LOGINThe valley wasn't empty. It was full of wolves—dozens of them—and every single one of them had white fur.We descended through the narrow canyon as the sun dropped behind the cliffs, and the underground river roared beside us like a living thing. Rook took point, his dark eyes scanning the rocks. Bastian stayed at my back, his hand never leaving the hilt of his blade. And when the canyon finally opened into the valley, we all stopped walking.The Sunken Valley was a bowl of green and white carved into the heart of the mountains. Waterfalls spilled down the cliffs and fed a lake that glittered in the dying light. Cabins built from pale wood dotted the valley floor, and gardens terraced the slopes. And everywhere, everywhere, there were white wolves.A young boy shifted from wolf to human in the middle of a game, laughing as he tumbled into the grass. An old woman with white fur and amber-gold eyes sat on a porch, watching us with quiet curiosity. A pair of enforcers, both in partial sh
Maelis's quarters were empty. Her maps were spread across the table, and one location was circled in red. A place called the Sunken Valley.The Gray Reach was a hidden settlement carved into the northern mountains, its buildings built from pale stone and its streets winding between cliffs that kept it invisible from the outside. I had never been here before. Maelis had described it in detail, her ancient eyes bright with pride, and now I was walking through her empty rooms while the wolves she led searched the wilderness for any sign of her.Elara had come with us. She stood in the doorway of Maelis's quarters with her silver braid pulled over her shoulder and her dark eyes troubled. "She's been missing for two weeks. Her personal scout says she was tracking rumors of a Moon-Wolf bloodline that survived in isolation. A pack that went underground during the Frostborn's purges and never resurfaced."I looked at the map spread across Maelis's table. It was covered in notes, her careful h
Archer's hands pressed against my belly and his eyes went wide. "There are two heartbeats."The medic hut was warm with summer light, and the windows were open to let in the breeze. Theron sat on a blanket on the floor, chewing on his silver rattle with the single-minded focus of a pup who had just discovered teeth. He was eight months old now, crawling and babbling and shifting into a tiny white wolf whenever he got startled.I stared at Archer. "Two.""Two." Archer's voice cracked on the word, and his gold eyes were wet. "Twins, Caelum. You're carrying twins."Bastian was on his feet before I could speak. His chair scraped against the floor, and his hand found my shoulder, and his gold eyes were wild. "Is that safe? The last pregnancy was hard enough with one.""Twins are more demanding, but Caelum's body is stronger than it was during the first pregnancy." Archer pressed the stethoscope to my belly again, and his hands were steady despite the tears on his cheeks. "The bond web is s
Wren stood in the doorway of the fortress and said, "I was born here. I never thought I'd come back willingly."The ice walls of the Frostborn's stronghold gleamed in the pale mountain light. Workers moved through the corridors with torches and tools, stripping away the remnants of the old order. The breeding cells had been emptied. The barracks were being scrubbed clean. The throne room, where the Frostborn had sat for three centuries, was being dismantled stone by stone.Wren's hand rested on her belly, where her pup was growing. She was five months along now, healthy and strong, her gold-flickering eyes steady as she looked at the fortress that had once been her prison."I was born in the lower cells," Wren said, and her voice was calm. "My mother was a captured omega from a pack I'll never know. She died when I was three. I don't remember her face. I just remember the cold."I stood beside her in the doorway. "You don't have to be here. We can find someone else to oversee the tran
The grave was unmarked. Just a cairn of stones in a frozen valley where nothing grew.The northern mountains were harsh and silent. The wind cut through every layer of clothing, and the snow was deeper than anything I had ever walked through. Hale led us through passes that only the Frostmarch wolves knew, his pale form blending with the drifts, his blue-white eyes scanning the ridges for dangers that were no longer there. The Frostborn's fortress loomed behind us, abandoned and hollow, its ice walls already beginning to melt.I had walked through those halls before coming here. Rooms where omegas had been caged and bred. Barracks where pups had been trained to kill. A throne room carved from a glacier, the Frostborn's seat still gleaming cold and empty. I had felt the ghosts in those walls, the centuries of suffering, and I had promised them silently that their deaths would not be forgotten.But the valley was different. The valley was sacred.Mirren's records had been precise. A hid
The letter was two hundred years old, the ink faded but the words sharp. "To the one who comes after. To the one who finishes what we started."I sat on the bench in the cold corridor with Elara's tea growing cool in my hands and Mirren's letter open on my knee. The dawn light was creeping through the window at the end of the hall, pale gold and soft, and somewhere outside a bird was singing. The first bird in months, maybe. Spring was coming."Read it to me," Elara said quietly. "I've never heard the whole thing. Maelis kept it sealed."I smoothed the cracked parchment and read aloud. My voice was hoarse from exhaustion and grief and the lingering weight of the battle, but the words were steady.To the Moon-Wolf who comes after us,My name is Mirren. I am the sister of Theron, the omega they burned. I am the aunt of the pup they tried to kill. I am the last one left who remembers the sound of my brother's voice.I was twelve years old when they executed him. I watched from the crowd,
"His name is Theron," I said, and the hall went silent. "Theron Crowne. For the omega who started this. So no one ever forgets."The main hall was packed. Wolves lined the walls and filled the benches and spilled out into the corridor beyond. The council table had been pushed back to make room, and
The contraction hit like a lightning strike, and through the bond web, all three alphas felt it at once.I screamed. The sound tore out of me before I could stop it, and my hands clawed at the bedsheets, and the pain was a white-hot wave that started in my lower back and radiated outward until ever
Corvus's words hit me harder than any blow ever had. My mother. Alive. Voluntarily part of the thing I was fighting.The medic tent was chaos. Archer moved between cots with his gold eyes sharp and his hands steady, checking pulses and treating injection sites and speaking in that low, rhythmic voi
The girl's name was Wren. And when the guards came through the door, she was the first one to shift.It wasn't a full shift. Her body was too weak, her pregnancy too advanced. But her claws punched out, and her eyes blazed gold, and the snarl that tore from her throat was the sound of someone who h







