Chapter 71: Whatever comes

The word slipped out before I fully realized I'd spoken."Mom."A second later, my bedroom door opened. I stared at the ceiling and briefly wondered if she'd already been awake or if motherhood simply came with some supernatural ability to hear your child suffering from the other side of the house. She crossed the room without turning on the light, moving with the quiet certainty of someone who already knew something was wrong."What is it?" she asked softly.I pressed my hand harder against my chest. The ache sat directly behind my sternum, low and steady, spreading outward in slow waves that made breathing feel strangely deliberate. It wasn't sharp enough to frighten me, but it was persistent enough to drag me out of sleep."Nothing dangerous."Mom stopped beside the bed. Even in the darkness, I could feel the look she gave me."That's healer language."I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath."It'

Chapter 72 This isn't the first good day

Chapter Seventy-Two — Rafe POV The hotel suite is quieter than usual. Ryker is already dressed, laptop open on the dining table, coffee untouched beside him as he scans through another Council report. Ronan stands by the window with a mug in his hands, looking toward the village below. No one says much. We've all developed the habit over the past three weeks. Waiting. Watching. Pretending we aren't doing either. I check my watch. Seven forty. Ronan notices. "You've looked at that thing four times in the last minute." "I know." "You planning to wear the numbers off it?" I don't answer. Ryker doesn't look up from his laptop. "Leave her alone if she's still sick." "I'm not going to bother her." "You say that every morning." "Because it's true." Ronan glances over his shoulder. "Is it?" I meet his eyes. "I walk her to work." "You follow her to work." "I walk beside her." "Against her wishes." "Sometimes." A corner of Ronan's mouth lifts. "You know that's a terrible defens

Chapter 73: I don't have much choice.

Chapter Seventy-Three — Vivian POV Father is in his study when I knock. "Come in." His voice is calm, as if he has expected me all morning. I push the door open and step inside. The study smells faintly of cedar and old paper. Contracts cover half his desk. The fireplace burns low against the winter cold, throwing soft light across shelves filled with leather-bound ledgers and council records. Father doesn't look up immediately. He finishes signing the page in front of him, caps his fountain pen with deliberate care, then finally lifts his eyes to me. "Vivian." His gaze sweeps over my face once. "You've made a decision." I close the door behind me. "The alliance is over." He doesn't react. Not surprise. Not disappointment. Nothing. "The Blackthorn triplets aren't going to choose me." Only then does he lean back in his chair. "And you've accepted that." "I don't have much choice." "No." He folds his hands together. "You don't." For a second, neither of us speaks. Father ha

Fireeeeeee

Chapter Seventy-Four — Elara POV"You're actually eating."I glanced up from my plate. Marcus was watching me over the rim of his water glass with the kind of expression that meant he'd noticed something long before deciding to comment on it."I always eat."He gave me a look. "No," he said. "You consume enough food to convince everyone around you that you've had dinner, then spend the rest of the meal moving vegetables around your plate until somebody gives up trying to make you finish them.""I do not.""You absolutely do.""I resent how confident you sound.""That's because I've known you for years." He pointed his fork toward my plate. "Tonight you've eaten almost everything without being reminded once. That's progress.""It's pasta, Marcus.""So?""So pasta doesn't count."He laughed. "I'm fairly certain every nutrition textbook I've ever read disagrees with you."

Chapter 75: Why did they set here on fire

Chapter 75: Elara's POV I could see the smoke when before I saw the flames.One second I'm rounding the bend in the cottage road, Marcus's laughter still warm in my memory, and then the wind shifts and the smell reaches me and every instinct I have snaps awake before my brain catches up. I'm running before I decide to run. My clinic bag slams against my hip with each stride, the cold air tearing at my lungs, and then I turn the last corner and the world goes orange.One full wall of the cottage is on fire.Not a small fire. Not something you throw water on and walk away from. The left side of the building — the side with the kitchen window, the herb garden Mom planted the first spring we moved in — is engulfed. Flames race up the wooden siding in jagged lines, smoke pouring upward into the winter dark, and the heat hits me from thirty feet away like a wall.Neighbors have gathered in the road. Someone is shouting for the pack firefighters. Someone else has a bucket that isn't going

We didn't know

Chapter 76: Ryker's POV The worse part of this fire wasn't even the heat, it was the smoke though the heat is significant, rolling through the building in waves, pressing against exposed skin, turning the air into something that has to be fought through rather than simply breathed. Not the noise, though the building is making sounds I recognize as structural warnings, groans and cracks that tell you the bones of a place are starting to fail. The smoke is worst because it's invisible and everywhere and it gets into your lungs whether you're trying to prevent it or not, and after about forty-five seconds inside a burning building you stop being able to fully distinguish between breathing and not breathing.We went in because we didn't know.That's the part Elara doesn't understand yet, standing outside watching the door. Mira had Landon. We could see that from the road two figures across from the cottage, one small, both upright. But the bond doesn't work like a headcount. The bond te