DAGNA'S POVTo make matters even more strange, if I strained my ears enough, I could make out the muffled sounds of someone rhythmically tapping on a tree with what sounded like an ax or a staff deeper into the woods, a little faster than the river I was lounging in. I had no idea how long I was in this alternate reality, but after a while it all began to fade away and I opened my eyes to find myself lying on my bed and realize that it had been a dream.Just as I tried to borrow back beneath the sheets, I realized that I could still hear the tapping on the tree and this time it was actually more distinct and sounded much closer, it took me a full minute to realize that it was actually the sound of knocking on my door and another minute before I groggily got out of bed and went to open the door. " Come downstairs," my father said as soon as I opened the door." Dinner is ready and I want to talk to you." He added before turning on his heels and going back the same way he came.With a
Vimon's point of view“That explains it then,” Kane finally said after a couple minutes of silence reaching for his glass of water.“Wait!” He called with the glass halfway to his lips, sounding like a man who had just made an ground breaking discovery.Because I killed him, not with my hands but still the same thing, a night after he fucked my brains out on a bed of fallen leaves.Of course I wasn't stupid enough to say that out loud, instead I said;“ I was looking out my window when I saw Alec come in with blood stained clothes, so of course I got curious and started asking questions.“ You mean he found out yesterday?” He asked.Didn't I just say that??“ Yes,” I said out loud, making a ‘that's what I just said’ gesture with my hands, wondering what he was getting at.“ I don't understand.”“ What don't you understand?”“ You said you saw him go into Ingrid's room yesterday with a bottle of liquor.”“ Yes I said that,” I replied, wondering if maybe, just maybe, my husband wasn't g
Aegon's point of view For some reason, no matter how hard I tried, and I did try; counting imaginative sheep, counting numbers backwards, and other supposedly sleep inducing activities, I ended up tossing and turning rather than getting any actual sleep.No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get my mind to take a break and stop showing me one particular image, an image of a petite young woman with very light skin (made even more pale after months of having little or no contact with the sun), in a gorgeous little mauve number that outlined her subtle curves and contrasted beautifully with her pale skin, her ginger hair swept up in some kind of hairstyle that had curls escaping to tease at the nape and making me itch to reach out and twirl those curls around my finger, with her full and plump lips that looked like there were just begging for a kiss, and her big baby blue eyes. She looks so fucking gorgeous that it almost makes me ache to look at her. It's so imprinted itself on my br
Ingrid's point of view It was my first moment of real amusement (even if it was at my own expense) in approximately twenty four hours. Kane gave me a ‘what's funny?’ look as he leaned over to fill my plate and I smiled at him and shrugged my shoulders. Half an hour later, we were all almost or at the very least halfway done with dinner, and Vimon still hadn't said anything about why she summoned me to dinner. In fact , she and Kane had done nothing but keep up a continuous chatter on a variety of topics, asking Aegon and I if we remembered a variety of funny incidents, telling each other anecdotes and laughing so hard that both Aegon and I had to get up and thump their backs to stop them from choking more than once. I had finally concluded that whatever she wanted to tell me was personal and she didn't want to speak in front Kane and Aegon and had decided to wait till after dinner, when Aegon spoke for the first time ( he hadn't said a word all night, sitting there as quiet as a r
Nico's point of viewStepping into the living room from my room and looking through the domed doorway into the open kitchen to see Levin setting a stack of pancakes on the table, and Krystal turning the crank on the manual juicer they had always used, brought a smile to my face and tears to my eyes.“ Thank you great goddess and you too Jesus Christ,” I said offering gratitude to both the werewolf supreme deity as well as the deity Levin had served in the human world, whose temple was huge with stained glass windows and murals on the walls in the photographs he still kept of his old life among the humans.I had prayed to both of them when Levin and Krystal were captured to save them, I had no way of knowing which of them had done the actual saving,or if they had joined hands, so I offered thanks and gratitude to both of them, they could settle it between themselves up there in whatever sort of houses deities lived in.Setting the pack and knee length boots in my hands down,I lopped i
Wally's point of viewFor the upteemth time I cursed the fact that I had not been able to clone myself.If I had succeeded I would have sent a clone rather than this nincompoops in front of me to watch that stupid son of a bitch Nickolas, and I wouldn't have to sit here and listen to their disjointed explanations.“ Stop, stop, stop,” I said, raising a hand to stop the taller one from the completely incomprehensible blabbering chatter he had fallen into.“ You are going to explain everything to me step by step, like a pair of five year old twins with learning disabilities, since that's what you really are.”“ Now Yladf, “ I said pointing at the shorter and more rotund one.“ According to you, you heard Nico talking to that old fart about going hunting today?”“ Yes, they were gathering acorns from under the tree beside the one I was hiding on, and he said he needed to go into the woods to clear his head and figure out what he wanted to with his life, now that he had dropped the vendet
Nico's point of view“ You're just projecting Krystal's worry and fear,” I told myself. “ Now get your mind on the task at hand and off silly worries.”But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get the thought of the cottage, Levin and Krystal, along with an unexplainable feeling of something being seriously wrong, or something about to go wrong.By this time the sun had come up, and as I went through all the motions of; setting traps, getting my collapsible bow and quiver out of my pack and slinging them over my shoulder, none of those tasks had my full attention, my mind divided between the tasks and the incomprehensible burden of worry.Just when I was thinking it couldn't get worse, I sat down to eat, opened the bag of food Krystal had given me to reveal a bunch of sandwiches and a big bag of homemade trail mix, and suddenly it got three times worse.I actually felt a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes and when I took a bite of a sandwich I felt like I was eating her foo
Nico's point of viewA soft but incessant murmur of voices has me slowly drifting into consciousness, and although I don't open my eyes,I slowly come awake, the dreams or memories, whatever there are slowly fade as well, or at least most of it.There's one part of it that remains with me though, and it's the feeling of a cooling cloth handled by soft and capable hands continuously moving around my face and my torso, and it's what finally pushes me to open my eyes.I'm so groggy that I don't recognize the man sitting beside me with a washcloth and a metal bowl of water, not even when he smiles does recognition kick in.“ You really have to let me in on whatever you did to yourself and your wolf,” he said, dunking the wash cloth in the bowl and wringing it out before folding it and letting it rest on my forehead. “ No one who saw you now would believe you had been so badly hurt barely twelve hours ago, even for a werewolf your healing is way too fast.”“ The only adverse effect was the
Ingrid's POV Protector of the jeweiThe texts spoke of an ancient guardian tied to the Jewel of Light. A protector no, a curse bearer. One who fell from grace when the first pact between humans and wolves was broken centuries ago.And I, somehow, had triggered that story’s next chapter.But why?What made me different?Why had the jewel called to me?The door creaked open behind me.I turned instantly, muscles tense, wolf alert. But it wasn’t an intruder.It was Vimon.She didn’t speak right away. Just stepped inside and shut the door behind her with a soft thud.“I know you’re not okay,” she said quietly.I bit my lip, fighting the urge to cry again. I was so tired of crying.“I don’t want to talk about him.”“I wasn’t going to bring him up,” she said, walking closer. “I came because I found something.”She reached into the folds of her cloak and pulled out a small, jagged shard blue, glowing faintly.My breath caught.“That’s from the jewel,” I whispered.Vimon nodded. “And it reek
Aegon’s POVThe scent of blood still lingered in the air.Not fresh… but recent enough to haunt me.I stood at the edge of the hallway where Ingrid had stumbled into the house just hours ago, shaken, pale, her eyes glazed with a kind of fear I hadn’t seen in her since the war with the rogue packs. And she hadn’t said much not really. Just parts and Pieces.The library.A man.A shadow.A voice she recognized but couldn’t name.She had trembled in my arms, and for once… she hadn’t pulled away.But now, as the full moon drew closer, so did the weight of my failures. The cracks I had put in her. The pain I had inflicted, knowingly and not. It was in the way she winced when she moved. The way her voice wavered when she said she didn’t see his face.And gods help me, it was in the way she didn’t look at me when she passed by.“Alpha.” Nico’s voice snapped me out of the trance. He stood at the end of the hallway, brows furrowed, jaw clenched tight. “We need to talk.”I gave a curt nod and f
The Shattering ThreadAegon’s POVThe moon had begun its silent climb, inching over the horizon with a dreadful glow, tainting the clouds with shades of blood and silver. Even before I saw it, I felt it. The pull. The pressure in my chest that intensified with every breath. The pack was restless wolves pacing, growling lowly under their breath, instincts sharpening.I stood at the balcony, the stone cold beneath my palms, eyes fixed on the treetops beyond the palace walls. Hoia Baciu was cloaked in fog and shadow, as though it too braced itself for what was coming. The air was thick, electric. And I knew we were out of time.A low knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Nico.“She’s not getting any better,” he said, his voice quiet but heavy with urgency. “And if tonight really is what we think it is... we might lose her.”My fingers clenched against the stone.“I won’t let that happen,” I said, but even to my own ears, the promise fel
The Calm Before the StormAegon POV The air had changed. It carried a strange pressure, thick like fog yet dry like ash. My wolf stirred beneath my skin, unsettled. I stood by the window, watching the moon slowly climb, not yet full but dangerously close.I could feel it tonight would be different.Theo lay asleep in the other room. For his sake, I hoped nothing happened. But deep down, I knew hope was a luxury none of us could afford anymore.There was something coming. Something ancient and Something dark.IngridI felt the pulse before I saw the moon.It throbbed in my chest like a second heartbeat, louder than blood, louder than breath. I gripped the windowsill, the cold biting into my palms. Something was wrong.I wasn’t just afraid, I was being warned.Whispers curled through the corners of my mind. Not words, not exactly just echoes of pleas Screams. The Jewel of Light hummed from wherever it was hidden, responding to the rise of the full moon. I didn’t know what it meant but
preparing for the full MoonNico & Vimon's POVThe air was thick with tension as the days inched closer to the full moon. The scent of magic had grown stronger, more pungent, crawling along the wind like a warning whispered through the trees. Nico stood at the edge of the forest, eyes narrowed on the horizon where the blood moon would soon rise, heralding chaos.Something was wrong. Deeply wrong.Vimon had sensed it too—her instincts prickling like needles beneath her skin, each breath laced with unease. They had both kept watch over Ingrid, noting every tremor in her step, every flicker of unnatural pain behind her eyes. The mate bond was breaking her apart, but more than that, it was as though something more dangerous had taken hold of her soul.And now, they had only days before the full moon. The night when power surged, when darkness stirred from the roots of the earth, hungry for blood and legacy.Nico turned to Vimon, who stood beside him, arms crossed tightly. She wore a cloak
the confrontation Aegon's POV The air was thick with tension as Aegon stormed through the halls of the pack house, his mind racing, his heart pounding with fury and confusion. Every step felt like a punishment. His thoughts were clouded with the image of Ingrid her hurt, her pain, the betrayal that had cut deep into both of them. But now there was something else consuming him, something that gnawed at the edge of his mind like an insistent whisper.Dagna.Her face, her actions everything about her reeked of manipulation, of a calculated attempt to get what she wanted. And now, Aegon was beginning to piece together the darker truth of her involvement in all of this. He had been blinded by his own pride and confusion but the time for denial was over.He found her in one of the sitting rooms, standing by the window, her back to him as she stared out at the darkening landscape. The moon was rising, casting its eerie glow over everything, a reminder of the night to come, the night that w
The breaking point Aegon’s Reaction Aegon had been carrying a weight he could no longer ignore, though he tried his hardest to bury it under layers of indifference and pride. The moon was rising, and with it, so was the tension that had coiled tightly in his chest ever since he had betrayed Ingrid.The moment he had slept with Dagna the woman who had once been his lover, the woman who was now out for revenge he had convinced himself it was all a mistake. That it didn’t mean anything. But deep down, somewhere far beneath the surface, he knew the truth. It meant something, at least to her. To Ingrid.He’d convinced himself that he was still in control. He was the Alpha and The leader. The one who made the rules. But every time he saw Ingrid every time he felt the pull of their bond. it became harder to keep up the lie.When he had returned that night, his blood still buzzing with the memory of Dagna’s touch, he had expected Ingrid to be asleep, to avoid him as she usually did. He hadn
She mustn't dieNico’s POVThe pieces didn’t fit. at least, not the way everyone else seemed to force them to. Ingrid’s condition, Aegon’s erratic behavior, Vimon’s sudden distrust of Dagna, and the disappearance of the Jewel of Light… all were signs of a puzzle no one wanted to solve. But I couldn’t ignore it. Not anymore.He had been watching and observing from afar for so long enough.It began the moment he saw the haunted look in Ingrid’s eyes after she collapsed in the storeroom. He had been one of the first to find her, though she never saw him. He stayed hidden, watching as her body trembled from an invisible pain no one could understand. That kind of agony wasn’t physical. It was something darker, deeper.Something supernatural.Nico started his investigations quietly. He didn’t trust anyone not even Aegon, who had become increasingly unstable. He dug through old records of magical rituals involving mate bonds and the Jewel of Light. What he found chilled him to the bone. The
She mustn't dieNico’s POVThe pieces didn’t fit. at least, not the way everyone else seemed to force them to. Ingrid’s condition, Aegon’s erratic behavior, Vimon’s sudden distrust of Dagna, and the disappearance of the Jewel of Light… all were signs of a puzzle no one wanted to solve. But I couldn’t ignore it. Not anymore.He had been watching and observing from afar for so long enough.It began the moment he saw the haunted look in Ingrid’s eyes after she collapsed in the storeroom. He had been one of the first to find her, though she never saw him. He stayed hidden, watching as her body trembled from an invisible pain no one could understand. That kind of agony wasn’t physical. It was something darker, deeper.Something supernatural.Nico started his investigations quietly. He didn’t trust anyone not even Aegon, who had become increasingly unstable. He dug through old records of magical rituals involving mate bonds and the Jewel of Light. What he found chilled him to the bone. Ther