LOGINAlina’s POV
Damon’s smile was the first thing to slice through the room.Not warm. Not human. Not real. A stretched quiet thing that did not belong anywhere near sunlight. It felt like someone dragging a knife along the inside of my spine. My breath jammed in my throat. My mouth went dry. My legs nearly folded under me.He stood there like he owned the entire chamber. Like the chaos, the wolves, the screaming, all of it had been arranged for him. His cloak hung loose around him, brushing the floor like smoke. His hair was tied back, not a single strand out of place, as if he had arrived from a calm walk instead of whatever nightmare path led him here.When he lifted his eyes to me, something inside me shriveled.“You always did make a mess of things,” he murmured.My lungs seized.Breathing became something impossible.I had not heard his voice in years and still it felt like hands wrapped around my throat.Alina’s POVThe giant wolf filled the entire hallway.Not metaphorically. Literally.His head scraped the cracked ceiling. Dust drifted over his fur like snow. His paws crushed stone with each slow, deliberate step. The air around him vibrated with a terrifying, ancient power that made my lungs seize and my bones tremble like they remembered something my mind did not.The Dark King froze.Actually froze.His hand, still half raised toward me, dropped an inch.The silence that followed was a suffocating thing, dense and heavy, thick enough to feel against my skin. Even the curse inside me stopped twisting.The giant wolf’s molten gold eyes locked on the Dark King.“She is not yours,” he said again. His voice was deep and rough, vibrating through the stone floor. Not human. Not wolf. Something in between.The Dark King’s face shifted. The faintest tremor broke his usual calm. Not fear. Something sharper. Recognition.“You,” he whispered. “I killed you.”The giant wolf bared his teeth. “
Alina’s POVThe hallway went dead.Not quiet.Not still.Dead.The guard’s voice hung in the air like a blade suspended above all of us.The Dark King is here.My heart slammed so hard it felt like it might rip straight out of my ribs. The torches flickered violently, their flames shrinking as if the air itself was being sucked from the hall. My fingers tingled. My legs turned numb. The curse twisted inside me like it recognized the name.Darius reacted first.He grabbed the guard by the collar. “Where.”The guard’s eyes were huge, whites showing all around. “At the gates. He broke the outer line. He… he is not alone.”Kaden swore under his breath, voice low and shaking. Kael’s claws punched through his fingers again. The silver eyed stranger tilted his head slightly, listening to something only he could hear.Damon smiled.Of course he smiled.But this time there was tension beneath it. A tightness around his eyes. A calculation.Not control.Not victory.A shift.He hadn’t planned t
Alina’s POVCassandra hit the ground like a dropped porcelain doll.The sound.That awful sound.Soft and final and wrong.Blood spread across the cracked stone under her body, too red, too bright, too real. I couldn’t look away even as every part of me wanted to claw my own eyes out. Her hair fanned around her face, golden strands slick with blood, her chest rising once, twice, then… slowing.My stomach wrenched. My breath tore. A thin, sharp scream scraped up my throat but got stuck there like glass.She was dying.Right in front of me.Because she jumped.Because I shoved her.Because the beast chose her instead of me.My knees buckled.Darius caught me before I fell, grabbing my waist with hands that shook only slightly.Kaden roared, a sound that was not human. His shift tore through him in seconds, golden fur ripping out of his skin as his wolf form slammed into the beast with violent force.Kael shifted next. No hesitation. No mercy. His white wolf collided with the beast, teet
Alina’s POVEverything broke at once.The soldier’s voice hadn’t even finished echoing before the walls shook. Not gently. Not like the tremor of a distant earthquake. No. This was sharp, violent, a punch from something massive. Dust rained from the ceiling. Torches flickered so hard their flames sputtered sideways.My instinct seized.I jerked backward, tearing out of the curse’s pull so fast I gasped. My body collapsed against the stone, my chest heaving like I had outrun a storm. The pain eased just enough for me to think.Kaden grabbed my waist, pulling me behind him protectively. Kael moved to my other side, claws out again. Darius spun toward the entrance, expression sharpening into something lethal.The silver eyed stranger snarled, crouching low.Damon just smiled.Like the kingdom falling apart was a pleasant distraction.The soldier stumbled further into the room, sweat dripping down his face. “Your Majesties. The southern wall has fallen. There are shadow beasts in the cour
Alina’s POVThe world slammed back into me like someone dropped me from the top of the palace tower.Cold stone.Burning skin.Screams ringing in my ears.My pulse stumbling so hard it hurt.I wasn’t fully awake.I wasn’t fully unconscious.I was caught in this sick, twisting space where everything moved too fast and too slow at the same time.My body wouldn’t listen.My limbs jerked. My muscles spasmed. My fingers clawed at the ground like I needed to hold on or be ripped away. I tasted blood on my tongue and couldn’t tell if it was mine.Three voices echoed inside my skull.A whisper like smoke.A roar like thunder.A call like a heartbeat I didn’t recognize.All of them saying the same thing.Come.My stomach rolled violently. The air tasted metallic. I pressed my forehead to the cold floor, trying to steady myself but my breaths came in sharp, broken bursts.Stop pulling me.Stop pulling me.Stop.But they didn’t stop.The invisible threads tightened around my ribs, around my thro
Alina’s POV For one impossible, breathless second, the world stopped. Three kings. Three brothers. Only two I had ever seen. And now a third stood in the doorway, armor cracked, blood drying on his jaw, eyes burning with something that didn’t match the chaos of the room. His blue gaze locked on me like the entire universe had narrowed into a single point inside my chest. Mine. He said it like a verdict. Like the truth. Like he had been waiting years to speak it. Kaden staggered back a step, chest heaving, bruises darkening around his throat. “You.” Kael’s claws retracted slowly, hesitation flickering across his expression for the first time since Damon arrived. “Darius.” Darius. Darius. The name hit me like falling through water. I had heard it whispered once in the servant wing, spoken like a ghost story. The missing prince. The lost heir. The dead brother. Not dead. Not missing. Standing right here. He walked into the room with heavy, deliberate steps, ignoring Dam







