Cora I never imagined peace would feel so fleeting. For a few precious days, everything had started to fall into place. Riley had made a full recovery. Kingston was… mine, in a way I had never dared to hope for—openly and publicly, for all to know, thanks to his press conference announcement. After everything—the scandals, the accusations, the intervening people—we had finally let down our walls. That night between us hadn’t just been passion. It had been a promise. Or so I thought. I was walking back from lunch, a hot coffee in one hand and my phone in the other, scrolling through messages I hadn’t yet replied to. It was unusually quiet in the hallway outside my office. Too quiet. And then I saw them: three members of the Silverfang Pack’s executive council, standing in front of

