Whole in a way I never knew I wasn’t.
I push myself up from the ground, and my body moves with an easy grace I’m not used to. The world looks different now—sharper, moredetailed. I can see the individual threads in Wes’s shirt, count the freckles across his nose, track the rapid flutter of his pulse beneath his skin.
Colors are richer, sounds have texture, and every scent tells a story. The garden isn’t just beautiful—it’s alive in ways I never understood. I can feel the roots spreading beneath the soil, sense the slow growth of bark on trees, hear the whispered conversations of leaves in the wind.
“Gray?” Wes whispers.
I turn to look at him, and his eyes go wide. Whatever he sees in my face makes him take a step back.
But it’s not fear. It’s awe.
I try to convey that I’m fine, letting out a soft whine and tilting my head toward Wes in what I hope looks reassuring.
Stellan crosses his arms, looking satisfied. “He’s fine. Better than fine. Shifter magic finally caught up with him.”
“Wolf,” Thane adds, and there’s something like pride in his tone. “A dire wolf from the looks of it. I wondered when you’d stop fighting it.”
Wes’s eyes widen. “Those are the extinct ones, right?”
Stellan chuckles. “Not anymore.”
A dire wolf. I can’t believe it, but as the realization works through me, I feel like I might actually be able to protect the people I love.
The thought of her sends a pang through my chest, but even that feels different now. More focused. Less desperate.
I close my eyes and let my new senses expand, cataloging everything around me. The garden’s living pulse, the distant soundsfrom the sanctuary, the way magic moves through the air like visible currents.
That’s when I hear it.
A soft sound drifting from one of the sanctuary windows. At first I think it’s just noise, an echo. But then the cadence registers—low, rhythmic, intimate. A sound I’ve heard in the dark when it was only us.
A woman’s voice. Moaning.
My blood turns to ice.
I know that voice. I’ve memorized every sound she makes, every breath, every whispered word. It’s Bree. It has to be Bree. The thought steadies me for half a heartbeat—before the sound registers for what it is. Not fear. Not pain. Pleasure. The kind of breathless, desperate sound she makes when—
“No,” I breathe.
The others look at me sharply, but I’m already moving, my enhanced hearing tracking the sound to its source. It’s coming from her bedroom. From the room where Jace said he was going to keep her company.
The calm I just found shatters like glass.
Because if that’s really Bree—if the woman we all thought was safe and healing is making those sounds with Jace—then what the hell happened in that chamber?
And why does something that should feel like joy leave me cold with the certainty that everything we think we know is wrong?
Chapter 6
Jace
The bedroom door clicks shut behind us with a soft finality that makes my pulse spike.
Actually alone. I can’t remember the last time Bree and I were alone with a bed.
Well, there was that time I brought her all those clothes—sweaters and pajamas and that soft green blanket that reminded me of her eyes when she actually smiles. We sat on her bed while I showed her everything, but it never even crossed my mind to… Gods, she was so fragile then. So breakable. The idea of making a move would have been like kicking a wounded bird.
She’s always been so careful about boundaries, about making sure we’re never in a position where things could get complicated. Even that morning when she kissed me in the backyard—told me I wasn’t expendable, that I was everything—she pulled back before it could turn into more. Made us holy-shit-we’re-alive pancakes while she teased me about kissing being “exhausting.”
