Chapter 131

Sophia's POVIt hit right in the middle of breakfast.One second I was at the long table in the pack house kitchen, tea going cold in front of me, morning sounds all around like always—plates clinking, voices chatting, chairs scraping on the stone floor. Next second none of it was there anymore.It wasn't like drifting off. Not slow or soft or something you could mix up with normal. It was like getting yanked through the ground and dropped someplace totally new, quick and complete, no heads-up. Blink—I was in the kitchen. Blink—I was in a spot I'd never seen.A tiny room. Dim curtains shut tight against any light sneaking in. One bed shoved against the wall, an old gray blanket half pulled up. Bag on the floor, clothes tumbling out like it'd been stuffed fast and left that way. Window with a thin crack along the bottom left of the glass.And Violet, on the edge of the bed, knees hugged to her chest, face in her hands.She was crying. Not loud or showy, the quiet kind when you've held

Last Updated : 2026-02-27

Chapter 132

Sophia's POVI found the apartment building easy enough.That was the part I hadn't let myself think about too hard on the drive over — the fact that I'd found my way to a place I'd never actually been, using directions that only existed in a vision I never asked for. I knew the city, the street, the exact building. I knew about the crack in the window and the worn gray blanket on the bed. I parked, walked through the front door, took the stairs to the third floor, stopped outside apartment 7, and raised my hand to knock without one second of doubt that I had the right spot.I'd have to deal with that later.I knocked twice. Soft, no rush.Nothing from inside at first. Then that special kind of quiet that means someone's standing right on the other side of the door trying to decide whether to pretend they're not home."Violet," I said. "It's Sophia. I'm by myself. Max doesn't know I'm here."Longer silence. Then a lock clicked.She opened the door and we just looked at each other for

Last Updated : 2026-02-28

Chapter 133

Violet's POVThe pack house hadn’t changed at all.That hit me the second Sophia pulled up to the gates and I got out, stepped onto the gravel, and just looked at it. Same rough stone walls. Same massive front door. The same row of trees along the path, their branches naked and stretched up like they were still begging the sky for something it never bothered to give. Everything exactly how I’d left it, but standing there this time felt nothing like all the times before.Because he was inside.I could feel him. Nobody had warned me how the mate bond really works—like a compass needle that never stops moving, always pointing, always nagging, always making damn sure you know exactly where the other person is, whether you asked for the information or not. He was in the pack house. Toward the back somewhere, maybe the office, maybe the training room. Close enough that the bond gave off this steady warmth I hadn’t asked for and couldn’t turn off.Sophia touched my arm, light. “You don’t hav

Last Updated : 2026-03-01

Chapter 134

Ethan's POVThe message came through right after midnight.I was still awake, which had kinda become the new normal for me lately. Too much piling up and never enough hours in the day, so the time after midnight had turned into my extra work stretch—quiet, nobody around, perfect for the stuff that actually needed my full focus. Sophia was sound asleep right beside me and I was sitting at the little desk in the corner of our room with the lamp turned down low and a stack of Alliance papers in front of me when my phone lit up with a text from Daniel, our head of border security.It said: We have a problem. Come to the security room now.I got dressed quietly, made sure I didn’t wake Sophia, and headed downstairs.Daniel was already waiting in the security room with two other senior pack members and a look on his face I’d learned to take death seriously over the years. It wasn’t his usual problem. This was the one he wore when something had gone completely sideways in a way that was gonn

Last Updated : 2026-03-01

Chapter 135

Max's POVI wasn’t looking for a fight.That was the honest truth, and I needed to be clear about it at least inside my own head, because by the time it was all over I could already see how it might look from the outside—like I’d gone out of my way to start one. But I hadn’t. I’d just been doing what I always do when everything feels too big to handle: work. Patrol reports, border adjustments, Alliance correspondence, training schedules. The kind of stuff that has a clear start and a clear finish and gives you something solid to show for it when it’s done. The kind that doesn’t make you feel anything.I’d been in the training room since five that morning.Violet walked in at half past seven.She stopped the second she saw me. That familiar half-second pause that had shown up every day for the past few days—the quick mental check before she decided whether to stay or walk out. She was wearing training clothes, hair pulled back tight, and it was obvious she hadn’t expected anyone else t

Last Updated : 2026-03-02

Chapter 136

Ethan’s POVSophia was the one who pieced it together.I’d been handling the internal review for two days now, going slow and steady, checking each of the seventeen names on the access list one by one. Interviews, going over documents, reviewing timelines. I’d narrowed it down to four folks whose actions lined up closest with the leaked info, and Gareth from Westfield topped that list, but I still hadn’t dug up anything solid enough to act on.On the second evening, Sophia showed up at the office, sat across from me, and placed a sheet of paper right on the desk between us.“Take a look at this,” she said.It was a log of communications. Internal Alliance messages over the last three months, with timestamps and sender IDs. She’d gone through them on her own, without letting me know, and spotted something I’d overlooked.“These four messages here,” she said, pointing them out. “They came from a shared Alliance account that six people can access. But check the timestamps.”I did. The me