LOGINChapter 61: Ronan's Pov "There's a rumor."Elias sets his tablet on the hotel suite table with the expression he wears when he has information he would prefer not to have. I have learned to read Elias's expressions the way I have learned to read everything that matters, through repetition, through paying attention to the specific quality of his discomfort rather than just its presence.This one is bad."What rumor," Ryker says. He does not look up from his documents."The Blackthorn engagement to the Kane alpha's daughter." Elias pauses. "It's circulating through Silverveil. Started two days ago through the pack social network... market stalls, the administrative building, the clinic." Another pause. "It's gaining the kind of traction that means it has already reached most of the residential pack by now."Ryker looks up.Rafe goes very still by the window.I sit forward. "Where did it start.""We can't trace the origin precisely. It appears to have come from multiple sources simulta
Chapter 60: Elara's Pov Fourteen days, it's been 14 days already, I know because I stopped counting at eleven and then started again at thirteen because stopping counting did not make me stop knowing. This morning felt normal and ordinary, just like every other morning since the photograph arrived, i make Landon's breakfast, I check his backpack straps which he still does not adjust properly, I drink my tea at the kitchen window and look at Fort Landon in the early light. The rope bridge sways slightly in the wind. The lookout crate faces the trees. The roof panel Ronan fitted is still perfectly level.Fourteen days and the fort is still there.I do not know why I keep noticing that. It is a structure made of wood and rope in a backyard it is not going anywhere. But I notice it every morning anyway, the way you notice something that is staying when you half-expected it to be gone.Mom sits across from me. She does not say anything about the fort or about the fact that I am looking
Chapter 59: Rafe's Pov The cottage light goes off at ten forty-seven, I note the time without meaning to. I have been noting times without meaning to for eleven days....when her bedroom light comes on, when it goes off, when the kitchen light stays burning past midnight which means she is not sleeping, when Landon's moon nightlight appears at the window which means he is not sleeping either.Tonight the light goes off at ten forty-seven and stays off, which means she is trying.I stand in the trees and listen to the forest and try not to count the hours.*****At midnight, the front door opens, I go still....not alarm, I know her footsteps and her door and the specific quality of sound that means she is coming onto the porch voluntarily rather than being pushed there by something external. She has done this twice before during the withdrawal. Both times she sat for a while and went back in without saying anything.Tonight she si
Chapter 58: Ryker's POV "She still hasn't texted," Ronan says."I know," I say."Eleven days.""I know, Ronan."He drops onto the couch and puts his arm over his face and says nothing else, which is how I know he is doing worse than he is letting on, Ronan's default state is words, and when the words run out something real is happening underneath.Rafe is at the window. He has been at the window for most of the morning. This too is default Rafe — but the quality of it is different lately. Less watchful, more waiting. The distinction is subtle but I have known him for twenty-eight years and I know the difference.I open my laptop. I close it. I open it again."The Council response came back this morning," I say. "Preliminary acknowledgment. They've flagged the child endangerment elements for expedited review. Four weeks, maybe three.""Good," Rafe says, from the window. Not looking away from whatever h
Chapter 57: Elara's Pov The chart in my hands belongs to a patient I have already seen today. I realize this when I am halfway through reading it, the notes in my own handwriting, the treatment plan I documented two hours ago...and I set it down on the counter and press both hands flat against the surface and breathe. This is the third time this week I have picked up the wrong chart. "Elara." Marcus's voice, from the doorway, very quiet and alarmed, he has been watching me all week with the specific care of someone who knows better than to comment directly. "You have a patient in room three." "I know." I pick up the correct chart. "Thank you." He steps aside to let me through and doesn't say anything else, which is the most useful thing he could do, and which is exactly what Marcus does when he reads the situation correctly.... he gives me the thing I need without making me ask for it. I go to room three. ********* The rest of my day went as boring and disconnected as the pre
Chapter 56: Rafe's Pov The kitchen light goes on at eleven-fourteen.Not Elara... Mira. I know from the movement, the pace of the silhouette behind the curtain. Elara moves faster in kitchens, more purposeful. Mira moves like someone who has been in every kitchen she has ever stood in long enough to know where everything is without looking.I have learned to read the cottage in the dark the way I have learned to read the cottage in daylight, which is with a specificity that I recognize as either devotion or obsession, and have decided the distinction doesn't matter right now.Eleven twenty-three. The back door opens.Mira steps onto the porch.She is in her heavy cardigan and her sleeping clothes, two cups in her hands, looking out toward the tree line with the expression of a woman who has been awake for a while doing things other than sleeping.She holds up one of the cups toward the trees.I step out of the
Chapter 33Mira's Pov "She's rubbing her chest again," I say.Vanessa sets down her tea and looks at me with the particular expression of a woman who has been a senior healer for thirty-eight years and has learned to hear what is being said underneath what is being said. "How long?""Twelve days.
Chapter 31 — Elara's POV"Mom. Mom. Watch.""I'm watching, baby.""No you're not, you're looking at your tea."I look up from my tea.Landon is standing in the middle of the backyard in the morning light, River the wolf set carefully on top of Fort Landon's lookout crate as an audience. Rafe is cro
Chapter 30"I'm not asking for time with you," I say. "I'm asking permission to teach your son how to protect himself."Elara stands in the cottage doorway with her arms crossed and her expression doing the careful neutral thing, the one I have learned means she is taking something seriously and d
Chapter 29: Marcus Pov "Tell me it wasn't them."My colleague Dr. Pria sets her coffee down on the break room table and looks at me with the expression she usually reserves for lab results that don't make sense. "The anonymous donation to the clinic. Tell me you checked and it wasn't the Nightsh







