LOGIN~Amber’s POV~“You look beautiful.”The smile formed before I realized it had, and it was strange that I had missed the dry factualness of her tone when I had barely had time to really know her before she left.I was kind of mad at her for not telling me she was leaving.But was I really anymore? Did I genuinely have the energy for that when I was already filled with so much apprehension for what I was about to do after my own coronation?Who was I even asking?My eyes met hers in the vanity mirror. “Well, if you say so, I suppose it must be true.”There was no reaction to that from her, not that I expected one. She stepped into the room and her eyes moved across it the way I had seen her do in the few days I had known her, taking it in, filing it away.“I was expecting a flood of Omegas in here helping you get ready.”“I wanted to do it myself.”Something moved at the corner of her mouth. The smallest raise of her lips, almost nothing, and something that looked like pride crossed he
~Amber’s POV~“Jesus Christ, Tim, do you never ever fucking clean?” I snapped, kicking away the pile of no doubt dirty clothes from the floor to create a path through.He stepped out of the bathroom at that exact moment in a towel wrapped at his waist and shot me a look. “First off, what happened to the permanent break from cursing, and two, I have told you not to bring that tone in here. I don’t need that negativity clouding my space.”“I don’t have time for this, Tim. I need you to get the coin and put Roxanne’s bitchy ass right back into me and—”“Hey. Hey.” He cut in, crossing the room until he was right in front of me, taking my face into both his hands. “The worst kind of anger is the kind that comes from grief. So I need you to take a breath.”I closed my eyes at that, deflating, and did what he said.The moment I did, everything hit me without warning or mercy. My father’s still body. The kiss. His fingers. His complete blankness after. Me going on the attack to survive the m
~Axel’s POV~I was in deep shit.I knew it the moment I watched her close off completely in my office after I had said I would feel nothing but relief, which was the truth, but I had only said it to get that exact reaction from her.The moment I saw it happen and wanted nothing more than to undo it just as fast, I knew I had been wrong about whatever this was.Being inside her once would not fix it. It would only make it worse. So as much as I had felt her, memorized every pattern of her day over the last four months, known exactly when she stepped into a room seconds before she did, her closing off and staying away from me had served me well.If serving me well meant resulting in irritation with every single thing in existence.I had known I was in deep shit before, the kind that could not be undone, but the moment my lips touched hers — not like during our mating ceremony when it had been to get a reaction out of her, this time because something would have burned through me if I h
~Amber’s POV~I didn’t know if I pulled away or simply pushed him the hell away from me and the rapid blinking started again even though my brain had caught up.Definitely because my brain had caught up.And I went through that same brain looking for some words, any word that would be a fitful reply for what he just told me while he stared down at me with a closed off expression.‘Come on Amber. Come on. You can do this, find your zeal to speak, find speech, find something.’“Are you fucking kidding me?”‘There it is.’The question came out so loud that for one imaginative moment, I could have sworn my father’s body actually stirred from how loud I was but it was all in my head.I didn’t expect him to answer because it was rhetorical.“No.”And there it was again, that damn two lettered word and the exact same way he had said it when he shot me down when I offered for us to do the exact same thing he had offered a night before, right before he told me that he would feel relief if he h
~Amber’s POV~It felt like I could not remember a time when I was not crying.And even though every tear I had inside should have dried up by now, even though my eyes burned and my throat was raw and my chest ached from the force of it, I could still feel myself crying. Like my body had decided it was never going to stop and had simply committed to it.My hands reached out, shaking so badly I could barely control them, and pushed the hair on his forehead away from his face.His skin was warm.That was the cruelest part.Because warm meant alive. Warm meant he was still in there somewhere. Warm meant there was something left to hold onto even though the healers had looked at me with that expression, the one they tried to hide behind professionalism but could not, the one that said they had done everything they could and everything they could had not been enough.The tears came again.Fresh and violent, like the first wave had never happened, like my body had found some reserve it had
~Axel’s POV~“Start talking.”The head warrior standing across from me was older than most of the men I commanded. Grey threaded through his hair at the temples, his posture was rigid with the discipline of decades, and his face carried the specific expression of a man who had failed at the one thing he had been put on this earth to do and knew it.“They came in the early hours, Alpha Edgewood.” His voice was steady but I could hear the fractures underneath it. “Between three and four in the morning. Through the eastern perimeter.”“How many?”“We counted twelve. Possibly more. They moved in coordinated units. Two to disable the perimeter wards. Four to neutralize the eastern guard rotation. The rest went directly for the King’s chambers.”“Directly.” I repeated the word and let it sit in the air. “Which means they knew the layout.”“Yes, Alpha.”“Which means someone told them.”He did not answer that. His jaw tightened.I took a step forward. “How did twelve wolves get through reinfo
~Amber’s POV~ The thing about being taken by surprise in a way that couldn’t have been expected or imagined is that it completely takes over your thought process and in doing so, it makes the seconds and everything else pass you by without you even realizing it.“Amber Crystabel Moon.”I blinked
~Amber’s POV~ Should I say something?Who was I even asking? Because there was no one else in the room except me and Axel. His back was to me, shoulders tight with tension, and he was staring at the screen like it had personally offended him. His hand gripped the remote hard enough that his knu
~Amber’s POV~ A pin could have dropped in the silence that filled the room and everyone would have heard it.Actually, one of the pins holding my hair up did fall to the ground but before I had a chance to prove the theory that my brain had just come up with, Monroe broke the silence with his word
~Axel’s POV~ It was hard to remember a time when I wasn’t rich.Not because I had been born into wealth. I hadn’t.I mean the Edgewood’s were not poor but most of the generated income over centuries went into running the pack so from the moment I understood what money was, what it could do, what







