LOGINCalebShe is still smiling.That is the thing that breaks me open completely. June is sitting in my arms with a silver dagger buried in her chest and her eyes half-closed and her heartbeat stuttering under my hands, and she is smiling. That small, real, private smile that I have spent months learning the difference between. The one that means something to her. The one she does not give out easily.It is the most wrong thing I have ever seen in my life.I pull her closer and my eyes tear through the cell looking for anything, anything at all, some solution sitting in the corners of this rotting place that my mind has missed. There is nothing. Stone walls. A dying lantern. Blood on the floor that belongs to too many people now. My gaze keeps moving anyway because stopping means accepting what I am feeling through the bond and I cannot do that. I cannot.Her heartbeat slows by another degree.I feel it the way I feel everything from her now, directly, like it is happening inside my own c
JuneI take a step toward her.And then another.Tanya watches me close the distance between us and something shifts in her expression, the satisfaction flickering, recalibrating, trying to decide what my movement means. She holds her ground. Her chin stays up. She is still operating inside the version of this where she has already won.My fist connects with her jaw before she finishes that thought.The crack of it fills the cell and Tanya's head snaps sideways and she stumbles hard into the stone wall, one hand flying up to her face. She makes a sound that is more surprise than pain, like she genuinely did not expect this, like she thought I would stand there and argue with her about what she deserves and what she does not.I do not argue.I reach for her and she swings back, wild and off-balance, her fist catching my cheekbone hard enough to make my vision blur for half a second. She is not trained. I feel that immediately in the way she moves, all desperation and no form, throwing
JuneSomething moves through me from the top of my skull down to the soles of my feet like cold water finding every crack, filling every space, settling into me until I am absolutely, completely, terrifyingly calm.The mark on his neck is wrong in a way that I feel before I fully understand it. The skin around it is bruised dark, purpling outward from a center that looks infected and angry and rotting at its edges. It does not look like something that was given. It looks like something that was taken. Forced into skin that never consented to it, that has been fighting it ever since, and losing the fight slowly in the most awful and visible way.Someone put their mark on him.On my mate.I stare at it for a moment that stretches longer than it should.Somewhere underneath the cold that has settled into me, something is burning. I can feel it distantly, the way you feel a fire in another room, present and real but separate from where you are standing right now. Rage, probably. The kind
Caleb Tanya steps closer again. Slowly. Like she already belongs in my space. The lantern light flickers across her face while she crouches in front of me, her eyes fixed on mine with that same obsessive softness that makes rage crawl beneath my skin. “You still look at me like you hate me,” she murmurs quietly. I pull harder against the silver chains around my wrists. Pain slices through my skin instantly. “I do hate you.” Instead of anger, she smiles. Like hearing that means something to her. Like even my hatred is enough attention to make her happy. “You’ll stop eventually,” she whispers. “Once you understand that I love you more than she ever could.” The bond inside my chest burns harder at her words. Like she is somewhere close. My June is close. I know she is near. My wolf stirs violently beneath the silver poisoning our system, reacting to her presence instinctively. Tanya doesn't notice the change in me... that my wolf is fighting against the effects of silver
Caleb The first thing I notice is the smell. It reaches me before consciousness fully does, before I have even opened my eyes or understood where I am or why my arms will not move the way I am telling them to. It is rot and rust and something older than both, the kind of smell that settles into stone over years and decades and does not leave because nothing has ever come through to push it out. Animal carcasses, I think, when my brain starts working again. Something dead in the corner, maybe more than one thing, the sweet-sick heaviness of it layered under damp earth and mold and the particular cold that belongs only to rooms that have not seen light in a very long time. I open my eyes. The cell is stone. That is the clearest thing. Stone walls, stone floor, a ceiling low enough that standing upright would be a near thing even without whatever is currently holding my arms behind me. There is a single source of light, a lantern or something like it, sitting on a ledge cut into the
JuneI am sitting on the edge of the bed when it happens.The window is open a few inches and the night air moves through the curtain in slow, lazy waves. I have been listening to it for the past half hour, that soft pull and release of fabric, waiting for the sound of Caleb's footsteps in the hallway. He should have been here an hour ago. This is the first time he has been late... he is never late.I pick at a loose thread on the blanket and stare at the door and try to remember the last thing he said before he left. He had brushed his fingers along my jaw. Told me to sleep. Smiled that quiet smile that he saves for moments when it is only the two of us, like it is something he does not hand out easily. I had rolled my eyes and said I would, knowing full well I would not.I never sleep well when he is not here.It is strange, how quickly that happened. How fast my body decided that his presence was a thing it needed to function properly. Months ago I could sleep anywhere, on anything
IreneThere’s something about Stella that crawls under my skin in the worst way. At first, I told myself it was just jealousy, being a mate, she was trying to put a claim on Alexei when she felt threatened by my presence.But it’s not that anymore. If she truly cared for Alexei, if she loved him eve
AlexeiI quietly step inside the house, nudging the door closed behind me so it doesn’t make that usual creaking sound. I toe off my boots and place them on that wooden rack Irene shoved into the corner by the door, that she found in the store when we were redecorating the living room.Silly girl, a
AlexeiMy eyes roam her face, soaking in every detail. The soft curve of her cheek, the way her lashes brush the top of her skin when she blinks. But my gaze drops to her lips. They’re slightly parted, her breath brushing softly against my face, and my forehead leans into hers. That closeness, it’
AlexeiAs we pull into the driveway, I catch her looking out the window. Her face is calm, but her eyes are moving like she's soaking it all in. She doesn’t ask where we are, not even a whisper. She trusts me, or at least she’s trying to.Normally, the distance from the packhouse to my place can ea







