LOGINSera's POVI closed the door to my room and leaned against it for a moment. The box sat on the small table by the window. I had carried it upstairs myself. No one followed me. I needed this part alone.I crossed the room and sat down. My hands stayed on the lid for a long time. I breathed in deep. Then I opened it.Inside lay a small collection of things. A photograph of my mother standing in a window. She looked young. Tired but determined. A pressed flower, its colors still faint after all these years. A folded piece of paper. And underneath everything, a small smooth stone.I picked up the stone first. It fit perfectly in my palm. The moment my fingers closed around it a faint warmth spread through my hand. The same warmth my ability carried when it woke up strong. I held it tight and closed my eyes.The stone pulsed. Gentle. Steady. Like it recognized me.I sat with it for a long time. The room stayed quiet. Northesk moved on outside my door but in here it felt like time slowed do
Sera's POVI walked into the main hall the next morning and stopped short. The woman waiting near the windows looked older than Mara. Smaller too. She carried herself with the kind of careful stillness that came from years of trying not to be noticed. She turned when I entered. Her face did something complicated."You look like her," she said. "Around the eyes."I crossed the room slowly. "Who are you?"She waited until I sat across from her. "My name is Dara Venn. I was your mother's older sister."The name landed heavy. Venn. My mother's family. I kept my hands on the table and breathed through it.Riven stood just behind my chair. Cael sat to my right. Both of them stayed quiet. They knew I needed to do this part myself.Dara looked at me for a long moment. "I have been working inside the council oversight committee for eleven years. Quietly. I tried to push things in the right direction where I could."I leaned forward slightly. "You helped get the preliminary ruling through."She
Sera's POVThe drive back felt different. Every mile put more distance between us and that basement. I kept the file on my lap. My hand rested on it the whole way. I did not put it in the bag. I needed to feel it there.Cael rode in the vehicle behind us. I caught the shape of his head through the rear window sometimes. My father. The word still sat strange on my tongue. I turned it over in my mind and let it stay there.Riven drove. He kept both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. He did not fill the silence. I was grateful for that. The quiet gave me space to breathe.At some point his right hand left the wheel. It found mine on the seat between us. He did not make a big thing of it. He just rested it there. I turned my palm up and held on. His grip stayed warm and steady.I looked out the window. Trees passed in a blur. The file under my hand felt like a bridge. My mother had run so I could sit here. I kept that thought close.Riven squeezed my hand once. "Almost home."I
Riven's POVThe council vehicles arrived within the hour. Their lights cut through the trees. I watched them approach from the ridge. Vael stood between Caden and me. He did not fight. He did not speak. He simply waited.The eldest council woman stepped out first. She looked at Vael. Then at the bags we carried. She gave a short nod. "We will take him."I handed Vael over without ceremony. "He goes quietly. That surprises me."She glanced at him. "Men like him know when the board is lost."Vael walked to the vehicle without resistance. The door closed behind him. No dramatic final words. No threats. Just silence. I expected more. Maybe that was the point.I turned to the eldest woman. "The records go with us. Northesk wolves on every transport. I do not trust your chain of custody on this."She studied me for a moment. "After what we saw in those files, I do not blame you." She waved to her team. "Load them under joint oversight."We moved the bags together. My wolves. Her people. No
Sera's POVI stood in the center of the room and looked at him. Vael sat behind the desk like he still owned the space. Riven and Caden stayed close on either side of him. I felt their presence but I kept my eyes on the man who had hunted my family for decades.He did not admit anything right away. He watched me instead. Calm. Calculating.I spoke first. "I want to ask you one thing."Vael waited. His hands stayed folded on the desk. He gave a small nod.I kept my voice steady. "Did you kill my mother or did you just make sure she had nowhere safe to run?"The room went quiet. Riven shifted slightly beside me. Caden stayed still. Vael looked at me for a long moment. His eyes changed first. Something flickered there before his mouth moved."She made choices that had consequences."That was all he gave me. No direct yes. No direct no. Just that.I did not break. I did not shout. I stood there and let his words land. Twenty two years of learning how to hold myself together in rooms where
Riven's POVI kept my eyes on Vael as we reached the main room upstairs. The air felt thicker here. Caden stayed on his left. I stayed on his right. Sera had come up from the basement. She stood near the center now. Her shoulders stayed straight. Her face gave nothing away.Vael looked at her. He stopped talking for a moment. Then he sat down in the chair behind the desk again like this was his office and we were guests."You want answers," he said. "I will give them. Not because you earned them. Because the game is over."I crossed my arms. "Talk."Vael leaned back. His hands rested on the desk. "I built an order. Packs need structure. Bloodlines need control. Hybrid lines introduced variables. Unpredictable ones. They threatened everything we spent centuries building."Caden shifted his weight. "You called it a purge.""I called it necessary." Vael looked at me. "You understand necessity, Ashvale. You killed to take your pack. You made choices that cost lives. I did the same. On a l
Sera's PovMy second week at the household desk started the way the first one ended, with Mara handing me a stack of ledgers and saying, "These haven't been touched since spring," in the tone of someone who'd been waiting a long time to say it to someone other than herself.I worked through them at
Sera's PovI didn't know about the message for a full day.I found that out later, the way you find out most things in a pack, sideways, after the fact, pieced together from things people don't quite say. Riven had it on his desk for a day before he called me in. I didn't know that when I walked in
Sera's Pov"Sera."I stopped halfway across the yard. Della. She had followed me out of the hall, her shawl pulled tight around her shoulders, her breath making small clouds in the cold air. She looked at the bag on my shoulder and then at my face and I watched her put it together in real time."Wh
Sera's Pov "She actually thought she deserved to be our Luna. How pathetic."I heard every word and kept my eyes forward, my hands loose at my sides, my breathing even. Three years in this pack taught me that much. You didn't react, you didn't give them the satisfaction. You kept your face smooth







