LOGINLana's POVA phantom current still hummed in my bones. It wasn’t the violent, white-hot surge from the night, but a low-grade tremor, like the aftershock of an earthquake deep in my marrow. My hands, wrapped around a porcelain coffee cup at the Thornwood breakfast table, betrayed a faint, inconsistent shake. I concentrated on keeping them still, on the smooth curve of the china, on the bitter scent of the coffee, anything to anchor myself in the mundane.The memory of the jolt was a scar on my consciousness. The bond had screamed. Ronan was hurt, or in mortal peril. But beyond the terror, something else nagged at me, the sheer, impossible physics of it. A psychic connection translating into physical agony? A surge of energy that felt like being plugged into a live wire? That wasn't just emotion. That was… power. And it had come from me as much as it had come through me.I’d been so focused on pack politics, on Gideon’s schemes and Ronan’s heart, that I’d never stopped to truly ask: wh
Jessica's POV(Special Chapter)Comfortable was a relative term. The room wasn't a dungeon. It was clean, if spartan, with a narrow bed, a simple wooden chair, and a small window high up on the stone wall that showed a sliver of iron-grey sky. It was cold, the air smelling of damp earth, pine, and a faint, underlying musk of wolf that wasn't Blackthorn or Lancaster. It was wilder, sharper. Night Fang.But I wasn't bound. I wasn't starved. A guard brought me simple, hearty food twice a day. They’d even provided a change of clothes. This wasn't the treatment of a typical prisoner of war. It was the containment of an asset. An inconvenient, unexpected asset.I sat on the edge of the bed, running through the scenarios for the hundredth time. The attack had been terrifying in its violence, but the moment Peter Holloway had looked at me in Ronan's hallway, there had been a flicker in his cold eyes not just hatred, but annoyance. As if I were a piece of furniture that had been moved without h
Lana's POVThe ghost of Maison’s kiss lingered on my lips, a warm, stable brand in the cold silence of Thornwood. It wasn't the wildfire of Ronan’s kisses, which consumed and claimed. This was different, a slow, steady hearth fire promising warmth and shelter. It left me flustered, confused, and deeply unsettled.I lay awake long into the night, my mind a battleground of contrasts. One was a sanctuary of light and transparency (even with its secrets); the other was a gilded prison of shadows and whispers.And Ronan’s world… Red Creek was different again. It was raw, primal, a place of deep tradition and volatile emotion. It was a roaring bonfire to the Aerie’s steady furnace and Thornwood’s cold, clinical torch. Loving Ronan meant embracing stormy passion and ancient, bloody duty. Accepting Maison’s unspoken offer meant choosing calm order and human logic.But could I choose? The bond was a live wire in my chest, its constant, aching hum a reminder that my heart might not be mine to g
Lana's POV The charcoal grey silk felt like a second skin, cool and weighty. Standing before the mirror, I barely recognized myself. The woman reflected was poised, severe, untouchable. The diamond studs Maison had sent winked with a cold, clean light, and the silver hairpin, its tiny hidden eye, was secured in the simple twist at the nape of my neck. I wasn't Lana the fugitive, or Lana the pawn. Tonight, I was an envoy. Maison arrived precisely at seven, not in a Blackthorn car, but in his own sleek, silent electric sedan. He looked different outside the office, still impeccably tailored in a dark suit, but there was a subtle sharpness to his bearing, a readiness that his designer persona usually softened. "You look… appropriate," he said as I slid into the passenger seat, his eyes giving me an approving once-over. It was the highest compliment in this context. "We're not going to a restaurant, are we?" I asked as he navigated away from Thornwood’s imposing gates. "No. The famil
Lana's POV The pieces of the puzzle weren't just fitting together; they were forming a picture so monstrous it threatened to eclipse everything else. Gideon, the scorned illegitimate son. A murdered grandfather. A feud with Night Fang that felt too convenient, too perfectly timed to frame an enemy and unite allies. "But what about other siblings?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper against the hum of distant city traffic. "You said two sons. Was that it?" Maison took a slow sip of his coffee, his gaze distant as he sifted through the archive in his mind. "There was a sister. Well, not by blood. Her name was Elara. She was the daughter of their parents' closest friends, Alphas of a smaller allied pack who were both killed in a border skirmish when Elara was just a child. Esther and Kieran Sr. took her in. Raised her as their own. A ward of the Lancaster house, but given the name and protection." A ward. Like Jessica was to Gideon. The parallels were unnerving. "What happened to he
Lana's POV The words hung in the cold night air, more shattering than any scream. This was not the plan. My body went numb, then buzzed with a sick, electric energy. I shrank back into the deeper shadows of the herb garden, pressing myself against the rough stone wall, my breath held so tight my lungs burned. Gideon was working with Peter Holloway. The conclusion was inescapable. The phone call, the fury, the phrase couldn’t mean anything else. There was a plan. Jessica’s kidnapping had been part of it. But something had gone wrong. The “child” he mentioned… Dorothy? Or Jessica’s unborn baby? The “scrutiny”… He was angry because the attack was too public, too brazen, drawing too much attention. My mind, already frayed from the night’s events, became a whirlwind of terrifying connections. Gideon sends Jessica to Red Creek to infiltrate and weaken Ronan. That fails. A new plan: a pregnancy, forcing a union. Ronan demands proof. That’s a problem. Then, a convenient, dramatic kidnapp







