Chapter 21

Maxine wakes to the sound of someone calling her name, or rather, her new title.“Your Highness?” A groan escapes her lips before she can stop it.The morning sun streams through the curtains, its golden rays piercing directly into her eyes. She throws an arm over her face and buries herself deeper beneath the warm, cozy blankets.“Oh, you are awake, Your Highness.” Eliza sounds entirely too cheerful for this hour of the morning. Inside her mind, a familiar voice grumbles. “Can I shut her up?”Maxine bites back a laugh. Thraen was not a morning wolf—at all. ‘No,’ Maxine replies silently. ‘You may not.’“Shame.” A yawn stretches through their shared consciousness. “I was having a wonderful dream. There was food. Lots of food.”Maxine cracks an eye open. “Why are we awake so early?” she asks, her voice thick with sleep. “It’s not like I have much to do around here.”Across the room, Eliza has already begun pulling back the heavy curtains one by one, flooding the chamber with even mor

Chapter 22

Maxine stares at the woman before her. The word continues echoing through her mind.Daughter. Not Your Highness. Not Future Luna. Not Maxine. Daughter.The room seems to disappear around her.For a moment, she isn’t sitting in the Northern Chambers of the Alpha King’s castle. She isn’t a wolf shifter. She isn’t a future queen.She’s just a little girl again—a little girl who spent years wondering why everyone else had parents to run to.A little girl who used to stare at families playing and running around outside as they walked through the city market with Kassy when restocking supplies and imagining what her mother’s voice might have sounded like.A little girl who had long since accepted that she would never know. “Daughter.”The word breaks through her thoughts again. And before she can stop herself, she’s moving. She crosses the room in what feels like a single heartbeat.The woman—Elara—opens her arms. Maxine throws herself into them. The embrace is warm. Too warm. She smells o

Chapter 23

Five days- that’s how long it has been since the Alpha of the Nightshade Pack has been in that painfully unconscious state. His sister had tried all medications she could think of, but none worked. The pack was being run by his second and third in command, but the two were heavily worried about him nonetheless. The days grew darker as the Alpha’s sleeping state didn’t improve any more than the pain depicted by his face did. A knock sounds at the door. Soren enters. “How is he? Any changes?” Drago sighs pitifully. “None so far; he’s been that way since I got here.” “Are you sure there’s nothing we can do…?” Jeremiah asks desperately. “I’ve tried all I could.” “I’ve gone through all the books I could find, but still, nothing.” Soren’s jaw ticks. “None of them says anything more other than the story I read.” “Does it say how he woke up?” “No.” “Do we know how long he’ll remain like this?” Jeremiah looks to Soren. “Unfortunately, still no.” His gaze moves to Drago. “I have no i

Chapter 24

Jeremiah sighs, dragging both hands down his face. “What’s there left to do?” “The work. The planning.” Drago rubs the back of her neck, staring at the stack of unread reports like it’s personally offended her and has no intention of apologizing. “Not forgetting running an entire pack, especially with him going off to the human libraries.” “Right. And who knows how long that’ll take.” Soren mutters. “Also, we do need a way not to make it too obvious.” “It’s your idea.” Jeremiah crosses his arms, leaning back against the desk, watching Soren pace the stretch of floor between the window and the bookshelf. “What do you plan on making of it and how do you plan on going about it without raising suspicion?”“I could go early in the morning, before dawn. Not many would be up by then.” “Or maybe the soldiers will get a glimpse of your form.” Jeremiah raises an eyebrow, tapping a finger against his crossed arm. “One sighting of a Gamma slipping the border at odd hours and the whole pack’s

Chapter 25

“His Majesty, Alpha King Titan.” Dalton’s voice cuts cleanly through the room, formal as ever, though Maxine catches the faint tightening at his jaw before he steps aside. “Thank you, Dalton.” Titan’s gaze sweeps the room, and Maxine has the sense — not for the first time — that he’s not simply looking, but assessing. “Ladies, forgive my interruption, but I wish to take my mate away.” Elara dips into a graceful bow. “Your Majesty. As you wish.” Titan crosses to Maxine, and the shift in him is immediate, the coldness she thought she caught earlier smoothed warmth and doting aimed towards her. He takes her hand. “I hope seeing your mother again has been everything you’d hoped.” Maxine hesitates. But the words come out more honest than she thought they would. “It’s not what I expected, to say the least. And I do have quite a number of questions.But it was good to know I have a mother.” Satisfaction flickers across Titan’s face, she takes it in. Then he smiles, slow and indulgent, a

Chapter 26

“There are more portraits,” Titan said. “If you want answers about your father, you should see the rest of the gallery.”Maxine looked at him. “You could have shown me before.”“You were not ready to hear what they might reveal.” He turned without another word and led her deeper into the wing, past portraits so old the paint had cracked into spiderwebs, until they reached a final door tucked into an alcove she’d have walked straight past if he hadn’t stopped.“Titan?”“Forgive me. It’s been a long time since I’ve come this far in.” He pushed the door open.The room was smaller than the last, and a single portrait filled the far wall, gilded in a frame gone tarnished with age.“Lukan,” Titan said. “Your father.”Maxine approached the portrait. Lukan wore a dark military coat with silver stitching along the collar. A black ring rested on his right hand. Three thin lines crossed a crescent moon on its surface.She reached toward the painting, then lowered her hand. “Why do I suddenly rem