Chapter Sixty-One: Departure

The airport shimmered with morning light, all steel and glass and movement. Voices rose and fell in overlapping languages, the soft roar of departures and arrivals blending into a single pulse that felt too large, too alive.Kyle parked in the designated security lane, the convoy halting behind him. Officers stepped out, crisp and professional, one of them tipping his head toward Ethan in quiet acknowledgment. The world around them had turned ordinary again—families, luggage trolleys, rolling wheels, airport coffee—but underneath it all was a hum of tension neither of them could shake.Myrena flicked her cigarette into the gutter and exhaled smoke like punctuation. “Well,” she said, squinting up at the glass façade, “you two actually did it. Never thought I’d see the day Ethan Cross settled down. Hell, I owe Kyle fifty.”Kyle smirked. “I told you he would.”Anna smiled faintly, though her stomach was too tight for laughter. “And what happens to you now?” she asked.“Same as always,” M

Last Updated : 2025-10-13

Chapter Sixty-Two: Home

The wheels kissed the tarmac with a soft shudder. Seventeen hours of sky collapsed into one brief sound — arrival.By the time they cleared customs and stepped into the coastal sun, the air itself felt different — warm, damp, smelling faintly of salt and bougainvillea. Anna blinked against the brightness. Ethan lifted his sunglasses, scanned the waiting line of cars, and nodded to a driver holding a small card that read Cross.The chauffeur, an older man with an easy smile, took their bags with quiet efficiency. “Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Cross. The villa is ready.”Mrs. Cross.The words still hit her in small, unbelievable waves.They climbed into the back seat of a sleek black sedan. The city blurred past — a quilt of palms, tiled rooftops, and open markets spilling fruit and flowers onto cobbled streets. Anna leaned against the window, watching strangers laugh over morning coffee, children racing bicycles along the waterfront.Ethan’s hand found hers across the seat, palm warm, thumb t

Last Updated : 2025-10-13

Chapter Sixty-Three: Burnt Beginnings

Morning crept into the villa with a shy kind of light — thin rays slipping through linen curtains, painting golden stripes across the floorboards. Outside, the sea murmured softly, half-asleep.Anna woke first.For a long while she didn’t move, simply watched the man beside her — bare-chested, one arm flung over the sheet, his breathing slow and even. In sleep, Ethan looked younger. The sharp edges of him — the courtroom wit, the predator’s calm — had softened into something human.She smiled faintly, brushing a stray lock of hair off his forehead. “Rest,” she whispered. “You earned it.”Then she slipped quietly from the bed.The kitchen, bright and foreign, greeted her with rows of polished counters and appliances that looked far more intelligent than she felt. But she was determined. Breakfast in bed. A new beginning deserved at least one domestic triumph.She tied her hair back, pulled open the fridge, and frowned at the contents: eggs, milk, bread, butter, and a suspiciously large

Last Updated : 2025-10-14

Chapter Sixty-Four: The Town Between Tides

By noon, the villa had settled into quiet. The sea glittered like glass beyond the veranda, a living mirror of light that seemed almost too still — as if even the ocean had paused to breathe.When Ethan finally suggested a walk, Anna didn’t hesitate.The coastal air wrapped around them warm and salted as they left the villa gates and stepped into the cobbled streets. The town was small, built where the mountains stooped low to kiss the ocean — whitewashed buildings stacked like seashells, their blue shutters half-open to the breeze.Balconies overflowed with geraniums, bright red against the stone. Laundry swayed on lines strung between houses like flags of ordinary peace, fluttering above the narrow alleys where the scent of baking bread mingled with sea air.They walked hand in hand, blending with tourists and locals, their pace unhurried. A cat slinked past their ankles; a child darted after a rolling ball. Fishermen shouted greetings across alleys, their voices carrying over the g

Last Updated : 2025-10-15

Chapter Sixty-Five: The Moon and the Promise

Chapter Sixty-Five: The Moon and the PromiseThe night unfolded like silk—slow, shimmering, endless.The villa slept, wrapped in the hush that follows survival, when even the walls seem to breathe lighter.Anna stepped onto the terrace barefoot. The marble was cool beneath her skin, the scent of sea and jasmine threading through the air. Overhead, the moon loomed—vast, whole, and silver as truth—its light pouring over her like a benediction.She lifted her face to it, letting it kiss her eyes, her lips, her hair. After everything—they’d earned this silence.Behind her, a familiar warmth approached. Ethan.She knew that gait by sound alone.He moved with that quiet authority she had once mistaken for arrogance and now understood as restraint—the kind of power that came not from dominance, but from endurance.Before she could turn, his arms slid around her waist, strong and sure, drawing her back against the heat of him. The scent of salt and skin—clean, faintly smoky, familiar—wrapped

Last Updated : 2025-10-16

Epilogue – Five Years Later: The Weight of the Moon

Dawn crept over the cliffs, slow and bruised, washing the sea in pale gold.The old villa was gone. The sea, as ever, remained — steady, patient, unchanged in its hunger. It lapped against the rocks with the same rhythm as the night they had first arrived, though now it sounded older, wearier — as if it, too, had seen too many storms to still believe in calm.Five years had passed since that night beneath the full moon, when they shed both fear and skin.Five years of moving, hiding, surviving.Two relocations.Two trials.And one litter of werewolf cubs that had changed everything.Anna woke first.The curtains swayed in the ocean breeze, tracing light across her face. Her hair had grown longer—dark waves streaked with silver. Not from age, but from the moonlight that had never left her since that night. Her beauty had sharpened over time—not softer, but honed, like a blade that gleamed because it had been used, not preserved.She sat up slowly, listening.A sound drifted from the ne

Last Updated : 2025-10-18