Thalia’s POV
I haven't slept in three days.
The mirror in the compound bathroom confirms it: hollow eyes, skin too thin across sharpened cheekbones, hair in a knot that stopped being intentional around hour forty. I look like a woman holding a crumbling kingdom together with her bare hands.
Lysander's car pulls through the compound gate at dawn. I watch from the front steps as he unfolds from the driver's seat looking road-worn and wired, hours of highway etched into the shadows under his eyes.
The woman who steps out of the passenger side stops me mid-sip of cold coffee.
Blonde hair and blue eyes. Bone structure that catches the early light in ways that feel familiar, though I can't place why. She scans the compound with careful awareness—measuring distances, noting exits, cataloging threats the way someone trained in assessment would.
"Thalia," Lysander pulls me into a hug tighter than usual, his wolf vibrating close to the surface. "How bad?"
"Worse than what I told you. Two more attacks since we spoke—the eastern safe house yesterday morning and the school perimeter fence last night. Nobody was hurt at the school, but the message was clear: they can reach our children whenever they want."
"And Kieran?"
"Inside. Elara examined him for six hours and found nothing supernatural left in his system. The compound burned it out like acid through wire."
"Can it be reversed?"
"She doesn't know. She's never seen anything like it, and the hunters didn't leave enough residue for analysis," I glance at the blonde hovering near the car. "You brought company."
"Thalia, this is Caroline Montgomery. She's—"
The name hits me like a slap. I look at her again—blonde hair, blue eyes, hunter bloodline carved into every feature. "You brought her into my compound during a hunter siege? Have you lost your mind?"
"She's not... She's a lawyer whose father ran the family business. She’s my mate."
"Hi," Caroline steps forward with a steady hand extended. "I understand this is complicated, and I'm not expecting a warm welcome. Lysander asked me to come, and I'm here to help however I can."
"Help," I don't take her hand. "Your family's organization was burning down our business in Colorado, I suppose? Explain to me how you plan to help with that."
"I have access to my father's files. If it’s somehow connected to Montgomery operations, those files might contain intelligence you can use."
I study her for a long moment. She's scared—I can smell it beneath her composure—but she's not lying. The earnestness is either genuine or the best performance I've seen since my sister Lia used to cry on command.
"She stays under constant watch," I tell Lysander. "If she moves outside designated areas without escort, my wolves will treat her as hostile."
"Fair enough," Caroline says before he can argue. "I'd do the same in your position."
I lead them inside. The main house still smells like smoke from Magnus's residence three blocks away—the old Alpha's home reduced to blackened beams and ash in the time it took fire crews to respond.
Wolves patrol hallways in pairs, tension radiating off every body I pass, and conversations die when Caroline enters rooms. Heads turn, nostrils flare, and I watch pack members register the same thing I did.
"They're staring at me," Caroline murmurs to Lysander.
"They can smell you're human. During wartime, that draws attention."
"It's more than that," I tell her. "You look like someone they've been taught to fear since childhood. Whether that's fair doesn't change the instinct."
Kieran is in the living room. The sight of him stops Lysander in the doorway.
My husband sits in the armchair by the window, wearing a sweater that hangs loose—weight already dropping without the supernatural metabolism that maintained his Alpha build.
His skin has a grayish undertone, human circulation struggling to compensate for systems that no longer function. His eyes, when he looks up, are just brown.
No golden flicker, no Alpha luminescence, no wolf looking out from behind the human face. He looks diminished in ways that have nothing to do with physical size and everything to do with the absence of something fundamental.
I sit on the couch across from him, close enough to touch but not touching. The space between us holds the shape of everything we've lost—the mate bond that should pulse between Alpha and Luna.
Gone, replaced by ordinary silence.
"Brother," Lysander crouches beside Kieran's chair. "Tell me everything."
"Thalia said two wolves died. Jensen and Cora. Twenty years of pack service, and they never saw it coming because the hunters knew exactly where they'd be standing." His jaw tightens. "Then they came for me."
"That level of intelligence needs someone on the inside."
"Yes, and I need you to hear what that means." Kieran leans forward, and the flatness in his voice—stripped of the resonance that used to make wolves snap to attention—cuts deeper than shouting would.
"These aren't random raids, Lys. Somebody mapped every vulnerability we have and handed it to the enemy on a silver platter. All of it."
"Do you have any leads on who?"
"None, and that's the part that terrifies me," Kieran looks up at his brother, and what I see in his eyes makes my chest ache: the emotion he's been fighting for days, the one he won't name in front of the pack.
Fear. Raw, unprocessed, from a man who has never been afraid of anything.
"Someone inside Silvermoon is telling them everything, and I can't even shift to sniff out the lie."
The accusation settles over the room like smoke. Caroline stands in the doorway absorbing a world she's only begun to understand—pack bonds, wolf hierarchies, the particular devastation of betrayal from within.
Lysander's hand rests on his brother's shoulder, and I watch him register what I've been living with for days: the Alpha of Silvermoon is terrified, and there is nothing any of us can do to give him back what was stolen.
"We find them," Lysander says. "Before they do any more damage."
Kieran nods, but his eyes drift to Caroline—blonde hair bright against the dark hallway, Montgomery written in the shape of her face.
"You trust her?" he asks Lysander.
"With my life."
"That might be exactly what it costs," Kieran's gaze doesn't leave the woman. "I hope you're right about her, Lys. Because if you're wrong, none of us can afford that kind of miscalculation."