LOGINAlpha Knox Pov The cell beneath the east tower hadn't held a prisoner worth this much attention in years.Nadia hung from the chains Tobias had fastened her into, wrists bound above her head.Blood crusted dark at one corner of her mouth. Her hair disheveled and her face gone pale with exhaustion and something closer to genuine fear than I'd seen on her in all the years she'd served this house.Good. Fear was useful. Fear told the truth far more reliably than comfort ever did."Let's try this again," I said, crouching to bring myself level with her, patient in the way I'd learned to be patient with enemies who still believed silence would save them. "Where did you get the vial.""I told you." Her voice came out afraid. "I found the vial. On the pack grounds, near the east wall. I don't know who left it there, I swear it on the moon goddess herself, I only—""Don't," Tobias said, from where he leaned against the stone wall behind me, arms crossed, his voice flat and utterly without pa
Effie's Pov "Strip," Alpha Knox said, and the single word landed in the quiet room with far more weight than it had any right to.I felt my whole face go hot instantly. "H... here? Now?""Here. Now." He didn't so much as blink, arms crossed, watching me with that patient, expectation he'd worn through the entire argument that had gotten me into this in the first place. "Full submission, Effie.""I didn't agree to anything," I said, trying to keep myself calm, my hands already finding the laces of my dress despite the words still falling out of my mouth. "You told me the terms and then didn't give me any real choice in the matter.""You chose standing," Alpha Tobias pointed out, entirely too pleased with himself, settling into the armchair near the window like he intended to enjoy every second of whatever came next. "That was the choice. Everything else was always going to look like this."I worked the laces loose with fingers that weren't nearly as steady as I wanted them to be, mort
Effie's Pov "Up," Alpha Knox said, and had me off my feet before I'd even finished drawing breath to object."I can walk," I said, which by now had become less an actual protest and more a kind of ritual between us, words I said because some stubborn part of me refused to stop saying them, even though we both knew exactly how little weight they carried. He carried me up the staircase anyway, Alpha Tobias close behind us both, and heat crawled up into my face the way it always did now, helpless and immediate, the moment either of them touched me like I was something worth carrying carefully rather than simply tolerating.They didn't set me down until we were back in the bedroom, Alpha Knox lowering me onto the edge of the bed with a gentleness that didn't match at all with the tense, unreadable set of his jaw."Why did you leave the room," he asked, no real heat in it yet, just a flat, careful question that somehow felt more dangerous than if he'd simply shouted."I wanted to see Nad
Prince Jasper PovI was losing my freaking mind, slowly and methodically, one sleepless night at a time.It had been weeks now. Weeks of search parties sent out and returned empty-handed, weeks of warriors combing every village within three days' ride of Hollowmoon and coming back with nothing but tired horses and apologetic faces, weeks of waking up at odd hours convinced I'd caught her scent on the air, only to lie there in the dark afterward feeling like a fool for chasing smoke.That was the part that undid me most, if I let myself be honest about it. The scent.I'd catch it at the strangest moments. Crossing the east courtyard at dawn, that soft, warm note threading through the cold morning air before vanishing so completely I'd stop dead in my tracks, turning in a slow circle like a man who'd misplaced his own reflection. Effie Hartwell her name was. Effie's scent shouldn't have carried anywhere near Hollowmoon's northern reaches, let alone followed me through my own waking ho
Ava Freemon PovI didn't stop shaking until I was halfway back across the Thornwick grounds, toward the quiet wing where Jasper kept his household and where I'd made myself comfortably, permanently at home these past months.I tossed the damn tart aside.Fury did that to me. It always had, ever since I was a girl learning to master it instead of letting it master me, and by the time the familiar doors finally came into view, I'd worked myself into such a state that I very nearly snapped at the warrior posted outside them simply for having the audacity to greet me.An apology. They'd made me apologize.To her of all people!Two kings, two alpha kings, men whose attention half the unmated omegas in this kingdom would have sold a limb for, had looked at me, Ava Freemon, a woman who'd spent months proving herself worthy of a place in this very palace, and made me bow my head to that fat omega. A woman with a backside the size of a small cart and a face that still, infuriatingly, managed
Effie's Pov Ava never got the chance to land another hand on me.Alpha Tobias crossed that marble floor so fast it barely registered as movement at all, one instant still framed in the doorway and the next already between us, his back to me, putting his whole body between Ava and wherever she'd been reaching next. Alpha Knox was a half step behind him, and when he finally spoke again, I understood, with a cold little jolt, why Ava's face had drained of every bit of its color."Say that again." His voice had dropped into something low and utterly dangerous. "Go on. I want to hear you call her that to my face.""Alpha Knox, I—" Ava's composure slipped straight down the middle, all that vicious words from a moment ago gone like it had never existed. "This isn't what it looks like, I only came to bring a tart, I didn't realize she'd be the one answering the—""I watched you raise your hand to her." Alpha Tobias hadn't moved an inch, hadn't raised his voice at all, and somehow that made







