Darius POV
The email hit like a fist, raw and unyielding, its words carving a wound I couldn’t ignore. I sat in my study, the oak desk buried under pack reports, the air heavy with leather and ink, but my eyes were locked on the screen, Jaxon’s name a specter from a past I’d tried to erase. My brother, exiled by my hand, had dared to write, his message cold, deliberate: he’d claimed a woman, married her, made her his Luna—and she wasn’t his true mate.
Lyra, he said. My Lyra, the omega whose scent had seared itself into my soul, the one my wolf roared was mine. Shock froze me, my pulse a hammer in my chest, rage and confusion tangling like thorns. Jaxon had stolen her, bound her, and now taunted me with it, a knife twisted in the bond I’d thought unbreakable.
I leaned back, my chair cre
