Hyacinth’s POV“Why did you… no, no.” I could hear Stephen’s voice. I latched onto it, grabbing it with both greedy hands, the way I’d taken glasses of raspberry juice as a kid. “Okay, okay, I’ll try again. Why did you – no, I can’t, Brian. It sounds too aggressive. Okay, too abrupt, then. I need to lead into it.”Silence followed. I wondered what Brian was saying. I also wondered why Stephen was speaking aloud, and what he was speaking about.Then came other concerns: where I was, why I couldn’t seem to open my eyes, and how I’d ended up here. The last thing I remembered…I remembered Stephen kissing me. Had it been a dream? It had to have been.‘That was no dream, sweet thing,’ said Dolly. Then she yawned. ‘Gee, I feel like I could sleep forever.’‘Me, too.’ I tried to open my eyes, but I still couldn’t. ‘Do you know what’s going on?’‘I wish I did.’“How about this?” said Stephen. He cleared his throat. “I just want to understand why you did it, Cin. It doesn’t make any sense to me

Rhiannon’s POVI yanked my jumper so it was the right way round and laced up my boots before I hit the ice. Then I added a coat and was sprinting – okay, waddling – across the ice, trying to skate on flat feet and just about managing it.My mind was still spinning from the ghostly exchange I’d just had. What would they hold off? What salvation could be found in the truth? Who were they? Why had they spoken to me?And could it really have been the Moon Goddess? Again? If it was, why was she helping me, of all people? Why didn’t she sound the same as she had before? Why was Tigs so certain it was her?She’d already given me my wolf back. That was incredible, more than I could ever have asked for. That was a crazy, once-in-a-lifetime, exception to the rule, huge kind of deal. That sort of shit didn’t happen twice. Did it?‘You aren’t going to find an answer in your own head,’ said Tiger sagely. ‘To any of it. Just focus on your sister. That’s one good, straight-forward thing, at least.’

Rhiannon’s POVDespite Tiger telling me that thinking of what ifs and if onlys wouldn’t help anything, I couldn’t help but think of them. My mind heaved and spun as we shifted out and headed towards Moon Chasm.As we neared the border between our packs, almost two days after we’d left Night Wind despite the rapid pace we’d set off at and the lack of breaks we’d taken, Luna Amelia ordered the rest of us – Kieran, Harley, and I – to hide behind her, a good distance away.Kieran replied to her group mindlink. ‘No. No way, Ames. We need to stay close so we can protect you.’She snorted at that. ‘I can protect myself, thanks.’‘We don’t know what their plan is. They could be anywhere. We have to be ready for anything. I just think–’He cut off in the middle of his sentence. The conversation ended as abruptly as that, and I figured that Amelia had started mindlinking just him. After all, there was no point in Harley and I listening to their bickering.But awh – wasn’t it sweet? I tried desp

Kieran’s POV“It’s always been Kieran,” said Amelia, and I thought my heart might burst. Not only had she said it to herself, and to me, but she was telling her family. Her whole old pack. She had accepted me. She had accepted us.But it was too late.We couldn’t be together. She’d rejected me. The mate bond between us was shattered and painful, the link binding our souls like a livewire that shocked us whenever we got too close.That didn’t matter to me, though, not now. I just crossed my fingers and toes and even my eyes that we made it out of this alive.That she made it out of this alive.My heart thumped every second that Ames faced down her parents. I told myself, and Bo told me, over and over and over again, that they wouldn’t hurt their daughter. I knew her, and I knew them. Not well, but I knew them.They wouldn’t hurt her. Oh, goddess, please say they wouldn’t hurt her.But the scars of the past ran deep, and Amelia had just revealed herself to be a traitor. Kind of. Not to

Rhiannon’s POVPaws battered my side, my neck, my cheek. Red-hot pain lanced across each of those places. Alpha Liam was too fast for me; he clawed me, pulled back, clawed me. I could barely see his movements before he landed each strike.‘Move!’ Caleb screamed into my mind. 'Move now, Rhi!'I darted back, letting Tiger take over as Alpha Liam lunged at us again. She ducked down, narrowly escaping the slash of his teeth, the lock of his jaw. I heard his teeth clack together above my head and shivered.Blood rolled down my side, burning hot against my chilled fur.I was, to put it frankly, fucked.“No, Liam!” cried Luna Fiona, from somewhere off to the side. “This isn’t right!”I turned to look at her, confused by her seeming to side with me, and saw her bowed over Amelia, her face set in a cold mask. The only emotion was in her eyes – and they were swimming with agony.I’d let myself be distracted a moment too long. Teeth clamped down around my neck.That was it, then. I squeezed my e