LOGINPetra's POVI stood outside Dahlia's room, hand on the doorknob, listening for a sound or movement, but there was nothing.Either she was asleep or dead.Part of me hoped for death. The shameful, ugly part that lived in my chest like a tumor. The part that had been growing since Illara got sick and everything started falling apart.I turned the knob. The door opened with a soft creak that sounded too loud in the quiet hallway.The curtains were drawn, leaving everything dim and shadowed, but I could see her on the bed.She was curled on her side, one hand on her swollen stomach, the other clutched in the sheets. Her hair was matted, stuck to her forehead with sweat. Even in sleep, her face was tight with pain.She looked like hell.Good, the next thing was to send her to hell.I moved closer, footsteps silent on the carpet. I should have felt sorry for her, but I didn't because she was nothing but a weed that had to be removed.Dahlia's eyes opened, then sharpened when she saw me."Pe
Rayan's POVThree days since Dahlia's hand connected with my face, and my jaw still felt like it had been shattered and reassembled wrong. Every time I opened my mouth, something clicked and sent white-hot sparks shooting up into my skull.I stood in front of the bathroom mirror in Petra's suite, pressing a cold cloth against the bruise that had bloomed from my cheekbone down to my throat.The cloth was already warm from my skin. I dropped it into the sink with a wet slap and watched water drip down the porcelain.Dahlia had done this. Sweet, pregnant, supposedly helpless Dahlia had thrown me across the room like I weighed nothing.My fingers found the bruise, and the pain made my vision blur.Good.Pain meant I was still alive and I was still in the game.I turned from the mirror and walked into Petra's bedroom. She was sitting at her vanity, pulling a brush through her dark hair with sharp, angry strokes that made it crackle with static."You look like shit," she said without lookin
Hera's POVI couldn't sleep. There on the bed with my eyes fixated on the ceiling, I replayed the parking lot and the look on Darryn's face when he said that he would never love me."I'll never love you. I'll never want you."The words kept circling over and over like a knife twisting.Fuck it.It was five in the morning when I got up, threw on a robe, and walked down the hall to my mother's study.The door was cracked, light spilling out, and I could hear voices inside. "—not working fast enough." Luna Jane. "He's still obsessed with finding her.""Then we accelerate the timeline," a man's voice, which I knew as Dimitri, my mother's advisor and fuckmate, said.I pushed the door open, and they both looked up. "Hera," my mother's face smoothed. "You should be sleeping.""I can't sleep after—" I stopped to look at Dimitri. "What timeline?""The plan to help Darryn move on," my mother said smoothly. "From his... attachment.""You mean his wife.""His exiled wife, who abandoned him and ha
Darryn's POVThe plane touched down at 11 PM. I was out of my seat before the seatbelt sign turned off."Darryn, we haven't even stopped moving," Hera said from beside me.I didn't answer; I grabbed my bag from the overhead and pushed past the flight attendant's protests.Six weeks. Six fucking weeks of searching, and I finally had a lead. My phone buzzed the second we cleared the jet bridge.Got confirmation. A pregnant woman matching the description was spotted in the eastern territories. Border guards saw her three days ago. We're still trying to narrow down the exact location.My hands shook while reading it. "Darryn?" Hera caught up, slightly breathless. "What's wrong? Did something happen?""Nothing." I typed back: “Keep searching. I need an exact location.”Leonard: Working on it, boss, but there's something weird. The pack she's staying with—no one's heard of them; like, they don't exist on any registry.Me: “Hidden pack?”Leonard: “Maybe or something else. I'll dig deeper.”
Dahlia's POVI stared at my hand. It was smoking with wisps of something—power? energy? —curling off my palm like I'd touched fire."What—" My voice came out strangled. "What did I do?" It burned.Rayan groaned as he pushed himself up using the dresser he'd crashed into. Blood dripped from his nose. His eyes when he looked at me—pure hatred."You just made a terrible mistake," he growled, and then he stumbled out.What the fuck was that?I'd barely touched him, just slapped him across the face, and he'd—he'd flown. Literally flew backwards like I'd thrown a truck at him.My hand burned hotter. I stared at it, the smoke curling, and felt something underneath my skin."No no no no—"The door suddenly burst open, and Oryn walked in. She looked at the destroyed dresser, the dent in the wall where Rayan had hit, and the scorch mark on the floor where I was standing."Dahlia." Her voice was careful. "What happened?""I don't know." I was shaking. "I hit him and he—and my hand—Oryn, what's h
Rayan's POVPetra was not weak, and that was the problem.A weak woman I could have manipulated in five minutes. A weak woman would have handed over Dahlia the moment her authority was questioned, but Petra was not weak. Petra was furious."SERA actually said it." She was pacing, then she stood by the window with her arms folded and her jaw tight. "Said maybe it's time to reconsider the interim arrangement. 'In front of half the council.""What did you say?" I asked from the bed."I told her if she had concerns about my leadership, she could challenge me formally. She shut up after that.""Good.""Good?" She turned to look at me. "It's not good, Rayan. It's a Band-Aid. They're questioning me. They've been questioning me since Illara went into the hospital, and that girl in this house is making it worse.""Then get rid of her.""I can't just—" She stopped. " Oryn would—""What would Oryn do?" I asked. "Challenge you? She won't. She's not stupid."Petra looked at me for a long moment. "
Luna Jane's PovI had been standing outside that door for four minutes before I decided to walk through it.Not because I was uncertain—I was never uncertain; I had not had the luxury of uncertainty in twenty-three years of navigating this pack's politics—but because I believed in timing. In lettin
Dahlia's Pov I woke up wanting noodles, spicy ones, the kind that made your eyes water and your nose run and made you keep eating anyway because the burn was part of the point.Then I craved seafood, shrimp, and a mountain of onions. Boiled eggs and fried eggs, both, because the baby had decided o
DAHLIA'S POVI dreamt about the baby before I understood it was a dream.We were walking home from the grocery store, and my baby was walking faster ahead of me.“Baby,” I struggled under the weight of the grocery bags. I paused. My baby was seven months old, which means he wasn't supposed to be wa
Rayan's POVI needed bolts to fix the machine, and that was the entire reason I went into town on a Wednesday afternoon. The east fence post had been loose for a week, and I had been meaning to get to it, and I got to it. Hardware store, twenty minutes, back before dinner. Simple.Kael's bar was on







