LOGINCalla's POVThe courtyard was full of children.I sat on the low wall in the late summer sun and watched them tear across the flagstones … the same grey stones where, years ago now, they had once dragged me toward a cell. I had stopped flinching at that thought a long time ago. These days, the stones held nothing worse than scuffed knees and dropped toys and the long warm shadows of a good afternoon.Adele led them, the way she led everything. She was tall now; she was a teenager, her dark hair shaking loose from its plait as she ran. Behind her came the twins … mine, not their fathers', though the joke wrote itself and the whole pack made it. Two boys. Of course, it had been two. I had laughed and cried both when the healer told me, and Brynn had gone white, and Blade had sat straight down on the floor, and I had asked both of them what exactly they had expected.Cael and Bram. Four years old and already a conspiracy of two. They charged after their sister with wooden swords, sh
Calla's POV Bianca came to see me three weeks after they named me Luna, and she came armed.She set a clay jug on my table, then a wax-stoppered bottle, then a small cloth bundle that smelled of honey and butter. "I raided the kitchens," she said. "Don't tell anyone. The Beta isn't supposed to steal her own pack's cakes.""The Beta can do whatever she likes," I said. "That's rather the point of being the Beta.""Nobody told me that part." She dropped into the chair across from me and put her boots up on the bench the way she had since we were children. "They told me all the other parts. The dull ones."I poured for both of us. The room was warm. The sun came through the high windows and lay across the floor in long gold bars, and somewhere down the corridor I could hear Adele's voice, high and bossy, ordering some poor pup around. For three weeks now, I have been learning to live quietly like this. Quiet that did not have anything terrible waiting underneath it."So," I said. "How
Calla's POV The door to the royal chambers closed behind them with a heavy, final thud. The noise of the lingering celebration faded to a distant murmur. Only the crackle of the low fire and the soft glow of moonlight through the tall windows remained.Calla stood between them, with her heart already racing. Blade’s hand rested at the small of her back, warm and steady. Brynn’s fingers brushed her hip. They had led her here from the gallery without a word, but the air between them had thickened with intent the moment they stepped inside.Blade moved first. He stepped behind her, sweeping her hair aside to expose the slender column of her neck. His lips brushed the sensitive skin just below her ear, soft at first, then open-mouthed, sucking the tender flesh gently. Calla shivered, a quiet sigh escaping her. Brynn mirrored him on her other side, kissing a slow trail down the opposite side of her throat, teeth grazing lightly before his tongue soothed the spot.“You’ve been so stron
Calla's POV The oldest of the council came forward.He was a stooped man, his beard white as frost, his hands shaking on his staff. He had stood behind Seraphine not an hour ago. Now he stood before me, and he bowed his head, low and slow."Luna," he said. The word cracked in his throat. He swallowed and tried again. "Calla. Daughter of no pack. Mate of our princes. Mother of the cure."The courtyard was silent. Even the wind had gone still."Do you accept this responsibility?" he asked. "To be the Luna of this pack. To uphold its laws and guard its young. To stand for the weak when the strong forget themselves. Do you swear to fulfil it to the best of what you are, for as long as you draw breath?"I looked at him. Then I looked past him, at the faces behind him. Hundreds of them. Faces that had watched me dragged to a cell. Faces that had wept for a plague they thought I carried. Faces that had called me a curse.They were not looking at me like that now.I set Adele down. She cau
Calla's POV"Is it finally over, Mummy?"Adele's voice was small and tired. The question was barely more than a breath against my neck. I turned to look at her in my arms, at her pale face and dark eyes still ringed with shadows, and I pressed my lips to her forehead."Yes, baby," I said. "It's finally over."I turned then, looking for Blade. He stood half a step behind me, his eyes on the crowd, on the ruined walls, on the new day threading light through smoke. I caught his sleeve, and he looked down at me, his brow lifting."There's someone else I want to save," I said."Who?""Elowen. I want her out of that cell." I held his gaze, steady, unflinching. "I don't know what you think she did, what crime your father believed she committed. But she is a good woman. And frankly…" my voice caught, cracked, steadied again, "…she is the reason we survived. She told Adele what to do. She prepared her. Without that, Tyson would still be walking."Blade's jaw tightened. He exchanged a look with
Calla's POV I followed the bad smell inside.The palace had turned sour. I dragged myself toward it. My left leg was still broken; it would take a little while to heal from the fall, and every step sent a sharp pain through my ribs that made my vision swim. I left bloody footprints behind me as I grabbed hold of the wall to push myself forward. I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was ahead; I needed to go and help my mates no matter what.The great hall was barely recognizable. Everywhere was filled with dead bodies and blood. Blade was in his wolf form. He was massive; his fur had blood all over it. I didn’t know if it was his or someone else's. He circled low, his belly brushing the stone, his lips peeled back from fangs that dripped with saliva. Every time he lunged at Tyson, he moved, his body bending at angles that should have snapped his bones, his grey hands catching Blade’s jaws and tossing him aside like a pup.Brynn fought as a man. He moved like water. He twis
Blade’s POVThe study had seen better nights.Two chairs had been relocated to the far wall after he’d thrown them there. A glass had met its end against the fireplace sometime around midnight and nobody had been brave enough to clean it up yet. The map of Ash Creek’s surrounding territories was
Calla’s POV We left before the city woke up. Tyson had the car packed and idling at the snow-capped 4:45. I carried Adele down in her blanket, her rabbit tucked under her arm, her boots left unlaced because she had insisted on wearing them despite the hour and I hadn’t had the energy to argue.
Calla’s POVI ran.The shadow touched my feet and my body made the decision before my mind caught up and I burst out from between the vans and sprinted for the loading dock with everything I had left.I almost made it.A hand closed around my arm from behind … an iron grip, brutal and sudden, yanki
Calla’s POVThe cab rolled to a stop at the edge of Central Station and I had the door open before the wheels had fully settled.“Thank you,” I told the driver.He didn’t respond. His eyes were already back on the road, his radio already being switched to a different station. Whether that was guilt







