MasukMy pace slowed.I was close.The grove opened ahead of me, circular and impossibly quiet. The ground was covered in dead moss. Stones lined the perimeter, carved with symbols so ancient they seemed to hum.And in the center, she stood.The dark priestess.Tall. Shrouded in a veil of black. Skin like
CASSANDRADerek knows.The thought pounded in my head like a war drum, louder than the creaking floorboards beneath my feet as I stumbled back inside my cottage. I couldn’t breathe. My skin was ice. I gripped the edge of the counter like the world might slide out from under me if I let go.He knows.
"As a matter of fact," I said slowly, "it was."She nodded. "That was from one of my favorite shirts. My mother was furious when she saw that I’d torn a piece from it."The air went out of my lungs.Her favorite shirt.I blinked, trying to picture that day clearly. Cassandra had been there—that much
DEREKI didn’t move.Didn’t nod. Didn’t speak.I just stood there, letting her see it in my face. Because yeah—it was me.Every call, every closed-door meeting, every favor I cashed in to fast-track the permits they needed before anyone could find a reason to stall or block it. I’d done all of it. Q
DEREKThe crowd had already begun to gather when I arrived.The courtyard in front of the new Rogue Foundation was cordoned off with velvet rope and lined with silver-and-navy banners. The city's emblem flew alongside Moonstone’s and Red Ridge’s on tall flagpoles, and a heavy length of ribbon stretc
DEREKThe growl of the four-wheeler under me did nothing to quiet the growl inside my chest.I’d been patrolling for hours.The wind whipped against my jacket, tugging at the collar as I tore down another ridgeline, the sun low and angry behind me. Dust kicked up behind the tires in plumes. My hands
He flinched. Not much. Just a twitch in his brow, the faintest shift in his shoulders. But I saw it. Felt it. And that small, involuntary response tugged at something deep inside me, something instinctual and anxious that whispered: this matters.I slid off him, slowly, and pulled the sheet up with
"Still counts."He smirked but didn’t argue.Eventually, the road narrowed into a gravel turnout. A young wolf stood there beside a snowmobile, already shifted, tail flicking. Derek turned off the car and nodded toward the trail ahead."Don’t worry. You’re not driving.""Thank the Goddess," I mutter
The air grew colder the higher we climbed, and inside the car, condensation fogged the windows. Derek’s hand was resting on his knee, relaxed, but his eyes tracked the horizon with quiet precision.A man preparing for something. A man stepping into territory where he’d be watched from the moment he
I had smiled, slow and certain. "I am yours."He kissed me then, hard and desperate, as if he could claim me with the press of his lips alone. And maybe, for a while, he had.That night had been the first time I had truly believed in the possibility of a future with Derek. We had talked about marria







