Novels by George Watts

(Conri POV)Due’s eyes turned black in the ash room, and the voice coming from her mouth belonged to the monster beneath every secret.Adolphus spoke through a trembling old servant, and every wolf in the room understood that Blood Feather had reached us again.Daciana stood nearest to Due, with ash on her dress, Rudina’s grief in her eyes, and danger closing around her like smoke.I moved toward her without thinking, sword already lifted, but Bardolph moved at the exact same moment from the doorway.The old mate mark beneath Daciana’s collar flared silver before either of us reached her, and she cried out from the sudden pain.Bardolph dropped to one knee as if the same invisible blade had cut through his ribs, and the bond answered him before any command could.I stopped.Not because danger had passed.Because I saw it.The bond between them had grown stronger in danger, not softer, not weaker, and not satisfied with staying buried beneath old rejection.Daciana pressed one hand to

(Daciana POV)Rudina’s final line stayed inside the chapel like a candle refusing to die, burning every shadow around the name Due.Trust the servant who answers to Due, but only when she remembers the name I gave her before the ash.The words should have given me a path, but instead they turned every servant in Blackfang into a door I feared opening.Due was alive.Due had stood in the lower house when I found my mother’s crown beneath the old bread oven.Due had told me Rudina came bleeding, holding me, begging the servants to hide what she could not carry farther.Now the letter said Due was more than a witness.She was Rudina’s third protector.She knew how to destroy Blood Feather forever.And if Adolphus knew that, then Due was already in danger, or worse, already watched by the last spy we still had not found.Otsana Blackmoon folded the letter with shaking hands, but her eyes never left the name written by our mother.For the first time, my sister looked less like a weapon and

(Daciana POV)The black box sat between us on the cracked altar, tied with faded royal blue cloth and sealed with my mother’s mark.Otsana Blackmoon stared at her own name written across the old seal like it was a wound that had learned to speak.For the first time since she called me sister, she did not look dangerous, proud, or carved from Adolphus’s cruel lessons.She looked like a child standing in front of a door she had spent her whole life being told was empty.Tala sobbed softly from the floor, one hand pressed to her bruised throat while the other reached toward the box.“Rudina wrote it,” she whispered, and her voice carried grief so old it had almost become another language.Otsana’s hand tightened around the box, and the Blood Feather mark on her throat pulsed as if it hated the letter before she opened it.“She wrote my name,” my sister said, and the words came out smaller than any blade she had held against me.I stepped closer, careful enough not to make her feel trappe

(Daciana POV)Ashina stood before me in the lower laundry passage, asking me to spare the child she had once used as a crown.My blade remained at her throat, but the fear in her eyes did not belong to the maid who had stolen my place.It belonged to a mother who had finally understood that her own father had sharpened her baby before birth.I wanted to hate her without interruption, because clean hatred was easier than hearing a monster speak with a frightened mother’s voice.But nothing in my life had stayed clean since the morning Ashina carried a tray and a lie toward my door.“You want me to promise mercy after everything you did,” I said, keeping the blade steady beneath her trembling chin.Ashina swallowed, and blood touched the edge of the knife, where my hand refused to soften.“I want you to promise the child will not pay for the weapon Adolphus tried to make,” she whispered.The words struck too close to every wound I carried, because I had also been born into a plan writte

(Ashina POV)The first time I felt true fear, it did not come from Daciana’s crown, Bardolph’s hatred, or Conri’s cold silver eyes.It came from my own child moving beneath my hand while Adolphus smiled like the movement belonged to him.The courtyard was still tearing itself apart around us, but Father watched only the crown, Daciana, and my stomach.That was when I understood the truth I had refused to see during every lesson, every praise, and every cruel touch.He was not protecting me.He was measuring me.All my life, Adolphus had called me "daughter" when I pleased him and little feather when I disappointed him.I used to think both names meant love, because hungry children will eat any word that sounds close enough to belonging.Now I stood near my stolen crown, my ruined lies, and the unborn child he had made into a blood key.Father’s eyes did not soften when I winced from the pain inside my belly.They sharpened.That was worse.A father should fear when his child hurts.Ad

(Bardolph POV)The crown pulsed at Daciana’s feet, demanding her willing blood before sunrise, while my pack split around us like a wounded beast.I no longer wore the Alpha ring, yet every scream, every trembling servant, and every confused warrior still struck my chest like duty.Lobo stood near the courtyard steps with the stolen ring burning on his finger, smiling as if Blackfang had already chosen him.Half the warriors behind him stared with red-lit eyes, bound by Adolphus’s pact and old laws twisted into invisible chains.The other half looked at me with fear, shame, and desperate hope, waiting for a command from a man who had surrendered his throne.That was the first lesson of losing power.Some wolves only obey the ring, but others still look for the voice that once carried them through fire.Daciana stood beside Rudina’s crown in servant brown, her bleeding palm still untouched by the price Otsana had named.Conri watched her with guarded fury, ready to carry her away from