LOGINSpeaking to it? The question followed me like a dare, soft and incredulous, and I almost laughed out loud—right there in the dark of my room where the window threw a pale strip of moon across the floorboards. Darius had said it as if it were obvious, like noticing when a candle went out. Speaking to it. Speaking to someone in my head.Of course he would suspect.My first impulse was to tell him to mind his own prophecy-haunted business. My second was to consider, for a heartbeat too long, whether I should tell him the truth.I snorted at myself in the next second. Why would I ever trust anyone with that—worse, with him? Yes, there was kinship there, maybe, a mirror of age and weariness that might lure the gullible into confiding; it almost lured me into imagining explanations of what El was, what I possibly was. Almost.No. I slapped my palms together to crowd out the dangerous softness of the idea. Not now. Not ever. The plan was too close to fruition to be blithely shared.I had
I stared at Darius for a long moment, unsure if I'd heard him correctly. A prophecy? That was what had dragged an ancient creature across half the world? I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to ask him to start again, slower this time."What kind of prophecy?" I asked finally, voice softer than I intended.My mind was already spinning ahead, rifling through everything I remembered from the dusty books I'd devoured back in the secret caves of the Queen— before everything changed. The Ancients weren't supposed to exist anymore. The last records of them placed their kind far away, in the Xanthenk Mountains, buried within the icy ridges and mist-laden caverns of that region. Back when the supernatural world was younger, they'd ruled entire empires built on magic that predated the witches. Then, they vanished. Gone before the world had learned how to name half of its monsters. Well, they had been attacked, annihilated.If that incident hadn't happened, what shape would the supernatural wor
SAGE"We didn't even do much there," Isla complained the second the driver dropped us off in front of the house. Her heels clicked against the stone path as she stomped toward the porch, her voice still full of that frustrated whine she'd carried all night. "We didn't even enjoy the feast I saw there… not really."I rolled my eyes, already reaching for the keys. "I wasn't there to feast," I said, unlocking the door. "I was there to put the second stage of the plan in motion."That shut her up for all of three seconds. Then came the inevitable frown. "And what exactly is obtainable in that, Sage?" she asked, brushing past me into the dimly lit sitting room. "You get to be some high-ranking official—so what? To what end? You should've just asked for the throne and saved us all the trouble."I turned to her, one brow raised, a small, amused smile tugging at my lips. "And what use would the throne be to me?""To rule maybe?" Isla shot back, collapsing onto the velvet sofa with a dramati
ADAMOddly enough, I was pleased—actually pleased—that Sage had just sidelined Darius. A dangerous thought, if there ever was one. The moment she said he wasn't needed for the dome casting, I had to stop myself from smirking. It wasn't just the satisfaction of watching Darius's composure falter; it was something deeper, a strange sense of contentment that came from her decision. And that irritated me. Since when did her choices dictate my mood?I scoffed under my breath, masking it as a cough, while my gaze drifted toward Darius. He was staring at Sage as if she were a puzzle he hadn't been given enough pieces to solve. I couldn't even blame him—half the time, I was trying to understand her myself. The woman was a contradiction wrapped in fire and silk: fierce one moment, calm the next, unreadable always.Darius's expression shifted slightly when he turned to look at me. There was a flicker of something—defiance? amusement?—before he leaned back, cool as ever. "I want to be around
SAGEEvery eye in the tent turned toward me, after Adam's question, after his defense of why he had given me a choice to choose. The silence was almost alive—breathing, waiting. Even the night air that filtered through the open canopy felt charged, trembling between curiosity and fear. A beautiful something.I liked that feeling. It was power. It was control beginning to take shape. It was plans beginning to fall in alignment.A soft smile curled on my lips as I let my gaze wander lazily over the crowd—faces stiff with expectation, a few turned away as if unwilling to meet my eyes. Their discomfort was delicious, sating, arousing. Then my gaze found him.Adam.For the first time that evening, I really looked at him. Like really appraised him. The real King of the entire region—his brothers were just lame figure heads, the male who had been watching me like a challenge wrapped in silk since the games.He looked… annoyingly good. But then, was there ever a time he wasn't? Ever a time
ADAMThe moment she stepped into the tent, everything else seemed to blur.Sage.Every inch of her commanded attention—the fluid grace of her movements, the way the light from the hovering crystals caught in her hair, spilling faint gold across her shoulders. The gown she wore was soft blue, shimmering like moonlight over water, and it clung to her curves as if it had been stitched onto her skin. Every step she took was deliberate, confident, unhurried, yet every muscle in my body tightened as though I were standing before prey and temptation all at once.My wolf stirred immediately.Mine.The word was quiet, dangerous, and primal—echoing deep within me, rising with every breath she took. It was ridiculous. I clenched my jaw, forcing the beast back, but the pull only deepened when her scent reached me—warm, a mix of lilac and faint smoke, an intoxicating contradiction that I couldn't seem to shake since the first time she had stood before me.She was beautiful, yes—but that wasn't w







