ANMELDENRaven's POV I sat with the information about Dara for two full days before I said anything to Alaric about it. It was not fair to him, but I needed to turn it over in my own head first before I could talk about it with someone else, even someone I trusted completely. On the third morning, I told him everything while Cael was at the small pack nursery Lord Thorne had arranged nearby. Alaric sat across from me at the kitchen table without interrupting until I finished, and then he was quiet for a moment before he said, "Your father was Aldric Coas?" "That's what she said," I said. "The Alpha Lord from the eastern border?" he said. "Yes," I said. "Raven, that changes your standing significantly," he said. "I know," I said. "But I don't want to think about standing right now. That is not what matters to me about it. What matters to me is that there is a woman named Dara who has known about me for years and was stopped from finding me. I want to know who she is before I decide what
Raven's POV Alaric drove me to the meeting location, which was a small neutral territory building about forty minutes from the estate. He pulled up outside and looked at me. He said, "I will be right here." "I know," I said. "If anything feels wrong," he started. "I'll come straight out," I said. He nodded and I got out of the car. I stood on the pavement for a moment and looked at the building. Then I walked to the door, pushed it open, and went inside. The room was small and clean with a table, two chairs, and a window that looked out onto a quiet street. Maren Vale was already sitting at the table and she looked up when I came in. We both went still at the same moment because we were doing the same thing, which was looking at each other's faces and trying to find something familiar in them. She had blue eyes and I had blue eyes. Her hair had gone mostly grey, but underneath the grey, it was the same strawberry blonde that mine was. I stood in the doorway and felt something s
Alaric's POV I started making inquiries the morning after the ceremony. I was careful about how I did it because I did not have a name or a clear description beyond what the warrior had given me. It was an older woman with dark hair going grey, well-dressed and calm. Like someone who had been planning to come for a long time and knew what she was going to find when she got there. Something about that did not sit right with me. I called my father first and described what the warrior had told me. My father was quiet for a moment, long enough for me to know he was already taking it seriously. Then he said he would put his contact network on it and get back to me before the end of the day. I thanked him, hung up, and went to find the warrior who had spoken to her directly. His name was Corren. He had been one of the eleven who stayed loyal through the expulsion. I trusted his read on people, so I sat across from him and asked him to tell me everything he remembered about the woman. He
Raven's POV Lord Thorne offered his estate for the ceremony and we said yes because neutral territory felt right, peaceful, safe, and perfectly ours. Neither of us wanted anything that looked like a pack event with all the weight we carried after everything we had been through inside pack halls and council chambers. We kept the guest list small on purpose and by small I mean thirty people. Even that felt like a lot to me, but Alaric said thirty was already small and I said fine. We settled on it and moved on. Sable was not on the list yet because we had not met her. Lord Thorne's closest allies were there, along with the warriors who had stayed loyal to Alaric through the expulsion. Dara was not there yet either because that came later. The people who were there had earned the right to be in the room, and that mattered to me more than numbers. I wore something simple because elaborate felt wrong and I had spent enough of my life being told I needed to present myself in a certain w
Raven's POV The letters came on a Tuesday and I was the one who got to the door first because Alaric was in the shower. I picked up the envelope from the mat and looked at it. It was addressed to both of us on the same envelope, which made me stop in the doorway for a second because even the university apparently saw us as a unit. I was not prepared for how much that small detail would land on me the way it did. It settled somewhere deeper than I expected. I sat down at the kitchen table and looked at the envelope for a moment just before opening it. Cael was in his bouncer watching me with the serious expression he had started doing recently, where he looked like he was genuinely trying to figure out what was happening around him, and I said, "This is important." He made a noise back at me as he agreed. I opened it, took out both letters, and read mine first, then read it again. Afterwards, I put it down, picked up Alaric's and read that, one too. By the time Alaric came downsta
Alaric's POV Jake's sentencing was three days after Dante's. I went alone because I did not want Raven sitting through another council hearing so soon after the last one. She did not argue with me about it which told me she was more drained from Dante's trial than she was letting on. I got to the council hall early and took a seat in the witness section. The chamber filled up slowly around me. When Jake was brought in, he looked different from the last time I had seen him in the pack hall during the ceremony, not different in a way that suggested anything had humbled him, just different in the way that people look when they have spent weeks in a holding facility with nothing to plan and no one to maneuver around. That kind of stillness has gotten into them whether they wanted it to or not. He sat at the front with his legal representative. He did not look around the room the way Dante had and he did not look at me at all, he just stared into the middle distance like he was alread
Raven's POV Saturday morning, I woke up early with a plan in mind. If people were going to keep trying to hurt me, I needed to be ready to defend myself. Pregnant or not. "Finally," Breeze said. "I've been waiting for you to realize this." "What do you mean?" I asked. "We need to train," she sa
Raven's POV Friday afternoon, I was walking down the stairs between third and fourth period when I felt someone bump into me from behind. I stumbled forward, losing my balance. "Watch it," a voice said. Tyler. One of Dante's friends. I grabbed the railing, trying to steady myself, but someone el
Raven's POV Thursday morning, I woke up exhausted. I had stayed up until midnight finishing a history paper, then woke up at five to walk Mrs. Chen's dog. After that, I had school, then tutoring sessions, then homework. My body was screaming at me to rest, but I couldn't afford to. At school, I c
Raven's POV Monday morning started badly and got worse. I woke up dizzy and nauseous. My back was killing me, and the baby was pressing on my bladder, making it hard to walk. But I forced myself to go to school because I had already missed too many days. "This is a mistake," Breeze said. "We sho







