LOGINCan y’all tell me what u think about the last few chapters… are y’all still enjoying the book.
• Caleb •I watched James’s skin split further along his arms, and some small, broken part of me still wanted to reach for him.I hated that part of myself. I had hated it since the moment he told me the truth in this very room, and I hated it even more now, watching him fold in on himself while four centuries of lies caught up to him all at once.“You’re dying,” I said. It wasn’t a question.“Yes.” He didn’t even try to deny it. His voice had gone thin, stretched over pain he was clearly fighting to keep out of it. “I imagine I have very little time left, actually.”“Good.”The word left me before I could stop it, sharp and ugly, and I watched something flicker across what remained of his face. Not anger. Something closer to acceptance, like he’d been expecting me to say exactly that and had already made peace with it.“You don’t mean that,” he said quietly.“I do.” My hands were shaking. “You took everything from me. From them. You erased four hundred years of my own life and I didn
• James •One moment I was waiting in the archive for word that the werewolf kings had finally crossed into my territory, running through the last details of how I meant to greet them when they did. I had planned this moment for so long that I had stopped thinking of it as planning and started thinking of it as memory, the way you remember something you have already lived through a hundred times in your head.Then the pain came.It hit without warning, without buildup, like someone had thrown open a door I did not know existed and let something unbearable pour straight through me. My skin burned. Not the ordinary burn I had grown used to over centuries, the kind that came and went with old wounds reopening in the cold. This was different. This felt like the gate Heaven opened up and directed sunlight to me… the kind that had not touched my skin in longer than I could count, and it was tearing through every inch of me at once.I looked down at my own hands and watched the skin along
• Nelson •Fuck, he smells divine.I muttered the words into his hair without meaning to, inhaling him like I’d been starving for it and hadn’t realized until just now. Jason and I had both wrapped around him at the same moment, and neither of us seemed inclined to let go anytime soon.. not after everything, not after the portal, not after weeks of not knowing if he was even alive.“You guys are really here,” Caleb said again, like he needed to say it out loud a second time to believe it.“Are you okay?” I asked, pulling back just enough to look at him properly, searching his face for anything he might be trying to hide from us. “Have you been fine?”His jaw tightened, and something flickered behind his eyes before he answered. “No. I’ve not been fine.”The honesty of it hit harder than I expected. Part of me had wanted him to lie, to say he was okay so I could pretend the last few weeks hadn’t been what they were. But Caleb had never been good at giving us easy answers, and I loved t
• Jason •Walking through the portal and stepping out into total silence should have felt like relief. Instead, it felt wrong.I had braced myself for chaos... for guards swarming the second we crossed, for a war breaking out before we’d even gotten our bearings. I had pictured blood before I’d pictured Caleb. That was what centuries of training did to you; it made you plan for the worst first and hope for anything better second.But there was nothing. No vampires rushing toward us with weapons drawn. Just stone room stretching out in front of us, quiet and undisturbed, like we’d stepped into an empty house instead of enemy territory.“This is way too easy,” I said, turning to my brother. “I mean, walking in here and finding no one waiting for us on the other side… that’s suspicious. I was expecting a full-blown war the second we crossed.”Nelson didn’t answer right away. He was looking past me, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief.“Look,” he said instead.
• CALEB •“Seriously, man, you need to stop all this drama.”I froze.The words did not come from James. They came from inside my head. I wiped the tears from my face and stared at the man standing in front of me, while Stormy continued before I could tell him to shut up.“Yes, you were hurt. Congratulations. You have discovered that the ancient vampire king who kidnapped you and has been manipulating your life for centuries is not exactly the most trustworthy person in the world.”“Stormy.”“No, listen to me.”“I am listening.”“Then use your brain.”I stared at James.He was still standing in front of me with that expression on his face. The expression that had once made me want to reach for him. The expression that had made me believe he was hurting because of me.The expression that could still be completely genuine.Or completely fake.And that was the problem.I had no idea anymore.“Caleb.”I blinked.James was watching me.“Are you alright?”Stormy made a sound inside my head.
• CALEB •“Stop.”The word came out louder than I meant it to and James stopped, for a moment, neither of us moved.My chest rose and fell too quickly, my fingers still digging into my arms as if I could somehow scrub away eight years of memories by force. I wanted to get him off me. I wanted to rip every memory of him out of my body and throw it away.I wanted to go back to the moment before I recognized him and I felt like laughing at my own stupidity for eight fucking years.I looked at the man standing in front of me and my stomach twisted again. Heaven I feel so disgusted with myself and the way he was looking at me.“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.James frowned slightly. “Like what?”“Like you don’t understand why I feel disgusted.”Something moved across his face, I almost hated him more for that.“You are not allowed to look hurt,” I said.His expression stilled.“You are not allowed to stand there and look at me like I have done something to you.” My voice shook as I po
•JASON•“I think we should get a healer.” I said louder than I intended, but I didn’t take them back. Because I could feel it, every passing second slipping his breath was getting weaker.If this kept going, he would be dead in minutes. And the worst part? I couldn’t even feel his wolf, no trace of
•JASON•I stared at my brother like he had finally lost whatever sanity he had left. Not the usual kind of crazy Nelson carried around like a second skin.No.This was different, this was the kind of madness that could get us both killed.“Mark him.” The words still echoed in my head like he hadn’t
•NELSON•“Alpha Nelson…” Derick’s voice cut through my head without warning, sharp through the mind link, and every instinct in me went on alert immediately. Not because of what he said. But because of what I was holding in my arms.My mate.I tightened my grip slightly around him as I moved throug
•CALEB•“Let’s break up.” The words came out of my mouth, but they didn’t feel like mine. They felt forced. Dragged out of a place inside me that was already bleeding.Luke froze like I had just hit him.Worse.His fingers tightened around mine almost instantly, like letting go would make it real.







