Vivienne's POV
Inside the Argent family's prayer room, a single eternal flame burned for every living soul of the bloodline. Only one candle had gone dark. Marianna's. She was dead.
But the Argent flames answered to blood, not breath. If the daughter Marianna left behind ever came into her wolf, that cold candle would wake again and burn as bright and gold as all the rest.
For years it had stayed dark. Marianna's daughter never shifted. And so the family had no thread to follow, no scent to chase, no way to find the girl they had lost.
Every night before bed I came to the prayer room to check the flames, the same way I had for more than ten years.
Tonight was no different. Row upon row of candles glowed steady and gold, each one tied to a living Argent, each one burning exactly as it
