LOGINChapter 147MATTHEWTheo turned from the window and looked at me directly, and I was struck, as I was regularly struck, by how much of Bianca was in his face. It was almost as if Bianca never left."She said that sometimes I would find things that reminded me of Mama very deeply and it was something to not be afraid or sad about. She also told me that it could come in any shape. Like a familiar smell or a color or someone's voice, or someone who looked like her from far away. And she said that it didn't mean I was having a breakdown, and it didn't mean I was confused about what was real. It meant my heart still knew Mama's shape, and when it found something that matched that shape even a little bit, it noticed." He paused. "She said instead of being scared when that happened, I could acknowledge it. I could say, I notice this, and it makes me think of Mama, and that's because I loved her and she loved me." Another pause, as he was playing with his fingers before he added in a much sm
Chapter 146MATTHEWThe school pickup line moved at the pace it always moved, which was to say approximately the pace of a glacier melting, which required a level of patience that I had never thought I was capable of having, and I spent the fifteen minutes of waiting doing what I'd been doing for most of the past three days—turning the same set of facts over in my mind and failing to find an arrangement of them that made comfortable sense.Two high-ranking officials from BloodMoon City wanted to attend my pack assembly.That was the fact I kept returning to. Not because it was impossible, because this happened before, volunteers from other packs visiting a neighbouring pack, was common, but what made it impossible like to me, was because of the specific combination. The Alpha King himself, who by all accounts had barely engaged with external relations in five years, had locked himself up behind his doors after the death of his mate and focused on just his son was suddenly motivated
Chapter 145BIANCAThe three children sat in their corner of the playground, surrounded by books and dinosaurs, entirely unconcerned with the running and shouting happening around them. The girl had opened one of her books and was reading something aloud—I could tell from the way Theo was listening, head slightly tilted, the posture of someone taking in information. The boy had his book open on the ground in front of all three of them, something with photographs, something they could all look at together.Theo laughed.It was quiet from here—I couldn't hear it through the windows and the distance—but I could see it. The way his shoulders moved, the way his face changed, the brief flash of that grin that was almost his old grin.My eyes burned.He was okay. He was going to be okay. Not perfectly, not without cost, not without the shape of loss remaining in him for a very long time. But he had friends who sat in his corner. He had dino
Chapter 144BIANCAHe was carrying something. A small bag, canvas, worn at the strap in the way that meant it had been used constantly and handled with the particular intensity of a child who didn't separate easily from objects they'd decided were important.I recognized the bag.I'd bought it for him at a market stall eight months ago, before everything, because he'd seen it and pointed at it with the wordless urgency of a child who doesn't yet have language for wanting something. It had been red then. It was still red, faded now at the edges, one of the strap buckles replaced with something that didn't quite match.He'd kept it. Matthew had kept it for him.My throat closed.Theo moved to a section of the playground near the far fence—not the climbing equipment, not the open space where most of the children were running, but a quieter corner near a low bench where there was a small patch of level ground. He set his bag down with the careful
Chapter 143KLAUS"Yes. The full information needs to come from someone he has reason to trust and context to understand. Klaus Blackwood from BloodMoon City is—" I paused. "He has no reason to trust me beyond the fact that I have resources and I called. That's not enough for what he actually needs to know." "Tell me what you know about the preparation work Voss is doing. Specifically what she's building, what it will look like from a magical signature standpoint, and what I'd need to do to counteract it."This was what I'd hoped for and expected. Bianca operating as the resource she was—not as the object of everyone's protective instincts but as the person best equipped to address the specific problem at hand.I pulled up Roy's documentation and began walking her through it.We worked for ninety minutes, until Lucian appeared in the doorway looking like a man who'd also not slept, followed shortly by Elijah and Mikael and Roy in various states of early-morning functionality.By five
Chapter 142KLAUS"I'm going to tell her everything tonight," Lucian said. "About the call with Matthew, about Thorne's positioning, about where Voss is. And then I'm going to tell her the thing I've been holding back since she arrived in this city."I didn't need to ask what he meant. There was only one thing left, and we both knew it."Lucian," I said. "It's time.""I know." A long exhale. "Klaus, if she leaves after—if she decides she can't—""Then you will have been honest, and she will have made an informed choice," I said. "Which is all you ever owed her." I paused. "But I don't think that's what happens. I've watched her with you. With Louis. With the life she's built here. That doesn't disappear because the foundation turns out to be more complicated than she knew.""You can't know that.""No," I admitted. "But I can observe evidence and draw reasonable conclusions. And the evidence suggests that Bianca Morrison is not a woman who makes her choices based on convenience or simp
Chapter 42MATTHEW Over the next few days, I found myself watching Mia with different eyes. Noticing things I'd dismissed or ignored before.How quickly she'd moved into my home after Bianca's death. How she'd taken over the master bedroom without asking, had moved her clothes into the closet wher
Chapter 44BIANCAOver the next few days, I settled into a routine that felt almost like belonging.Mornings started with Louis's enthusiastic wake-up calls and expensive breakfasts that Rivera insisted were "not a suggestion as it was essential for recovery." I'd discovered he was an excellent co
Chapter 43.BIANCAIt had been a week since Rivera brought me to his home, and for the first time since waking up in that hospital bed, I felt almost human again.The dizziness had faded to occasional lightheadedness. The nausea had subsided enough that I could eat without feeling like I might imme
Chapter 47MIAI stood in the kitchen of the house I'd dreamed about for over a year, surrounded by expensive appliances and I felt nothing but hollow frustration because I had it and still I wasn't satisfied.This was supposed to be my victory. My triumph. This took thirteen months or careful and







