Semua Bab Her Mate, Her Secret, His Twins: Bab 1 - Bab 10

The horn sounded before dawn, and Wren's hands went still over the boys' shirts.For four years she had planned for every danger except this one. Sickness. Hunters. A rogue wolf catches their scent in the woods and asks questions she can't answer. She had never planned for the Ashford Pack to summon every allied territory to a single ceremony she could not refuse."Mama." Idris tugged her sleeve, his gold eyes catching the weak morning light through the cabin window. "Why do we have to go?""Because Hollow Creek answers when Ashford calls." She kept her voice even as she pulled the hood of his cloak up, shadowing his face. "And because I said we're going, so we're going."Ezra was already at the door, restless in a way that reminded her too much of someone she tried never to think about. He didn't know that though. He didn't know anything. That was the entire architecture of her life, four years of walls built quietly around two boys who had no idea whose blood ran gold in their eyes.

Priscilla had seen a lot of things ruin a ceremony before. A drunk elder. A challenge fight that broke out too early. Once, memorably, a goat wandered onto the dais during the blessing.She had never seen her future collapse in real time in front of four hundred witnesses, and she was not about to stand at the edge of the dais and let it happen without a fight."Alpha Ashford." She said it again, louder this time, stepping down from the platform with her silver ceremonial gown trailing over the grass. "Perhaps you'd like to explain to your betrothed exactly what this is."The word landed exactly where she'd aimed it. Betrothed. A term the council had used so carefully for months, softly, tentatively, as if testing how the pack would receive it before making it official. She'd never once heard Kade use it himself, not once, not in any of the stilted, formal conversations they'd shared over the past year. But the wolves around her didn't know that. To them, hearing it spoken aloud made

The council chamber was already full by the time Kade arrived, elders seated in their formal half circle beneath banners that had hung there since before his father ruled, their faces carrying the particular blend of concern and calculation that always meant trouble.He'd left Wren and the boys in the private hall with Elder Sable and two of his most trusted guards, though the decision had cost him more than he expected. Every step away from that room felt wrong, some instinct buried deep in his chest screaming that he shouldn't be putting distance between himself and the family he'd only just found."Alpha Ashford." Elder Corvin rose as he entered, his silver beard catching the torchlight, his tone carrying the careful neutrality of a man who had spent decades surviving pack politics by never showing his hand too early. "Thank you for joining us. I understand the circumstances are unusual.""Unusual isn't the word I'd choose." Kade crossed to the head of the chamber, refusing the off

The corridor outside the private hall had turned into a crowd of its own, wolves from every allied territory pressing close to hear whatever Priscilla was saying, her voice carrying with practiced clarity over the noise."—a woman none of us know, appearing out of nowhere with children no one has ever seen, and we're simply meant to accept that our Alpha's succession has been decided in the middle of a ceremony?" Priscilla stood on the raised entrance steps, her ceremonial gown catching the afternoon light, every inch the composed future Luna the council had spent months building. "I only ask that this pack demand the same transparency it's always demanded. That's not cruelty. That's tradition."Kade pushed through the crowd with Torren at his shoulder, Wren and the boys close behind, flanked now by two of his guards and Elder Sable's watchful presence. The moment the crowd noticed him, the murmuring shifted, wolves turning to see how their Alpha would respond."Priscilla." His voice

Kade's quarters were larger than anything Wren had lived in for four years, a stone hearth already lit against the evening chill, two adjoining rooms visible through an open doorway that Torren had explained, somewhat awkwardly, were being prepared for the boys.Ezra had already claimed the window seat, tracing patterns in the frost gathering at the corner of the glass. Idris sat closer to Wren on the long couch near the fire, quiet in the way he got when a day held too much to process all at once."You don't have to do this alone anymore," Kade said, watching her from across the room, careful to keep distance between them, aware of how fragile the last few hours had left her. "Whatever you need. Whatever they need. It's mine to provide now.""I've provided for them alone for four years." Wren didn't say it unkindly, just tired, the words carrying the particular weight of someone recalibrating an entire way of surviving. "It's strange, having someone else in the room who could carry s