تسجيل الدخولRaeJesse’s words seemed to stay in the room after he said them.She was the one who told me to bring you home.Nobody spoke immediately. I could feel the reactions around me without looking at anyone. Grant’s anger burned hottest, but beneath it was something colder now that Jesse had confirmed Elena had been directing him toward Vicker territory. Julien was already turning the information over from every angle, while Brax’s usual warmth had sharpened into distrust. Linc remained steady, but there was nothing relaxed about him.Jesse looked like he wanted to take the words back.Not because they weren’t true.Because he finally understood what they meant.Mansfield closed the folder in front of her. “I need to contact the Vicker Alpha.”Jesse’s head came up. “Why?”“Because his sister-in-law concealed her relationship to Rae’s mother, used an old identity to access restricted concealment texts, researched hidden lunar bloodlines, and then encouraged his son to bring Rae directly into
RaeMansfield sent for me twenty minutes before my last class ended.The note had been short and annoyingly vague. Secure classroom. Come directly after dismissal. No explanation. No indication whether she had found something new about Elena, Frank, or the archive records. By the time I crossed the history wing and reached the locked door, I had already invented enough possibilities to ruin the rest of my afternoon.Harold and Sonya were inside when Mansfield let me in, which made me stop just beyond the threshold.“What happened?”“Nothing yet,” Mansfield said.The answer did absolutely nothing to reassure me. Harold stood near the far end of the table with his arms folded, while Sonya sat beside the stack of records Mansfield had been building since Elena Vicker’s name surfaced. Neither looked frightened exactly, but serious was almost worse.I glanced around the room. “Where’s Grant?”“On his way.”That got my attention. “Why?”“I asked all four command heirs to come.”I stared at
GrantActing normal turned out to require considerably more effort than anyone admitted.Rae had been very clear after Brax’s bond settled the night before. Until Mansfield could tell us what being the Sacred Pack actually meant in practical terms, she did not want four command heirs trailing her from class to class like a security detail. Ravenwood already watched her enough. She wanted to go to lessons, eat with Chrissy, and cross campus without everyone assuming some ancient prophecy required an escort formation.She was right.That did not make it easy.By midmorning, Julien, Brax, Linc, and I had ended up at our usual table in the dining hall during a shared free period. Rae was somewhere across campus with Chrissy, exactly as she had insisted she was perfectly capable of being.None of us had argued.Much.Brax had spent the last ten minutes looking like a man carrying a question that would eventually get him punched.Julien noticed too.“No.”Brax frowned. “I haven’t said anyth
RaeBy nine that night, I had given up pretending I was going to get any reading done.I had been sitting cross-legged on my bed for nearly an hour with one of Mansfield’s translated Sacred Pack texts open in front of me, but I had read the same paragraph enough times that I could probably recite it without understanding a word of it. My thoughts kept circling back to Jesse, Elena, Frank, and everything that had changed since the moonstone shattered. Every time I managed to drag my attention back to the page, another surge came through one of the bonds.Brax.His presence had been restless all evening, but over the last twenty minutes it had turned almost impossible to ignore. Power rolled through the connection in short, forceful bursts, followed by physical exertion and a flare of heat before settling briefly and starting all over again. Whatever he was doing, he was putting enough strength behind it that my own pulse kept reacting.Chrissy glanced over from her desk when I finall
RaeJulien and I stared at each other as the other three bonds slowly settled again.They didn’t return to what they had been before the kiss. I could still feel the difference in my connection with Julien, a deeper certainty beneath the attraction and awareness that had existed since the moonstone shattered. Linc’s bond carried that same settled quality now, while Brax and Grant remained open and powerful but somehow unfinished beside them.Apparently my wolf had categories.Accepted.I was beginning to hate how confidently she supplied information after spending eighteen years unable to tell me anything.Julien’s hand remained at the back of my neck while I sat across his lap, but his attention had turned inward. I could feel him sorting through the same strange rush I was trying to understand.“You felt them,” I said.His eyes focused on mine. “Yes.”“All three?”“I think so.”That was somehow worse.I shifted off his lap and sat beside him, mostly because discussing my supernatura
RaeJulien did not take me somewhere quieter.He took me to food.I probably should have expected that from someone who had heard me announce I was hungry less than ten minutes earlier, but when he led me around the academic building and toward one of the smaller student lounges, I still gave him a look.“I thought you had somewhere quiet in mind.”“I do.” He opened the lounge door and glanced inside. “This is empty.”“That technically qualifies.”“You also skipped lunch.”I stopped just inside the doorway. “How do you know that?”“Chrissy mentioned it before she left Mansfield’s classroom. You also said you were hungry in the courtyard, so I assumed feeding you was a better idea than taking you somewhere scenic and watching you pass out.”“I wasn’t going to pass out.”&
RaeAnd when I finally looked up, it wasn’t who I expected.Not even close.Brax Weston stood in the doorway balancing two pizza boxes, four sodas, and enough confidence to make it seem like he’d been invited.Chrissy’s eyes widened.Brax grinned.“Good,” he announced. “You’re alive.”I blinked.“W
RaeBy the time I made it back to my dorm room, the box in my hands felt heavier than it had any right to.It wasn’t the weight of the things inside it. It was everything attached to them—the way Sonya had looked at me, the way Julien hadn’t backed down, the way Grant had stepped into the conversat
RaeJulien Bennett’s hand remained extended in front of me, steady and patient, as if the weight of the entire courtyard staring at him didn’t exist.For a moment, I didn’t move—not because I needed help getting up, but because of what that gesture meant. Wolves like Julien didn’t involve themselve
Rae The Ravenwood Pack had one human.That human was me.Most wolves didn’t bother remembering anything else about me. Not my name. Not how long I had lived on their territory. Just the simple, inconvenient truth that I didn’t belong in their world.Humans didn’t live inside wolf packs.Yet someho







