LOGINSkyeIt is not, in fact, all over. “What?” I croak while Mom aggressively fluffs my pillows and settles me upright in my bed. I was right–I’m in my old room in my parents’ house in Moonrise. Thick, impenetrable curtains hang from my windows, blocking out ninety percent of the sunlight, only allowing strips that Alex seems to walk through without any issues. I don’t remember anything, save for the first moments of the attack and glimmers of hazy images of my dad’s office before it all grows black and blurry. “The Alpha of Aurorium wants someone to take the fall for the murders,” Maeve, who spirited into the room ten minutes ago, explains with overt annoyance. She’s perched on the edge of my bed, dressed casually in a dark red sweater and matching pants, with her extraordinarily thick brown hair piled messily on top of her head. Kenna left the room twenty minutes ago. To do what, I have no idea, but Alex remains, pacing and tapping his fingertips on his chin while watching every brea
SkyeI’m dead. I must be because I open my eyes to grainy sunlight highlighting a room I’d be able to see fully in the dark. I know this shallow, cream-colored carpet. I know there’s a bright purple nail polish stain in the corner of the walk-in closet on the far side of the room, hidden beneath a stack of boxes. I doubt my parents know it’s there. There’re three windows along the wall–circular and wide. My grandma Leona fussed so much over the fact that Dad designed windows no one could make curtains for, and by some miracle, she managed it herself. But the curtains in my childhood bedroom aren’t… familiar. They’re different. Thick and black, they block out the majority of the light, only letting fractals of what I believe is the sunset through. Am I in hell? Is this what it looks like? Being thrust back into my awkward teenage years? I fist the comforter–velvet corduroy–my favorite. I turn my head away from the strip of light flickering over the room and watch speckles play acros
AlexBlake looks at me for a long, long time. His stare is exactly like Skye’s–unyielding, expectant, and unnaturally violet. She wasn’t wrong about that. I’m the one who breaks from his gaze to look down at my filthy hands. They’re caked in Kai’s and Skye’s blood. It doesn’t feel like enough. Ripping him into sections before tearing his head clean off his shoulders doesn’t feel like enough. I curl my hands into fists. The woman, the queen, which is the only person she can be, cautiously moves around the desk in my direction. “Skye’s pregnant?” She’s just as beautiful as Skye described, with thick, dark brown hair and sea-green eyes that swirl with power I can taste. The other man, the one who kindly shut the curtains to shield me from the spray of sunlight ghosting through the clouds, does not move to stop the woman who is, obviously, based on their mingled scents, his mate. She is in charge. But she’s not nearly as powerful as Skye’s father. That’s really, really fucking clear.
BlakeThe man falls to the ground in a flurry of goose down, black nylon, and a shower of glass at the very second royal warriors burst through my office door. I can’t breathe. My lungs strain against the torrent of panic driving every move I make as I whirl to the warriors storming the room and shout for them to subdue the stranger, but I can’t hear my own voice over the rapid thunder of my heartbeat in my ears. My daughter is lying lifeless on the carpet of my office. The same office she grew up in, spent entire days rolling my crystal spheres across the carpet and racing around on Soren’s shoulders. I see her like that now–a child. Rage storms my senses. My roar of fury threatens to splinter the windows as my knees hit the ground by her head. I reach down, trying to gather what’s left of her in my arms. Kenna bursts into the room, breathless, her silver eyes wide and frantic as she reaches my side. “HELP!” I shout, clutching Skye to my chest. “Kenna!”“Lay her down!” Kenna is
AlexThere is nothing in my head but red violence as I sprint out onto the ice. Students out for a stroll in their wolf forms dart away, but I’m a blur of motion. I’ll pay dearly for this. I can’t return to campus, that’s for sure. The ever-present darkness is my only cover. I have no idea where I’m going, but forward is my only option. Forward, forward, running miles in minutes I’m not sure I have. I’m a fucking idiot. I underestimated her. I think I underestimated her love for me, if I’m being totally, brutally honest with myself. Skye protected my secrets with her entire soul. I should have seen it in her eyes when she began to notice something was gravely wrong when I asked her to marry me. I should have seen it in her eyes when I left her this morning. She knew Kai tried making a deal with me. She’s so powerful. She might have had a shot at fixing this for both of us if Kai wasn’t like me–but worse. Wind rips over the ice, nearly knocking me on my side, but I keep going, ignori
SkyeAlex takes my trembling hands. “Everything is going to be okay.”“How?” My heart races. Guilt and uncertainty tangle into a ball of yarn in my brain that I’ll never be able to unwind. “You don’t–you can’t possibly want this. Especially not now.”“I do, and we’re going to figure it out. I’m more concerned about the fact that you’re about to go through a hybrid pregnancy.” He sits beside me on the bed, smoothing his hand down my back. “My great aunt Emory,” he explains, taking a deep breath. “She was a shifter, similar to you. Full shifter, though, and her pregnancy with my uncle Michael was… terrible.”“How so?”“I don’t have all the details given that this story was told to me as a teenager–something meant to keep me from pursuing shifters for their own safety, I suppose.” He grits his teeth, but I feel oddly light. “Were you a major flirt or something?”“No.” He laughs, winding his arm around my back and tugging me close. “I was not. If anything, I was awkward and terrified of
RyanAviva doesn’t scream. She stares up at me with her normal, slightly bored, yet skeptical, expression she naturally wears. I’m relieved, but a little unsure, as she goes perfectly still.The mist fades until there’s nothing between us, nothing
AvivaRyan walks in alone, his unfamiliar companion rushing back down the stairs away from the house. He’s slightly unkempt, like he’d been to the sawmill, wood shavings sticking to his clothes and hair.There’s a new scent being carried on his clo
Aviva“I can’t–you’re in heat. It’s my beast. It wants you bred, and I’m–” He starts to pull out, but I stop him, writhing in a way I know he loves. “Fuck, Aviva. Goddess, you’re making this–impossible.”
MistyEverything that happened over the last forty-eight hours is a blur. One moment, I was sitting on the floor of Cole’s trashed bedroom, talking in low tones as he packed his meager belongings into a worn backpack. The next, he donned his cloak and left, and almost nine hours later, returned to me







