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EVE

F ated mate.

The words slammed into me, sending shockwaves through my entire body. My vision narrowed until all I could see was Logan standing there, chest heaving, his wolf crackling beneath the surface. The room around me dissolved into a muffled blur, gasps and murmurs from the others dulled like I was hearing them underwater.

I couldn’t breathe.

My fingers curled tightly in my lap as I tried to ground myself. Fated mate. Of course, I’d heard the term before, whispered in stories and half-forgotten legends about the Shadow Moon packs before the Great Separation. To believe in fated mates was like taking a myth for truth.

Except it didn’t feel that way anymore.

He’d said it. Aloud. With a conviction that left no room for denial. And the bond humming between us, the one I’d been fighting to ignore, suddenly roared to life like a fire catching wind.

No, no, no. This couldn’t be real. Not after everything I’d lived through.

Fated mates. And one of them was cursed.

Me.

Raina’s hand tightened on my shoulder, anchoring me, but even her touch couldn’t stop my thoughts spiraling faster than I could grasp.

My wolf turned inside me, the most movement I’d felt from her that I could remember, and it made me feel sick to my stomach. The restlessness, the wanting.

“She’s your fated mate?” Rhys barked. “Logan, you’ve lost your fucking mind.”

Logan’s growl rumbled low, a warning that silenced Rhys before he could say more. “This isn’t up for debate.” Logan was composed now, though I could feel the tension in every word. “She is. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know. But it’s true.”

“The Great Separation meant—” Isabelle started.

“I know what it meant,” Logan snapped. “And I don’t give a fuck what they say. I know it to the core of my soul. My wolf knew before me.”

“She’s dangerous.” Rhys shook his head. “You think she’s your mate. Even if it turns out to be true, you think it changes anything?”

“ Fated mate. And I don’t think it. I know it,” Logan replied, his words cutting through the room with the finality of an alpha’s command. “You all know me—you know me—and I wouldn’t risk our pack for anything. But my very soul commands me to protect her. To save her. To?— ”

“Stop,” I said, shaky, but growing stronger as I forced the words out. I shot to my feet before I could stop myself, the sudden movement sending my chair skidding back. Raina nearly lost her balance beside me, her hand slipping off my shoulder. She caught herself. Every head in the room turned to me but I didn’t care. “Just… stop.”

Logan’s eyes snapped to mine, searching me. “Eve?—”

“No,” I interrupted, holding up a hand. My pulse thundered in my ears, but I couldn’t stop. “I sense what’s happening in the pack, and the more this is about me, the worse this is going to get.”

Rhys frowned, clearly on the verge of another argument. I turned toward him with all the strength I could muster.

“And you,” I said firmly, despite the way my hands shook. “Of course I know I’m dangerous. I’ve been dangerous since the day I was born.”

I’d never said it aloud before, never admitted it, not even to myself. But it was true.

Logan stepped toward me. I took a step back, shaking my head. “Don’t,” I said, knowing I was pleading. “Don’t try to fix this for me. You can’t. I don’t know what this is really about, but I feel the division in this room, and it will only spread to the rest of the pack. I know it. It’s too soon to make rash decisions based on what we believe about our bond. There’s too much we don’t know.”

“You’re wrong.” He put his hands on my arms, the touch sending a wave of comfort over me. “Eve, we know what they said in the old days about fated mates, and we have to believe it’s true for us too.”

“I don’t know how to believe . ”

Because I already knew how everything ended .

Badly. Very, very badly.

The bond between us was vibrating. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, teetering between the urge to fall and the urge to fly.

Raina cleared her throat. “Eve,” she said gently. “Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re thinking, you’re part of this—of us—now.”

“How can you say that?” Rhys said, glaring at Raina.

She addressed Rhys head-on. “Because I’ve been on this land longer than you, and seen more than you can let yourself imagine. And I believe our alpha when he says she’s his fated mate. Do you ?”

The sincerity in her eyes cut through some of the noise in my head.

Rhys looked around the room, but his chin dipped low. “Logan, you know I’ll follow you into the depths of hell. I just hope you’re not sending us there too soon.”

Silence settled over us.

“The pack will follow me,” Logan said. A wordless warning passed between him and Rhys. “You don’t have to like it, but you will accept it. We are Orion, and we stand behind each other. Hear the truth in my words: She is my fated mate. And she stays. Because without her, I cannot succeed.”

Rhys’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue further.

The room went still. Logan didn’t yell or make a show of power. He didn’t need to. The wolves around the table straightened slightly, shoulders relaxing as Logan’s declaration, his alpha energy, coursed through them. That alone was enough to bring them back together, uniting behind him .

And in uniting behind him, they were uniting behind us .

Their eyes were on me. Instead of fearing me, their acceptance greeted me. Tentatively… then taking hold.

Logan inhaled deeply, nodding in my direction. Together, they formed an energy. An energy that included me .

My bond with Logan hummed like an overcharged wire. It pulled at me, coaxed me toward him even as shame twisted low in my stomach. They didn’t know what I was, what I’d seen, what I would do again because that was what an oracle wolf did.

I had seen their end.

Isabelle cleared her throat. “If we’re doing this, we need to be smart about it. The Heraclids aren’t sitting idle. A conclave of the most powerful packs under the Shadow Moon is not a casual powwow. They’re drawing lines in the sand.”

Logan nodded. “We’re going to it.”

Isabelle pursed her lips. “Damn right you are,” she said. “Now I have to figure out when and where the conclave is. I want to know everything before we step into that room. Locations, attendees, backdoor deals—whatever I can find. This won’t be any old conclave. There’s clearly a lot more behind it.”

Determination rippled through the pack bond, and I felt it too—a fierce resolve that wasn’t mine, but theirs. I was looking through a window at their world, the world of Orion, the pack that dominated all Shadow Moon packs before their fate twisted. The room buzzed, their excitement mounting. I sat and watched with the memory of that horrid vision scratching at my consciousness .

And then Logan looked at me.

The bond between us flared to life again, stronger, almost painful in its clarity even as we were surrounded by his inner circle.

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my face neutral, but my emotions must have been written all over me. His expression softened and intentions rolled off him through the bond—reassurance, composure, and beneath it… love?

I wasn’t ready for this. Not when I was still drowning in my own fears, my vision of Orion leaving me with no peace.

Raina shifted beside me. I let out a shaky breath and nodded, though I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to.

Isabelle spoke again, pulling the room back into focus. “I’ll update you as soon as I have more details. For now, we should assume this meeting is happening soon—and nearby.”

Rhys nodded, his earlier anger simmering down into something cooler. “We’ll need a tight team for this. No room for error.”

“Exactly.” Logan’s mouth pulled into a brief smile. “It’s time for the hunters to hunt.”

Logan was leading his pack, strategizing for their future, for their survival. Beneath all of that, I felt his belief in me. In us .

But something was eating at me, a festering I knew wasn’t going to go away just because we had found each other. New thoughts had begun to take hold of me. A chokehold.

Crux pack, destroyed because of me.

My mother, destroyed because of me.

Orion pack, falling apart because of me .

The answer was painfully clear. This beautiful thing between Logan and I was running on a timer. A summer flower whose petals would wilt in winter. A death as stunning as life.

An inevitable goodbye.