LOGINFeliks was the first to complain, opening his arms in a theatrical gesture.“This makes the job a lot harder. A lot. Extremely. Protecting someone who can’t know they’re being protected is a logistical nightmare. I thought we had moved past this stage.”“Not yet.”“The boy is going to rip our heads off if he finds out. Literally. He made that very clear before he left.”“Probably.” Boris gave a slight smile, amused despite the gravity of the situation. “Especially because he still doesn’t trust me. And with good reason.”Andrey rested one hand on the table, leaning forward.“Do you believe he will become unstable? With everything he has discovered?”The patriarch took a few seconds to answer. When he spoke, his voice was deeper.“No. I am certain of it.”The three exchanged glances.“For twenty-eight years, Alexei believed he knew who he was,” Boris continued, walking over to the window. “A Rurik. Anatolie’s son. Dmitry’s brother. A soldier, a protector, a simple man in a complicated
Alexei adjusted the temperature almost automatically. He didn’t even need to think — his fingers found the exact point Carla preferred.She watched him in silence, leaning against the doorframe. There was something deeply intimate about the simplicity of those gestures. No war, no politics, no clans. Just a man preparing a bath for the woman he loved, testing the water with his hand to make sure it wasn’t too hot.When he finished, he walked back to her. He stopped very close, slowly, as if he still needed to confirm that she was really there. His fingers brushed a strand of hair from her face, then touched her cheek, her neck, her shoulder. Every touch was a silent check, a reaffirmation.Carla smiled with tenderness.“You’re still checking to see if I’m whole.”Alexei let out a slow breath.“I am. I can’t help it.”She didn’t complain. There was no reason to.Because she understood the fear that still pulsed weakly through the bond, the almost obsessive need to confirm that she was
Far from the Rurik mansion, on a property surrounded by snow-covered forests, a man calmly watched the fire crackling in the fireplace.His graying hair was beginning to reveal his age, but his eyes remained the same. Cold, calculating, merciless. They were eyes that had already seen empires rise and fall, and that still saw many others before the earth finally claimed them.The library was enormous, lined with ancient books and maps of territories that no longer existed. One of his subordinates entered silently and bowed his head discreetly.“Sir. They found the boy.”Konstantin Velesov slowly raised his eyes from the fire, one eyebrow arched.“He found the Demidovs before we did.”The subordinate nodded.“Yes. He invaded the property, destroyed the main gate and a good part of the outer wall. He took the marked mate back.”A small smile appeared on the Supreme Alpha’s lips.“Excellent.”The man frowned, clearly confused.“Sir?”Konstantin rose from the armchair with the elegance of
The name continued echoing through the hall of the Rurik mansion long after Anatolie had spoken it.Konstantin Velesov.The syllables seemed to carry their own weight, as if the mere act of saying them out loud was capable of summoning something that should have remained asleep.No one said a word. Not Sasha, who always had a joke ready to ease any tension. Not Susan, who normally knew exactly what to say to calm things down.Not even Demyan, who remained very quiet in Alexei’s arms, his little blue eyes watching the adults with an unusual seriousness for such a small child, as if he sensed that something very serious had just happened in that hall.Carla glanced discreetly at each of them. That was when she understood. It wasn’t just a name — it was a ghost. One of those that didn’t even need to appear to be able to dominate an entire room, that survived only in the fear they left behind.Alexei remained motionless. His clear eyes were still fixed on his father, but the fury from bef
“The old man told me she was born in that house,” Alexei continued, his eyes still fixed on his father. “That she was an Alpha. That she loved you, father. That she chose you against everything and everyone. That she abandoned her own clan because of you.”He paused, and his voice dropped even lower.“And he told me that someone killed her. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t the war. It was murder.”His clear eyes met Anatolie’s with an intensity that hurt.“He said the next truth wasn’t in his house. He sent me back home.” The silence that followed was absolute. “Because he said someone here knows.”Alexei’s voice faltered for a second. Just one, an almost imperceptible tremor. But Carla felt it, not just by ear, but through the bond — a stab of pain so sharp it made her eyes burn.Anatolie was the man Alexei admired most in the world. The father who had taught him to fight, to lead, to survive. And that same man had clearly lied to him for twenty-eight years.“And I want to believe it
The road back to Moscow seemed far too long. And far too quiet.Carla ended up falling asleep halfway there. Not deeply — it was that light, fragmented sleep that comes when the body and mind have been pushed to their limit, when the adrenaline finally gives way to exhaustion.Even while sleeping, her fingers remained intertwined with his, and Alexei drove with one hand on the wheel and the other holding hers as if it were the most precious thing in the world.Slower than usual. Much slower. Because he had no intention of ever letting go of that hand again.The Lycan sighed inside him, a satisfied and exhausted sound, like an animal that had finally found rest after a storm.“Ours.”“Ours,” Alexei repeated quietly, his eyes fixed on the snow-covered road.“Never again.”“Never again.”“Not even alone.”“Not for a second.”“Not even angry.”“Especially when she’s angry.”“Not even at work.”“I’m going to become the terror of the hospital nurses. They’re going to hate me.”“Ours.”A smal
Dmitry climbed the stairs with silent but heavy steps, as if each one was a sentence he himself had to serve. The corridor was dark, except for the faint light escaping through the crack of the door to the room where Susan used to stay.He stopped in front of the door, closing his eyes for a second
The entrance to Rurik Motors seemed more imposing than Susan remembered. The cold, modern architectural lines now carried a new weight. It wasn’t just a building. It was Lycan territory.She walked beside Dmitry. Her heels echoed on the marble floor like nervous little clicks, and his hand, holding
“This was only the beginning…” the scientist said, still trembling. “Norfir is the most… raw prototype. But there are others.”Sasha raised an eyebrow.“Show me.”The man typed a new sequence into the terminal. The laboratory lights flickered and a side compartment in the room opened with a muffled
Chernov Clan — Eastern Siberia, Lake Baikal RegionThe mist danced between the trees like a mystical veil over the ancestral territory of the Chernovs. In the meeting room built with stone, moss, and carved bones, Nikolai Chernov, the old elder of the clan, sat before the fireplace.In front of him







