e didn't go to class. She didn't answer her phone. The world of Northbridge University, of coffee and lectures and a boy with crimso

door meetings with the other Alphas who came to pay their respects. Skye could hear their low, rumbling voices through the floorboards-words like "retribution," "al

study, sharpening a long, ceremonial dagger. The soun

rway, clutching her mother's diary to her chest like a shield. "It's what he wants. Mom's diary..

ed your mother, Skye. He slaughtered her like an animal and left h

roat. "She believed in peace! She wrote about the myth of the Golden Wo

r, were now chips of flint. The love in them was buried deep beneath a glacier

then, we march." He walked past her, pausing to place a heavy hand on her shoulder. "

t a piece of her heart break off and wither. He was already gone, lost

hospitalized a human. Every movement was a fresh reminder of his father's "lessons." The memory of the ambush his father had so casually mentioned h

efiant golden eyes were the only thing that felt real. She was an anchor to

ollowed him. But her seat was empty. He checked the library, the café, the bench

faux sympathy. "Looking for your little stray puppy, D

anna?" he growled, hi

sudden leave of absence. Family emergency. Something tragic , apparently." She looked up, her eye

with his father's ambush. A terrible, impossible suspicion began to take root in his mind,

n of an Alpha, and he had resources. It took one phone call and a veiled

remains of no consequence." But as he pulled up to the modest house on the edge of the forest, he kn

ked on

de hair lank and unwashed. Her stunning golden eyes were red rimmed and swollen, hollowed out

confusion warring with her sorrow. "De

voice softer than he'd ever used with anyone. "Yo

searched his, and he saw the moment the pieces clicked together in her mind. The

letely. Her grip on the doorframe ti

," she whispered, the

fused by the terror

sting the poison on her tongue. "Son of

rway, to her shattered expression, to the h

gan, but the words

h a fury that seemed to radiate heat. "Your f

suspicion was confirmed. The ambush his father

ad fallen for was the daughter of his father's greatest

for the grief that

tinctive gesture. "Skye, I didn't kn

The golden eyes that had once held a spark of challen

r voice low and venomous. "Get away

let me

t. "Explain what? How your father sank his claws into my m

ng you said... everything you did... was it all a lie? Was this part

s real! You have

both literal and figurative, was slamming sh

," she said, her voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Now g

his face. The sound was

er's brutality finally, fully revealed in its most devastating form. He

a wolf from the nearby forest sounded less like a call