LOGIN"How?" I whispered. "How did they know what I would look like?"Veris stood beside me in the blue-green glow of the phosphorescent moss, her arms crossed and her amber-gold eyes fixed on the painting of the white wolf with three shadows. "The seers have been painting prophecies on these walls for two hundred years. The visions come in fragments. A flash of white fur. A battle on the snow. A face they've never seen." She pointed at my painted face, rendered in careful detail with pigments that had faded but never flaked. "Your face appeared fifty years ago. My grandmother painted it. She woke up one morning, walked into this chamber, and painted for three days straight. When she finished, she said the Moon-Wolf who would end the hiding had been shown to her. She said his name would be Caelum."I stepped closer to the wall. The painting was startlingly accurate. My ash-brown hair. My amber-gold eyes. The claiming marks on my throat. Even the way I stood, one hand on my belly, was captur
"I've been waiting for you my whole life," Veris admitted. "And I still don't know if I'm ready."The central den was carved into the cliffside, a warm space lit by lanterns and a fire that crackled in a stone hearth. The walls were lined with woven tapestries depicting white wolves running under a full moon. Veris sat across from me at a wooden table, her hands wrapped around a cup of tea she hadn't touched. Bastian stood behind my chair, his gold eyes watchful but not hostile. He understood that this was a conversation between Moon-Wolves."Ready for what?" I asked."Ready for the world to know we exist." Veris set down her cup. "My great-grandmother was one of Theron's cousins. She fled north during the execution. When the Frostborn began his purges, she kept running. She found this valley, and she decided it was safer to disappear completely. No outside contact. No multi-bonding. No attention." Veris's amber-gold eyes were tired. "We've been hiding for two hundred years. And we've
The 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
He was bigger. Stronger. Three centuries of experience against my single year. But I had something he didn't. Three alphas who loved me. A son waiting at home. A mother fighting beside me. He had nothing but hate.The Frostborn lunged, and the world narrowed to teeth and ice and the screaming wind.
"The Frostborn isn't just an alpha," Sable said. "He's a Moon-Wolf. Like you. Like me. He's what happens when one of us goes wrong."The war room went silent. Maelis set down her cup. Elara's hands stopped moving on the bandage she was rolling. Even Corvus, standing in his corner with his gnarled h
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
Silas’s boot drove into my stomach, and I folded around the pain without a sound. Ten years in this pack had taught me one thing: noise makes it worse.I hit the training yard dirt on my side, and a puff of dust coated my tongue. Silas stood over me with his sandy hair cropped close to his skull, h







