تسجيل الدخولI knelt on the damp grass near the stone wall, pulling my thin jacket tighter around my shoulders. I had a small metal trowel in my hand, and I began to dig into the soil to gather the roots the cook had asked for.As I worked, something shifted.It did not feel like an explosion. There was no sudden rush of heat or dramatic strength. It felt as if a heavy wooden door inside my mind, a door I did not even know was locked, had quietly moved open by one single inch.My wolf, which had been silent and flat for a while , slowly lifted its head.Suddenly, the cold air around me changed. It was no longer just cold. It was full of information. I could feel the distance between the trees. I could hear the faint, trickle of the water fountains three hundred yards away. I could smell the metal of the outer gates and the distant, cold stone of the mountains.All my life, living so close to Margot had thinned everything inside me. Her presence had always acted like a blanket, smothering my own na
DorianI opened the blue folder for the third time that day. The name Mara stared back at me from the blank page.No last name. No middle name. Just five letters."You have been looking at that same page for two hours," Garrett said, walking into my study. He set a stack of printed security logs on the corner of my wooden desk."Look at this," I said, pointing at the paper. "She is registered as coming from an eastern village. But the person who vouched for her is from a pack in the southeast. Why would someone from the southeast care about a kitchen maid from the east?"Garrett pulled up a chair and sat down. "It could be a family connection. Maybe Celia knows the family.""Celia does not make mistakes like this," I said. "She has run this palace for thirty years. She knows every face that enters. But when I asked her about Mara yesterday, she did not look me in the eye. She looked at the floor.""Celia?" Garrett looked surprised. "She has been loyal to your family since we were chil
Margaux The wooden door of the supply room clicked shut. Margot was gone.I looked down at the floor. The white towels I had been carrying were scattered across the concrete. I stood still for exactly ten seconds, letting the silence of the room wash over me.Margot had made her threats. She had pressed her hand against my chest and gripped my wrist. But as I stood there in the quiet room, I realized something important.I was not afraid of her.I checked the feeling again, searching my mind the way a soldier checks their gear before a march. It was true. There was no fear in me. I was cautious, yes. I was strategic. I knew I had to be careful. But Margot did not scare me anymore. Five years ago, her anger would have made me cry. Now, it just felt like extra noise.I bent down, picked up the clean towels one by one, and shook the dust off them. I stacked them neatly back into the wicker basket.When I stepped back into the service corridor, the air was cool. I walked toward the laund
Margot I found her in the narrow corridor near the laundry rooms. She was carrying a stack of white towels, her head bent so low her chin almost touched her collar.I did not ask. I simply grabbed her upper arm and pulled her into the nearby supply room. The towels slipped from her hands, cluttering the floor. I shut the wooden door and stood right in front of it, blocking her only way out."What did I tell you?" I said, my voice quiet but sharp.She did not answer. She stood there, looking down at the scattered towels.I stepped closer, invading her space until she had to tilt her head back slightly to look at me. I pointed my index finger straight at the floor. "I told to You stay down here. In the dark. Where you belong."Then, I pressed my palm flat against her chest, pushing her back an inch. "And Do not try to stand tall. Make yourself smaller. If I see you in the main halls again, I will make sure Celia throws you out into the street."She still did not speak. I reached down a
Dorian The wooden door clicked shut, and the room went completely silent. I walked to the window and pressed my hand flat against the cold glass, letting the chill seep into my palm.Inside my mind, my wolf was fighting. It was not trying to attack. It was pulling toward the door she had just walked through, desperate and loud. For twenty years, I had never needed to force my wolf into submission. We had always been in perfect sync. Now, I had to use every bit of my strength just to keep it quiet.I looked at the silver tray on the table. The coffee was still steaming.I ran through the details in my head. Short dark hair. A bent head, looking at the floor as if she had been trained by experts to avoid eye contact with authority. Hands held so still they looked stiff. She was hiding something, and she was doing it with incredible discipline.And then there was the scent. It was very faint, almost completely gone under the smell of cheap kitchen soap. But I knew it. It was the exact s
Four days of staying in the shadows had worked. I had memorized the guards' steps, the clean-up times, and the quietest corners of the palace. I thought I was safe. Then, the rhythm broke.I pushed the wooden door of the sitting room open with my shoulder. I was balancing a silver tray with a cup of hot black coffee and a small plate of toast. I kept my chin down, looking only at the edge of the tray.But the room was not empty.Dorian was there. He was standing by the large window, his back to me.I stopped for a fraction of a second, then forced my feet to move forward. I walked to the small table near the wall and set the tray down. I made sure the cup did not slide against the metal. It took every bit of my energy to keep my hands steady.Under my uniform collar, the skin on my neck grew suddenly hot. A sharp, warm pulse flared right where my old mark was. The deep instinct inside me woke up, pulling me toward him with a strange, heavy urgency. I fought it down. I kept my shoulder
Margaux PovThe moment my eyes hit the first page, my fingers stiffened against the white paper. The air in the room suddenly felt thin, leaving me with a heavy, hollow sensation in my stomach that made it hard to swallow.Beta Marcus Gray.Northern Region Territory.The Bloodwood Delegation.Pack
Margaux povI slipped through the narrow gap in the old stone wall ; the secret passage Margot and I used to sneak out through when we were kids – and ran. I didn't stop until the trees of the deeper forest swallowed me whole.Taking a shuddering breath, I turned back to look at the lights of the E
Margaux PovLucien looked down at me, his expression hardening into something completely unrecognizable. "You're weak, Margaux. I'm going to be the Alpha of this pack. I don't need a wolfless Luna. I need someone who actually has power. Someone like Margot."A collective murmur rippled through the
Margaux pov"I don't care what they say. If nobody accepts me, Lucien will."That was the lie I kept on loop in my head.Today was my eighteenth birthday. The big one. The day every single wolf in the pack spent their entire life waiting for because the Moon Goddess finally decided to drop your mat







