LOGINRaven's POV He stopped in front of me, arms still crossed, studying me like a problem he was tired of solving."If you can't shift. Fine." He rolled his shoulders. "Let's test your physical strength.""Attack me."I blinked. "What?""You heard me. Attack me."I gasped, feeling fear running through my veins. "I can't even shift; how am I supposed to..." "I know. So use whatever you can to survive. This is a battle, so use your hands. Your feet. I don't care." His eyes narrowed, and something sharp moved behind them. "Or do you want me to think my mate is prey? Weak?"That word again. He knew exactly how to make me upset. Being called weak was my injury; it hurt. I lunged at him, sloppy and too fast, my fist swinging wide before I'd even decided to throw it. He smirked at my hesitation. He moved aside like I was underwater. His hand closed around my wrist and twisted, and the ground came up to meet me hard, knocking the breath out of my chest. He wasn’t even trying to be merciful be
Raven’s POVI was still very much asleep when the blankets were ripped off me.“Get up!”The cold slapped my skin. I stirred groggily, dragging myself up through layers of sleep that clung like wet mud, my eyes barely open, my mind three counties behind my body.“I said up! We don’t have time for this.”I snapped upright immediately, my heart slamming wildly in my chest. I raised my head slowly, coming face to face with a handsome, godlike face that set the butterflies in my stomach in a frenzy, but the scary look on his face was enough to kill them immediately. Asher.He stood over the bed with my blankets bunched in one fist, dressed for training in dark fitted clothes that showed off his muscles. This man was built like a mountain, bigger than anybody from my previous pack.Every line of him radiated impatience; he was a warrior done to his bones. His green eyes swept over my disheveled hair, my creased dress, my bare feet curled against the cold floor…and from the look on his fac
Raven’s POV I rested my chin on my palm, absorbing the information like a sponge that had gone too long without water. Fourteen hundred years. And twelve packs."But this pack has one major problem," Ansel said, leaning back in his chair. His eyes had gone flat, the warmth from before shuttered behind something older. "Do you know what it is?"I hummed in thought, turning it over. Something that would make the royal family this tense, this careful. Something that couldn't be fought with swords or borders."The illness?" I guessed.He nodded, slowly, like he was relieved I hadn't needed it spelled out for me. "A curse. We don't know why we're cursed. We don't know who it started with, only that it wasn't Nicklaus Lysander." His jaw tightened. "Although the curse does follow the royal bloodline."The words landed in my chest as stones dropped into still water.I gasped softly, my hand dropping from my chin. "Does that mean you and your brothers?"He shook his head, and the stones sett
Ansel’s POV I was supposed to be teaching her.Preparing her for what was coming. If she was going to survive being our mate at all, she needed to know this world, not just live in it. But right now, she wasn't being helpful.How could someone so far from the royal bloodline be this beautiful?I didn't use that word lightly. Crescent Silver had no shortage of beautiful women. But Raven was something else entirely, and the worst part was she didn't seem to know it. That made it harder to look away.How had that idiot alpha of Shadow Claw thrown her out? Rejected someone this rare?I made a mental note to have someone look into that pack. A leader who couldn't recognize what stood in front of him wasn't fit to hold a border, let alone a bloodline.She gasped.The sound pulled me back into the room. She'd stumbled onto something in the book, her tongue poking out between her teeth, her dark eyes narrowed in concentration as she flipped through the pages. She looked younger like that. So
Raven's POV The pack members stared at us as we walked past. Some didn't bother hiding it. A woman near the training yard leaned into her friend's ear, her eyes fixed on me the whole time. I kept my chin up and my eyes forward. I had spent a lifetime being stared at for the wrong reasons. I could survive a little more of it.Ansel didn't seem to notice, or he didn't care. I couldn’t help but notice how different this place was from our pack. The wealth was evident in everything, from the heavenly architecture to the stunning people. Even the maids had a devilishly godlike face. He walked a half-step ahead of me, with his hands loose at his sides. Even here he was every inch a warrior; I could see the respect they had for him, which I wasn’t too confused about. He was giving me pieces of history as we went."Crescent Silver is one of the oldest packs in existence," he said. "Over fourteen hundred years old.""That's..." I searched for the word. "A long time.""Long enough that most
Raven’s POVWhat was that about?I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, tracing the dark timber beams with my eyes for the hundredth time. Maya’s voice still echoed in my skull. Child of the moon. Far more than anyone presumes.More than what, exactly? More than a discarded daughter? More than a convenient key to a throne? There was a time I believed my future was to be a queen, although I didn’t have my wolf. I always thought I could at least be happy, but now I don’t think it’s possible. I am meant to be ridiculed and lied to. First by my family, then by my supposed mate, and even when it seems like I was given a second chance at life- a wolf and new powerful mates who should want me above reason- somehow I still ended up as a pawn.Thinking about all the time I wasted talking to the moon goddess now seems like a joke. She never listened, because it seems she actually hates me.I rolled onto my stomach and pressed my face into the furs, reaching inward.Ara?Nothing. Or not noth







