CADE
I’ve seen blood spilled and new life born, I’ve seen alphas fall and others rise, and everything in between.
None of it compares to this.
Rowan’s wolf rises under the moon, her fur—a creamy white with darker silver coming through—ripples like liquid starlight across her body. Power radiates from her in waves, wrapping around me until I can barely breathe, and still, I’m on one knee, practically bowing before her. Not out of weakness. Out of awe.
This is no cursed prophecy. No abomination born of Hollowborn blood and wolf. She is something new, something beyond the laws the Council clings to. She is fire and fury and salvation wrapped in one impossible creature.
Her eyes find mine. At first, I think they’re golden, but with the slightest tilt of her head, I see silver, then blue. Could she possibly carry the colors of all six packs?The thought slips away before I can think too hard about what that might mean.
For this moment, it’s not about what may or may not come.
It’s just me and Rowan.
Seeing her when I crashed through the window knocked me back, but now? I swear the bond between us roars alive unlike anything I’ve experienced, a tether pulled so tight it hurts to breathe. My wolf presses against my skin, howling his reverence, begging me to shift and stand beside her.
Mate,he growls, desperate and unyielding.Ours. Finally.
My chest aches with this connection, and for the first time in years, I don’t fight what the fates have given me. I let the bond sing through me, let the reverence shake me to my bones. Because Rowan isn’t just a Hollowborn or wolf or Ashmark.
SheisAlpha.
And gods help anyone who tries to take her from me.
Chapter 15
ROWAN
It only takes a second for my wolf to rein in her hormones. That doesn’t mean they vanish—oh no, they’re still simmering under the surface—but at least I’m not in immediate danger of embarrassing myself by, say, lunging at Cade like he’s a steak dinner. Small victories.
Except Cade is still frozen in place, and by judging the look on his face, he might be the one with bigger problems for once.
I try to ask him if he’s okay, but then I remember I’m not me. I’m her, the wolf. And yet, that doesn’t feel like two separate things anymore. Every step she takes, every thought I try to form, stitches us tighter together, thread by thread, until it’s hard to tell where Rowan ends and wolf begins.
If you hadn’t spent so much time thinking you were human, maybe this wouldn’t come as such a shock, that same voice from before says with a sprinkle of snark. Shesounds a lot like me, but at the same time, older and more refined and possibly more bitchy.
First off, manners, I snap back.Nice to meet you, too. Second, it’s not like I knew what I was and avoided it.
She huffs, and I swear I canseeher wolfish eyes roll.But you wanted to. You didn’t want our mate. I’m going to change that.
Ah, so she has a bone to pick with me already.
Or is it that I have a bone to pick with myself?
This is going to be interesting.
I think we got off on the wrong…paw, I start to say but she cuts me off.
Not now.Her attention, which becomes mine as well, zeroes in on Cade.
And okay, fair. Because the man is staring at us with this perfect storm of reverence, patience, and hunger that makes my new fur bristle in ways I didnotauthorize.
We move closer, silent paws on the earth, breath syncing like we’ve always done this. Her head lowers until there’s only a whisper of space between us and him.
He closes the gap, pressing his forehead against the side of our face, his voice a low rumble that hits harder than any command. “I knew you could do it.”
Right. I almost forgot how supportive he’d been when I was failing at what everyone said would be natural for me.
