Elara’s POV
The safehouse was a stone fist clenched against the mountain. Impenetrable, hard, cold. It smelled more of old smoke and damped rock. It should have given the feelings of a shelter. But it felt like a very beautiful, yet an isolated prison.
Lucian was more like a caged storm inside it. He paced the great room, a restless, powerful shadow, his phone constantly at his ear. His voice was a low, relentless rumble of orders, securing borders, moving pack assets, turning his people into a shield. Our shield.
I sat huddled by the massive, empty fireplace, a wool blanket around my shoulders, watching him. Fear became my new heartbeat. But beneath the fear, was a slow, hot anger coiling up. I was tired of being the fragile thing that forced the powerful beast to retreat, tired of bei
