LOGINEpilogue rina A year is a strange unit to measure a life by, until you find yourself standing in a garden that didn't exist the last time you counted the seasons, watching three boys chase each other through rows of vegetables they planted themselves and mostly trampled before anything could grow. The cottage garden had been Sebastian's idea, absurd as it had sounded the first time he suggested it, a king kneeling in dirt beside human-world seed packets, reading instructions meant for people with no crown at all. He had insisted, and I had let him, because some part of me had wanted to see whether the man who once measured every conversation in operational terms could learn to measure an afternoon in nothing more than soil and patience. He could. It turned out to be one of the things I loved most about the year that followed the courtyard reckoning with Xander, watching Sebastian unlearn the parts of himself that had only ever known how to rule and relearn how to simply live beside
King SebastianXander arrived on the third day, not with an army but with a single vehicle and a request for parley, which told me more about his desperation than any show of force could have. A man certain of his claim does not ask permission to make it. He sends soldiers instead. I had my guard escort him to the outer courtyard rather than any room where Irina or the boys might be seen through a window, and I met him there alone, because whatever needed saying between us did not require an audience.He was younger than I expected, though the reports had told me his age plainly enough. What the reports hadn't captured was the way he carried himself now, not the swagger of a pack heir who had once discarded a marked woman in front of witnesses, but something worn down and hollowed out, a man who had spent years discovering the size of what he'd thrown away."You know why I'm here," Xander said, stopping a careful distance from where my guards stood."I kn
IrinaWe found him in the east wing, exactly where the roster said he would be at that hour, Corin, the man who had stood close enough to my sons to teach them how to hold a practice blade without flinching, close enough that I had never once thought to question the loyalty in his eyes. He did not run when Sebastian's guards surrounded him. He simply set down the ledger he'd been holding and waited, and something about the stillness of it told me he had been waiting for this exact morning for a very long time."You knew," Sebastian said, and his voice carried none of the roughness from the night before. This was the voice of a king, flat and absolute. "Three years of seal access. A transfer authorization forged well enough to survive audit. Timed to surface the same week Irina and I finally stopped pretending there was nothing between us."Corin's gaze slid to me, and for the first time since I had known him, I saw something underneath the careful loyalty, old g
King SebastianShe did not come back that night, and I did not go looking for her. I had promised time, and a king who broke his own promises within the same hour had no right to ask for trust afterward. Instead I sat alone with the recovered files until the numbers on the courier's timeline blurred, and somewhere past midnight Shawn found me still there, still staring at a woman's name that no longer meant anything to me except the damage it had done."You look like a man who lost a war," Shawn said, setting a second set of documents on the desk without waiting to be asked."I lost an hour, I can't get back."I didn't look up. "What is this?""The rest of what the courier was carrying. We only pulled the personal correspondence first because it flagged on the search terms. There's a second folder underneath it. Financial routing, mostly—except for this." He tapped one page. "That's not Covenant funding. That's a transfer authorization with your seal on it
IrinaThe hour Sebastian and I had claimed dissolved the moment Shawn's voice came through the comm panel outside the locked door, apologetic and urgent in the same breath. Sebastian answered it with his forehead still resting against mine, and I felt the exact second his body went rigid."Show me," he said, and the warmth that had filled the room a moment before drained out of his voice entirely.I should have left him to it. Instead, I followed him down the corridor to the communications room, some old instinct refusing to let the night end on an interrupted promise. The screen he pulled up was a set of recovered messages from the second courier's private line, dated back nearly eight months, long before the Covenant had become the threat sitting in our interrogation chair.I read them over his shoulder before he could stop me.They were not operational. They were personal and intimate in a way that made the room tilt slightly around me. A woman'
Irina The morning interrogation of the Arbiter began under bright lights and full recording, yet the real tension in the room had nothing to do with the man secured to the chair. Sebastian stood at my shoulder while I asked the first questions, and every time his arm brushed mine, the air between us tightened with something unfinished from the night before.I kept my eyes on the Arbiter. “You directed threats against three children who have never harmed your faction. Explain the exact chain of command that approved those words and every name that signed off on them.”The Arbiter’s voice stayed flat. “The Covenant does not operate on single signatures. Decisions move through consensus among the remaining leadership. I can give you routes and secondary contacts, but the core will simply replace me.”Sebastian spoke from just behind me. “Then you will give every route and every contact until there is nothing left wo
IrinaWho touched my mate?" he growls.I freeze entirely. I stare at the towering man in front of me, my heart thumping so hard I can feel it in my throat. "Your mate? No. That is impossible. I do not feel anything.""You are an unshifted omega, Irina," he snaps. His blue eyes flash with a dangerou
Irina The carriage jerked to a violent halt. My bones ached from the freezing, terrifying journey. The heavy iron doors swung open."Get out," the guard barked.I stumbled onto the frozen dirt. The Northern Keep loomed above me in the dark. It was exactly like the nightmare stories. Everyone knew
IrinaMy body ached. The heavy silk sheets smelled of dark cedar and rain, wrapping around me like a cruel reminder of the night before. I pulled the blanket up to my chest. The mating mark on my neck throbbed with a dull, constant heat.Xander stood by the window. He was already dressed in a crisp
Irina"You look absolutely pathetic, Irina."The voice drips with venom. I slowly turn away from the cracked mirror, my heart sinking into my stomach. My stepsister stands in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. Stephanie is draped in a stunning red silk gown that hugs every curve of her b







