Ethan’s POV“Aria,” I rasped. My voice broke. In an instant I was at her side, my hands on her face, on her shoulders, brushing dried blood off her exposed neck. She looked so small, so fragile, and I just wanted to hold her, to help her, to make it all better. To make all of this go away.But I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do.I couldn’t bring her back. Aria would never be okay again.I splintered. My soul shattered into a million tiny pieces. Wilting beside her on the stone slab, I cradled her too cold, too still body. It didn’t feel real. She couldn’t be dead, couldn’t be gone…She was, though. I inched back, crying silently, moving to untie her wrists and ankles. Her body was heavy, the heaviness of limp, unyielding muscles. The heaviness of death. I choked on my own tears, my vision too blurry for me to see properly as I lifted her up reverently, clutching her to my chest for a moment before I laid her carefully on the grass.The weight of what had happened started to se

Aurora’s POVI stared at Ethan helplessly. He knew I was his mate. He knew I was his mate, which meant he had to know who I really was – and yet he’d spent all night searching for me in the woods, a fact that still made my heart squeeze like a fist. If he knew I was Aurora Everheart, not Aria Black, then surely he would’ve left me to die.It was what he’d done before, after all.A frown pinched his brow. Slowly, he lifted a palm to cradle my face. “You don’t think so?” he muttered, glancing away.“I…”“It’s fine.” He stood up abruptly, pulling away from me. Cold washed over me in his absence, a chill that settled deep in my bones. I shivered. “I wasn’t sure, I just thought…” he trailed off.I sat up straighter, winced, then said, “What did you think, Ethan?” as gently as I could.It didn’t seem like he knew the truth. If he thought we were mates somehow, I had to exploit that. It would make getting him to fall for me even easier. Even if knowing I was going to destroy him made guilt p

“What, exactly, did you tell Ethan?”Zoe looked out of place in the pack hospital, too sharp and dark for the rumpled white bedding and soft cream walls. Even her back was held rigid as she surveyed me, her eyeliner creasing into folds as she narrowed her eyes at me.She’d been kinder than normal until now, although she wasn’t one to fuss, which I was darn glad of. Ethan had been acting like a mother hen since he’d discovered our mate bond. He’d barely let me out of his sight. It would’ve been sweet… if it had been real.I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. With everything that had happened with the Rogues, I’d let my other concerns slip. Even Ethan telling me he thought I had cheated on him, when he’d been the snake kissing Selene on that stage, had faded into dim unimportance.Dying – okay, sort of dying – had thrown everything into sharp relief. Sammy was all that mattered to me. I hadn’t given up on my revenge plans – far from it – but the reason behind it felt less like the

Ethan’s POVAria’s eyes narrowed. Or were they Aurora’s eyes? “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied, so smoothly that I almost believed her.‘Mate!’ howled Sterling, over and over and over again. ‘Violet’s back, Violet’s back!’I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. “Sterling can smell Violet. I can feel the mate bond between us. There’s no point lying about it.”“I’m not lying,” she sniped. She didn’t seem scared or even worried; she just seemed annoyed. Annoyed at being caught out? Or was she annoyed at not being believed?I inhaled deeply. It had been six years since I’d been close enough to Aurora to smell her, but breathing her scent in took me straight back. It was as though we’d never left the past. That time suddenly ceased to exist. We were back together, spending lazy mornings under the covers, two steaming cups of coffee on the nightstand and a book face-down on Aurora’s lap. Her hair smelled of her favourite shampoo – one from the local salon that just smel

Aurora’s POVThe next day, I’d healed enough to leave the pack hospital. The day after that, I decided I was done with resting and needed to get back to work.I had a few new scars on my torso and down my arms and legs, but none of them bothered me as much as the angry red scrape down my cheek. Violet promised they’d heal in time, thanks to her wolfish accelerated healing, but I didn’t want them to disappear one day in the future. I wanted them gone now.Although I’d healed physically, I hadn’t begun to get over the trauma of my attack. Every time I saw that slash down my cheek in the mirror, or my glassy reflection in a dark window , I was dragged back to those frozen woods, to that icy stone slab, to Dominic’s arrogant smirk – and to the pain that followed it.Sammy was the only thing holding me together. With no purpose but healing, I’d struggled to draw myself out of the past and into the present. If not for my son, I might have lost myself a second time in the pristine white of t