로그인I sleep for maybe an hour.
Not the deep kind of sleep, just a thin, twitchy drift where every sound becomes a threat and every shadow in my dream has claws. When I finally wake, it’s because my wolf shifts under my ribs like she’s irritated with me for being unconscious at all.The room is still dark blue with pre dawn.Tessa is curled into her blankets, face scrunched like she’s trying to hide from the capital by sheer willpower. Briar is sitting upright again, because of course she is, eyes fixed on the window like she’s counting the seconds until sunrise. Her gaze snaps to me the moment I move. “You’re alive,” she says quietly. I sit up, hair a mess, throat dry. “Unfortunately.” Briar’s expression doesn’t soften. “You’re reckless.” I rub my face. My skin still remembers Adrian’s hands guiding me through shadow corridors. It makes my stomach flip in a way I refuse to examine. “YesThe palace doesn’t grieve in public. It files. It escorts. It “debriefs.” By dusk, the garden has been scrubbed so hard it smells like lemon and denial. The broken hedges are roped off. The blood is gone from the stone paths like it never belonged there. But I can still smell it on people. Fear has a scent. So does shock. They send the remaining girls back to their quarters in small groups with double escorts, as if separating us is safer than letting us huddle together like pack. Guards line every corridor. Every door has a witness. Tessa’s door has two. When we reach her room, a guard steps forward and positions himself beside the frame like a statue with a heartbeat. “Protocol,” he says, stiff. Tessa stares at him as if he’s another kind of cage. I squeeze her hand once before she goes inside. “You’re not alone,” I tell her. Her eyes shine. “My mate is a rogue, what did I do to the moon gode
Mary arrives the way storms do in Ridgepoint, without permission, and with everyone pretending it was scheduled.The palace announces her with polished words and clipped footsteps. Servants straighten. Guards tighten their positions. Even the air seems to rearrange itself around the idea of a Gamma walking into royal territory as if she belongs. I’m escorted to a receiving hall I’ve only ever passed through, never entered. It’s too big, too bright, too full of expensive things that don’t feel like anything. A line of officials stand to one side like decor. A pair of guards stand behind me like a reminder.Lia is there too, at my shoulder, calm in that way she has, polite without pliable. She gives me one quiet look that says, Public. Always public.I breathe in. My wolf is awake, present, watching through my ribs like a shadow with teeth.The doors open.Mary steps in.Her hair is perfect. Her dress is the kind of elegant that co
Becoming “Princess Abby” doesn’t happen with a ceremony. It happens in a hallway. It happens when servants bow before you’ve even had water. When guards stop asking and start informing. When people look at your throat first and your face second. It happens when Adrian has to leave because he’s Adrian, because the realm doesn’t pause for anyone’s heat and the bond stretches like a living thing between my ribs and his.I can function. I can breathe. The frantic edge of the heat has dulled. But the first time he steps away from the bed, my wolf lifts her head like, Excuse you? and I have to swallow down the ridiculous urge to grab his sleeve and snarl at him like he belongs to me at all times.He dresses with quiet efficiency, shirt, belt, boots, like it’s a skill he learned before he learned to smile.“You’re sore,” he says, tone flat.“I’m alive,” I shoot back.His eyes flick to mine. A pause, almost approval.“Eat something,” he
Adrian leaving my side feels like someone trying to peel my skin off.Not in a dramatic, poetic way, literally. The bond is quieter now that the heat is fading, but it still exists like a second nervous system. When he shifts even a step away, my wolf lifts her head and bristles, confused, as if distance is an insult.Adrian sits on the edge of the bed, pulling his shirt on with the same controlled precision he does everything else with. His mark is visible at his throat, mine and every time I see it, something warm and possessive flickers under my ribs.I’m wrapped in a sheet and stubbornness, sore in the most comprehensive way possible. He glances back at me. “You need to eat.”“I need you to stop moving,” I counter.His mouth tightens. It’s not a smile, but it’s close enough that I notice. “I have to.”The words land like a door locking. I push myself upright slowly, wincing. Adrian’s eyes flick to my face, sharp and assessing
The heat doesn’t vanish like a snapped thread. It unknots slowly.When I wake this time, the frantic pull is quieter, still there, still humming under my skin, but no longer screaming. What is loud is everything else. My body aches in the deep, satisfied way that makes it clear the last day and a half wasn’t a dream. My thighs protest when I shift. My hips feel bruised. My throat is tender where Adrian marked me, and my mark on him throbs faintly when I swallow, like my wolf is still smug about it. I lie there for a moment and breathe. Then I turn my head. Adrian is asleep on his side, facing me, one arm curved in a loose, unconscious guard around my space like even his rest protects. He looks… peaceful. Not guarded. Not carved out of duty. Just a man sleeping. It hits me so hard my chest tightens. I shouldn’t have to wake him. I hate that my body still needs him so badly that the thought of distance makes my skin itch. I shift c
Melody was right about one thing in the most infuriating way possible: Heat doesn’t end because you finally give in. It just… changes shape.After we marked each other, the burning stopped feeling like I was being chased by something blind and hungry. It became focused, anchored, like my body finally knew exactly what it wanted and where to go for it. Which would’ve been comforting, except the answer was him. And heat doesn’t politely take breaks just because you’re exhausted. It could lasts anywhere from a day to fourty eight hours, Melody said. Long enough to turn time into a blur of water cups, cooling cloths, sleep snatched in short stretches, and my wolf purring every time Adrian’s skin touched mine. Long enough to make “privacy” a joke. Long enough to make me realize just how much restraint Adrian has been using, how much he’s been holding back, even after we chose each other. I don’t know







