LOGINLeela couldn't stop shaking. The tremors started in her hands and radiated out to her very core, vibrating through her bones.Every time she blinked, the image overlaid reality: the diagrams of those poor babies. The words written in that neat, sociopathic script. Extraction. Preservation. Viability. They looked like specimens in a formaldehyde jar, or beautiful, iridescent butterflies pinned dead in a shadow box, trapped behind glass for someone else's amusement."I've gotta go for a walk," Leela said abruptly. Her voice was brittle, like dry leaves.She didn't wait for permission or agreement. She hoisted Caspian onto one hip and Briar onto the other, the physical strain of their combined weight grounding her, reminding her that they were heavy, solid, and alive.Fennigan started to stand, his instinct to follow and protect flaring instantly."No," Leela said, stopping him with a sharp look. "I just need time to think. Please."Ginny took a half-step forward, her face etched with co
The heavy wooden porch swing swayed gently under the weight of the family, the rusted chains creaking a rhythmic, mournful tune that seemed to echo the hollowness in Leela’s chest. She had buried her face in Caspian’s neck, refusing to look up, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs as she clutched Briar’s tiny hand. Briar clutched her hand back somehow sensing that is what her mother needed.Elana stood by the railing, her knuckles white as she gripped the wood. She had seen her son angry, and she had seen him worried, but she had never seen him look this haunted, this sick to his stomach over some pictures he had seen in a book."What is she talking about, Fennigan?" Elana asked, her voice tight with a mother’s demand for truth. "What was in those books? Where did you even find them?"Fennigan tightened his arm around Leela, pulling her and the twins closer into his side, shielding them from the world. He looked at his mother, then at Ginny, whose hand was resting protectively on he
Leela stood frozen over the desk, one hand clamped tight over her mouth to stifle the sob clawing its way up her throat. Her eyes burned with hot, acidic tears that blurred the ink on the pages, but the horror was too clear to miss.She turned page after page, her fingers trembling so violently she nearly tore the ancient paper.It wasn't just a few victims. It was a catalogue of genocide."The 'studies,'" she whispered, her voice cracking on the word. It was a sterile, clinical term for butchery. "They didn't just hunt us, Fenn. They made a whole species extinct. They erased us... for cuff links. For power."She looked up at Fennigan, her face pale and streaked with tears, the image of the bone drills searing into her mind."Oh, Fenn," she choked out, clutching her chest. "What about our poor Caspian? If Vane got him... if he put him on that table..."She shook her head frantically, the thought physically painful."I'd die," she sobbed. "I’d die before I let anything happen to him. A
With the twins fed, happy, and smeared with a respectable amount of melon, Leela handed them off to Ginny and Elana in the hallway. The transition was jarring—passing warm, sticky, laughing life into the arms of her family, only to turn back toward the darkness."We’ll be back," Fennigan said, his voice tight, the cords of his neck standing out. He didn't wait for a response. He placed a hand on the small of Leela’s back—a touch that was usually comforting but now felt like a guide rail steering her toward a cliff edge—and guided her toward the heavy double doors of the study.As they stepped inside, the atmosphere shifted instantly. The warmth of the dining hall vanished, replaced by a damp, cloying chill that seemed to radiate from the desk itself.The room had been transformed into a morgue of history.Piles of ancient, leather-bound tomes were spread across every available surface. They were covered in a layer of gray dust so thick it looked like fur—books that clearly hadn't seen
The heavy double doors swung open again, but this time, the atmosphere in the dining hall didn't swell with warmth. It tightened.Fennigan walked in, still wearing the wrinkled shirt from yesterday, his face grim and shadowed with the weight of what he and the Elders had just discovered in the study. He didn't stop to greet the pack members or grab a coffee. He walked straight to Leela, his golden eyes locked on hers with an intensity that made the nearby wolves lower their forks.He stopped beside her chair, leaning down so his voice wouldn't carry to the whole room, though the sudden quiet meant everyone was straining to hear."We need to talk," Fennigan said, his voice low and devoid of compromise. "Immediately after breakfast."Leela froze, her fork halfway to her mouth. She lowered it slowly, a flicker of annoyance sparking in her chest. She had just reclaimed her calm; she wasn't ready to hand it back."But Fenn," Leela argued, keeping her voice pleasant but firm. "I have the Ea
While the men were downstairs in the darkened study, dissecting the anatomy of a nightmare and reading about bones and blood, Leela was upstairs reclaiming the day.She refused to hide. She refused to let Vane, or the High Council, or the cold, gnawing fear at the base of her spine keep her from her duties. She was the Luna of the Blackwood Pack, a title that meant she was the mother of hundreds, not just two. She had to get back to everyday life. The other packs needed the earth teacher.War or no war, life had to go on. And in this house, life began with water.She scooped Caspian and Briar up from the bed, ignoring their protests about leaving the warm duvet, and marched them into the bathroom. She stripped them down and placed them in the bottom of the walk-in shower, turning the water on until steam began to fog the glass.While she washed her hair, scrubbing the smell of stress and stale smoke from her skin, the twins shrieked with delight. The water fell on them like warm rain.







