before I could as

omething with weight. Adrian's hand closed around my wrist, and I felt, absurdly, how careful his grip was even then - strong enoug

ov

he

that isn

r as three shapes crossed the ridge - rogues, eyes burning red under the moon, matted fur catching the light in ways that looked a

n hour ago. Something colder had taken her place, som

he forest," she called, her voice c

of me, his whole body a wall betwee

r father

efore I understood it - whatever she'd just said had landed somewhe

the truth

you're

lder, and where the Alpha had stood a moment before, an enormous black wolf now crouched between me and the dark - silver markings glowing faintly along his spine, bigger and more beautiful than

ngle word rising up through the fear like

moving far from me, tearing through the first two before a third slipped past him and came st

arms up o

terly foreign to anything I understood about myself. The rogue went flying backward into the dark, and fo

true,"

o a stranger, the light fading slowly from my fingert

Elena," Seraphina sa

what

something almost accus

man shape just long enough to say it, blo

t hide he

ike grief, the kind of look you give someone you're about to lose and can't stop. "Ask him why your mother was murdered," she sa

nd she was gone. "My mother

dn't

u k

louder than I expected, and he didn't move, didn't f

ing to pro

humiliating me in fro

was worse than any excuse would have

admit. My hands shook as I opened it. One line, in handwriting I didn't recognize as hers because I'd never been allowed to know her

d she wri

h at the edges. "The Council ordered me to reject you tonigh

g under my skin, a low static that

l warm in my palm - "belongs to a bloodline that was supposed to have disa

d m

what sca

, more coming through the trees behind them. Adrian's face went hard and certain in a way I hadn't seen yet, an Alpha doing math with lives in real

st your own Co

N

e you still

ry long time, the weight of it finally showing through the cracks. "I knew the second I saw you tonight that you were mine," he said quietly. "If I'd claimed the

wanted, badly,

t even standing three feet from Adrian at his most commanding, when even grown warriors instinctively lowered their eyes. I'd always assumed she was simply braver than most, that

t. Adrian's expression snapped back into place

ave t

a strip from my sleeve without asking and wrapped it around the wound while we moved; his eyes stayed on my fac

corched wood thick enough to taste. And on the steps of the Alpha's hall, the oldest member of the Council was

went still around us, hundreds of eyes turning tow