MasukI'm two bites into a bowl of oatmeal when Sage sits down across from me.
I look up. She has her jacket on and her bag over one shoulder and the expression of someone who made a decision between the archive and the cafeteria and is acting on it before she changes her mind.
"I'll eat with you," she says. "And then I need to show you and Dante something together."
"The investigation?"
"There's a piece I didn't include in what I showed you on the riversid
(Dante POV)The silence in the room wasn't empty; it was heavy with the collective weight of our realization. I looked at Kira, whose eyes were still dark with the phantom resonance of her call with Reyes. I looked at Sage and Juniper, both slumped against the bookshelves, their faces pale under the layers of soot and dried blood. And finally, I looked at my father.Dominic Silvercrest was a king who had built his empire on the absolute certainty of his own strength. But right now, as he stared at the map, his golden eyes were completely vacant. He was looking at a game board he thought he controlled, completely oblivious to the hand that had rewritten the rules from the dark."He didn't fail," I said, the words cutting through the stagnant air like a bone-handled blade.My father’s head snapped up, his brow furrowed in a dangerous, stentorian frown. "What did you say, Dante?""Elias Blackwell," I said, naming the ghost out loud, forcing his presence into the room. I walked to the wal
(Kira POV)The office felt like it was shrinking. The heavy scent of Dominic’s expensive bourbon and the lingering smell of cold fireplace ash suddenly became suffocating. I stared at my phone screen as the light faded to black, the silence of the disconnected call ringing louder than Reyes’s voice ever could.Dominic stood like a statue carved from the very mountain the compound was built upon. His eyes, usually glowing with a controlled golden fire, were narrowed in a look of profound, dangerous confusion. He looked from Dante to me, his hands still gripped into white-knuckled fists at his sides."Who," Dominic began, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that made the crystal decanter on his desk hum, "is Elias? And why are you taking tactical reports from a human on a phone while my pack prepares for a massacre?"I lowered my hand, my fingers still tingling
(Kira POV)The memorial grounds, once a place of stagnant grief and ritual silence, erupted into a tumultuous hive of activity. The salute that had honored me moments ago was forgotten, replaced by the sharp, barking orders of enforcers and the frantic scuffle of families rushing toward the safety of the inner compound. The three biers, Silas, Lyra, and Cassidy, were lowered into the earth with a mechanical, unceremonious haste that made my stomach churn."Move! Clear the perimeter! Level five lockdown!" the new Head of Security roared, his voice cutting through the rising wind.Dominic didn’t look back at the graves. He turned on his heel, his heavy black trench coat snapping behind him like the wings of a predatory bird. "Dante. Kira. Sage. Juniper. My office. Now."The walk back to the main house was a blur of steel and shadows. We passed the armory, where the
(Kira POV)The silence that followed Dominic’s declaration was brittle, a thin sheet of ice over a dark, rushing river. I could feel the eyes of the pack on me, heavy, questioning, and for the first time, laced with a reluctant awe. Beside me, Dante’s hand found mine, his grip a solid anchor in the swirling tension of the memorial grounds.Dominic took a breath, his chest expanding as he prepared to deliver the final rite. "Let the record of this day be written not in blood, but in..."A sharp, discordant sound cut through his words.At the edge of the amphitheater, the heavy iron gates groaned. A messenger, dressed in the dark, verdant colors of the Nightbreeze outriders, was sprinting down the central aisle. He wasn't stopping for the guards; he wasn't slowing for the Alpha. His face was a mask of sheer, viscid terror, his breath coming in ragged, shallow
(Kira POV)The silence that followed Selene’s accusation was heavy, a viscid pressure that seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room. Selene didn’t look at us. She looked through us, her eyes fixed on a future that had just been decapitated. Then, the porcelain mask finally cracked.She collapsed back onto the window seat, a small, jagged sob escaping her throat. It wasn't the regal, controlled weeping of a Nightbreeze Alpha; it was the sound of a girl who had just realized she was the last of her line. Her shoulders shook under the fine silk of her robe, and for a moment, the room felt cold, the jasmine scent turning cloying and funereal.I didn't ask Dante for permission. I crossed the room and sat beside her, pulling her into a hug. Selene stiffened for a heartbeat, the instinct of a polished aristocrat, before she buried her face in my shoulder and let out a broken, plaintiv
(Dante POV)The antiseptic chill of the mortuary clung to my skin even after we stepped back into the hallway. My father remained behind the heavy double doors, a solitary figure standing between the bodies of his brother and his greatest ally-turned-enemy. Through the small observation window, I saw him bow his head, the weight of the Silvercrest crown finally looking like the burden it truly was."He looks smaller," Kira whispered, her hand finding mine in the dim light of the corridor. "I didn't think an Alpha could look that small.""He’s not an Alpha right now," I replied, my voice sandpaper-dry. "He’s just a man burying his life."We reached the main foyer, where the morning sun was now streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the dust motes that danced in the air. Sage and Juniper were leaning against the marble staircase, their fa
She walks toward us.Cassidy steps aside without comment and continues down the corridor, and Selene stops in the doorway where Cassidy just stood, and she looks at Dante with an expression that contains several things simultaneously, none of them the anger or the humiliation
I wake to the specific grey of very early morning and Dante already at the window.He's standing with his back to the room, shirtless, the compound's pre-dawn exterior visible behind him, and the quality of his stillness tells me he hasn't just arrived there. He's been there
Sage takes us to the meditation chamber on the archive level.I didn't know it existed until she opens the door and the room presents itself, small and deliberately austere, no windows, walls lined with sound-dampening material, two low seats and a third positioned slightly a
The minute he asked for passes.Then another.I sit on the edge of his bed and I watch him look at the closed door and I don't say anything, because pushing right now would be the wrong kind of presence and I know the difference. Some things require company rather than







