Mag-log inAria's POVThe silence stretched so long that I could hear my own breathing, every face in the room was turned toward me. Every pair of eyes waited not for the truth, but for my explanation. My gaze remained fixed on the tablet resting on the table, my own voice still echoing inside my head."If Dam
Aria’s POVThe silence after Kade’s mother spoke didn’t break immediately. It settled instead, thick and suffocating, like the room itself had decided it was finished listening to me.My hands were still hovering over the table when the voice note began to play and at first, it sounded like static,
Aria’s POVThe air in the sitting room felt wrong the moment I stepped inside, it wasn’t just the silence, it was the kind of silence that carried weight, like everyone inside had already agreed on a version of events I hadn’t even been told yet. My hand was still on the door handle when I noticed
The door opened before I realized I had stopped moving entirely.Thorne stepped aside without speaking. “She’s here,” he said quietly.I looked up to see Aria standing in the doorway.Real. Present. Unaware of what had already been decided in the room she was about to step into and for the first tim
Damon’s POVThe first sign that something was wrong was the silence that settled over the Packhouse, the kind that felt deliberate rather than natural, as though the building itself was holding its breath. Thorne entered my office without his usual confidence, placing a sealed file on my desk but re
Aria's POVThe waiting was worse than the test itself and I had imagined the bloodline spell would somehow give me answers immediately, that the healers would wave glowing hands over a crystal and tell me whether the child growing inside me belonged to Damon or Kade.Instead, I had spent nearly an h
Aria’s POV"You need to eat."Mira shoved a plate of toast in front of me, but I pushed it away."I'm not hungry.""You look like a ghost," Mira said, sitting across from me at our small kitchen table. "A ghost with a very expensive scarf."She pointed her fork at my neck. I had wrapped a fresh sil
Aria’s POVThe air in the car was suffocating. It was warm, dry, and smelled entirely of him.Pine and spice. It was everywhere. It filled my nose and coated my tongue.Damon was leaning over the center console.His hand was inches from my neck and his eyes looked pitch black."Rain," he said again.
Aria’s POVThe archives were quiet and smelt of old books.I liked it. It felt safe and comforting.For the last four hours, I had been organizing files from fifty years ago.My hands were gray with dust, and my back ached, but I didn't stop.If I stopped, I would think and if I thought, I would rem
Damon’s POVI was going to burn the forest down.It was the only logical reaction because I had woken up on the cold ground… and she was gone like I had only imagined her.My mate had vanished and I had tracked her scent to the river, and then—nothing. It washed away. Gone just like that. What the a







