Mag-log inAbby Barns is about to turn eighteen and face the Capitol, where every heir must meet to try and find their fated mate. But Abby isn’t ready to bind herself to a mate she hasn’t even met, not when she’s never felt her wolf stir since she was twelve and not when her family’s secrets keep gnawing at her like a hidden ache. Her sister Melody, once lively and fierce, is presumed dead behind a veil of illness that strikes their clan with increasing ferocity. Abby’s father, Graham, clings to a truth he refuses to admit: Melody’s condition might be more than misfortune. It might be poison. With two friends who are all sunshine and all spark, Abby steps into a city of glittering banners and looming danger, where a prince is guardian to the realm but aloof to the heart. Adrian, the silent, powerful protector with the deepest green eyes, seems to deny Abby’s presence even as her own pulse answers to his almost unspoken call. As old wounds surface, a rogue threat grows louder, and the mystery of Melody’s poisoning unravels a legacy that could redefine who Abby is and who she is fated to become. As Abby discovers the truth about wolf’s bane coursing through her veins, she must decide whether trust is a risk worth taking or a trap designed to hold her forever. In a world where love is both weapon and salvation, Abby’s journey from uncertainty to a life altering bond will test family loyalties, awaken a dormant wolf, and force her to choose between a dangerous future and a love she never expected.
view moreDawn doesn’t arrive clean. It seeps into the capital through smoke and damp stone, through the ache in my joints and the ragged breaths of wolves who spent the night refusing to break. The courtyard below the north wall is no longer a battlefield, now it’s a ledger. Bodies covered in cloaks. Silver nets coiled like discarded skins. Rogues bound in lines with their heads down, wrists cuffed, eyes vacant with the shock of surviving failure. The rest of them fled. Not in formation, nothing disciplined, nothing loyal. Just scattered shapes vanishing into treeline and fog, leaving behind the dead and the unlucky and the ones whose courage ran out the moment Rowan’s grip loosened. Logan stands in the open with a commander’s stillness, issuing orders like he’s nailing the world back together plank by plank. “Count the surrendered twice,” he snaps. “Separate the ones carrying silver. No interrogations until healers clear them. And nobody chases into the forest, containment first.” Conta
The corridor outside the dungeon stairs smells like sweat and silver and the sharp relief of not dying. A runner’s report still rings in my ears: the north wave paused, arguing, some backing away. Nate’s lie is working. Not perfectly. But enough to fracture Rowan’s fist into fingers. Adrian’s hand stays firm at the small of my back as we move, steady pressure, a constant reminder that he’s here, that he’s not letting me get swallowed by the chaos. “North wall,” Logan orders as he passes us at a fast jog, already shifting his attention back to the gate. His voice is clipped, controlled. “If they stall, we push. If they surge, we hold.” Lia is beside him like a shadow with teeth. “Interior is contained. Rowan stays chained.” Nate, still pale, still stubborn, follows with that focused, older look he’s been wearing since tonight began. “They’re hesitating,” he says, voice tight. “Don’t waste it.” We don’t. We run. And then we shift because there’s no faster truth than a wolf on purp
The run from the north wall to the dungeon feels like sprinting through a body that’s trying to hold itself together. Stone corridors. Torchlight. The sharp, metallic bite of silver in the air. Every corner guarded. Every door barred. The palace isn’t pretending anymore, it’s bracing for impact. Adrian stays beside me the whole way, close enough that his shoulder brushes mine every few steps like he’s checking I’m still real. He’s still healing, his scent says so, that faint edge of knitted flesh and stubborn pain, but his pace never falters. Neither does his focus. We hit the stairwell down and shift mid descent, bones snapping, fur bursting, the world sharpening into scent and vibration. The dungeon breathes cold up at us, damp stone and old fear and something new: oil, masked wolves, too clean, too deliberate. “They’re here,” I growl through clenched teeth. Adrian’s wolf answers with a low, vibrating rumble that makes the stairwell feel smaller. We take the last steps in a
The north wall shakes like the capital itself is flinching. From the battlements, the world below is all motion and sound, torches bobbing in the dark like fireflies with teeth, steel scraping against stone, the heavy boom of bodies hitting the outer barricade again and again. Rogue scent rides the wind in waves: wet fur, old blood, smoke, and that faint chemical oil Rowan’s people use to lie about who they are. My wolf’s hackles rise. Beside me, Adrian’s wolf is a dark storm given shape, moving tight to my shoulder, matching my pace even while he’s still healing. I feel his restraint in every controlled step, every choice not to lunge too far, too hard. We’re both holding back. Not from fear. From strategy. Logan’s wolf stands at the centerline with the outer guard, huge, black furred, voice cutting through the chaos in sharp barks that translate into instant movement. Silver nets are stacked in coils. Archers stand ready with silver tipped bolts that glint under torchlight.
By the time we slip back into the palace through the service entrance, the cold has settled into my bones like it intends to live there. I keep Adrian’s ring clenched in my fist so tightly the edges bite my skin. I need the pain. It keeps me from floating away into shock. Logan doe
Night makes the capital quieter, but it doesn’t make it safer.It just hides the teeth. Lia walks beside me like we’re on an evening stroll, cloak neat, posture composed, face calm enough to fool any passing eyes. But her fingers are close to the knife at her hip, and I can feel the tension coiled
I don’t sleep. I sit in Melody’s clinic office with my hands wrapped around a mug I never drink from, staring at the wrapped package like it might start breathing. Melody moves like a storm contained in a human body, fast, exact, furious in the quiet way that means she’s already decided she will
The abandoned building looks like nothing from the outside, just a gutted shell on the edge of the capital’s older district, windows boarded, stone dark with soot and age. The kind of place the palace pretends doesn’t exist. Inside, candlelight flickers. Not scattered. Arranged. A long table sits






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