likely to end my mates would be a jar of pickled onions and a tub of vanilla ice cream, I would have laughed in their face, yet here we are.Ryder stands in the kitchen doorway like a man staring down an active crime scene
** Alaric’s POV **The problem with being an Alpha in 2026 is that you can no longer pretend politics don’t exist. You can’t just patrol your borders, snap a few necks, and call it leadership. Now it’s all diplomacy and meetings, and not even the exciting ones where there’s the potential of a fight
“Stop,” one of them says calmly.I step half a pace in front of Alaric without making it obvious. “Who are you?”“Phoenix Pack,” the other replies.Of course they are. The pack every Alpha is suddenly talking about. The pack tied to the goddess rumours, and whose territory hunters seem to avoid as i







