POV: Mia (Zero)
The door hadn’t opened in years—not since the old blood wars, not since the pack buried the remnants of what we once were. It groaned under its own weight as I forced it open, the rusted hinges howling like spirits still trapped beneath Darkhaven. Stone gave way to damp air and the cold breath of something old, something forgotten.
Alex didn’t speak. He followed me with the patience of someone who had learned that silence, not comfort, was the only thing that helped me hold myself together. Nova trailed behind us like a shadow already half-merged with the darkness.
We descended the stairs into the buried chamber—cut into the mountain stone generations ago, long before the Broker came, long before any of us understood what it meant to be shaped by a bloodline cursed to ob
