MasukSAGEI’ve noticed that shock does not scream. It hollowed. It carved you out from the inside and left you standing there, breathing, blinking, while your mind scrambled to catch up with reality.For a heartbeat—just one—I was certain I had misheard her.Then I saw it. The way the room froze. The way every single face mirrored what was tearing through me.Catel looked like the ground had dropped out from under him. His mouth parted slightly, his eyes fixed on his sister as if she had grown another face, another mouth speaking blasphemy where love used to live.Whatever bond he thought they shared fractured right there, audible in the silence.Claire’s words hung in the air like poison. Do you think you’re the only one with magic?Her laughter sliced through the stillness, unhinged. It wasn’t the mocking laughter she used to wield so carefully—it was manic now, frayed at the edges. The kind that belonged to people who had crossed a line and decided there was no going back.The other bri
SAGEShock didn’t hit me all at once.It came in slow, nauseating waves, each one heavier than the last, until my knees finally gave out and I was lying fully on Adam, that he had to sit down at the edge of the bed, legs stretched outward, my fingers curling into his shirt as if fabric could anchor me to reality.Claire was behind it all? How?Naomi’s confession still echoed in my ears, unfinished yet already devastating.My mind leapt ahead, unwillingly—to the rest of the truths that would soon spill, to the consequences waiting just beyond this room. To the vampires.They would be here soon. I could feel it in my bones, in the way the air seemed to tighten around my chest. The wards I had placed earlier , after getting the first truth, were thinning, stretched by my own unstable magic.Could I fight vampires?The thought wasn’t heroic. It was practical. Cold. Fear-edged.I reached inward, instinctively searching for El, for her voice that always cut through my spirals.El.Nothing.
SAGEI barely reacted when Claire scoffed and hauled herself to her feet, brushing imaginary dust from her clothes like she hadn’t just been pinned to the floor by my magic minutes ago.“So that’s it?” she snapped. “We’re just going to let her go because of some sob story and a few shared memories? A stupid misunderstanding?” Her lips curled, I was sure of it—it was a signature thing of hers. “She betrayed the pack. She deserves to die.”I didn’t answer her. I didn’t even look at her.My mind was still splintering around the truth I had just seen—truth that sat in my chest like a collapsing star, even as I yet remained in Adam’s comforting arms.With the mate bond open between us—with I pushing down the walls around mine immediately he reached for me, so he could see my remorse—I could see that he felt no ill will toward me. Actually, he felt relieved. Happy even. Not minding that his kingdom was about to be lit on fire.Still… I couldn’t forgive myself.The triplets were innocent.
SAGEI remembered the truth he was talking about.I remembered him turning back at the prison door, jaw tight, eyes burning with determination when he said he would get me out. Then, I remembered him saying he needed to speak to his father, that it wouldn’t take long. I remembered being left behind in that cell, cold stone biting into my skin, hope thinning with every passing second. Then, I remembered he talked about the chaos that followed my disappearance, at least as it had been described to me later, the pack thrown into uproar, warriors scrambling, voices raised in confusion and anger.Then I remembered him talking about his guilt, and almost madness at my disappearance.But that was not the truth I knew.My voice came out broken, a whisper scraped raw by years of screaming into silence. “Why,” I asked him, “would you not say the truth? Just once?”It didn’t matter that a truth was what I had seen in his eyes… because I just couldn't accept the implications…The room shifted,
SAGEBy the way, he had ruined it… I thought, suddenly remembering Adam’s statement. And his provoking question.He knew I was Maya. Something about a mark… How had he noticed that? Whatever, he had ruined it.The thought burned hotter than the magic thrumming beneath my skin.I had wanted this moment to be mine. I had wanted to peel the truth back slowly, to savor every second of dawning horror on their faces, to choose the exact instant I would say the names that haunted them. Maya. Dora. Sage. One soul, three lives, an unbroken chain of pain they had forged with their own hands.And Adam had taken that from me.The fury rose fast, cracking my composure and smile clean through. I snarled at him before I even realized I was moving, the sound ripping from my throat like an animal’s warning.“Why do I hurt you?” I scoffed, my voice trembling with something dangerously close to hysteria. “You hurt me first. All of you.”I swept my gaze across the room, taking them in one by one. The b
I had imagined this moment a thousand different ways.In some versions, Adam screamed. In others, he begged. Sometimes he went quiet in that hollow, terrifying way that meant something inside him had shattered beyond repair. I had rehearsed the angle of my smile, the tilt of my head, the exact cadence of my voice when I finally told him the truth.But reality?Reality tasted better.I watched it happen from the bed, watched comprehension ripple through the room like a slow-moving plague. Disbelief first. Then hurt. Then something darker, something rawer, carving its way into Adam’s face as if an unseen hand was peeling him open layer by layer.His brothers looked no better.Noah’s fury faltered, confusion edging into his glare. Daniel’s confidence cracked, eyes flicking between Adam and me as if he were trying to force the pieces to fit. Claire’s rage wavered, uncertainty tightening her mouth. Naomi looked lost. Rachel looked afraid, just like the others. After all, the vampires wer







