Scar's heart welled in her throat as she considered the decision that Stanley had placed before them. She knew how much the goblin kingdom meant to Damon , and what would happen to his people, and the wolves he was trying to protect, if he gave in to Stanley' demands. And staring out at Damon , who stood stoic on the other side of the excavated pit, regardless of the injury she'd sustained just a day ago, she understood that her life was of no consequence when weighed against his dream. She sank against the cool metal of the large excavator, her body shaking from the cold and from her fear. It didn't matter that she'd realized that she was in love with Damon . It didn't matter that they were mates. She wanted to believe that he could love her, if they'd been given a chance at a life together. A chance to uncover what it meant to truly belong to each other. What mattered was, right now, that nothing was more important to Damon than ensuring that his kingdom didn't fall to Stanley.

If being a prince was tiring and burdensome, then being king of all the goblins and wolves was exhausting and impossible. Though the goblin rebellion had been quelled for now, there was a lot of work ahead of him to repair the damage that Stanley had done in his many years of sowing doubt against Damon. Still, it was a challenge that Damon took up gladly, for the sake of his people, and for peace. Two weeks had passed since Stanley' death, and working together to hunt him down and his remaining rebels had strengthened the relationship between the wolf shifters of some Lauchair's and the goblins for the first time in decades. Their alliance had proved fruitful so far, and Damon intended to go above and beyond to show his gratitude for the wolves who'd risked themselves to protect his reign. He let Snarl take over as the goblin head and made plans to subdue Shadow and the rest of the adamant Lauchair. It seemed that, for the first time ever, his mother's dream of peace was within rea

“You have got to be kidding me! Snarl Rathbone? No way!” Hazel cringed at her sister’s words, knowing that she probably shouldn’t have told her anything about the night she had spent with the future army leader of the pack. Yet it had been a few days and she hadn’t heard from him, nor had she managed to pluck up the courage to write to him. She had to talk to somebody about it. Beetle stared at Hazel with absolute astonishment on her face. The two had been sharing a quiet meal together at the Silver Moon. That was until Hazel had dropped the bombshell on her. Now Beetle’s green eyes glittered with curiosity and surprise. She brushed back her ash-blonde hair and leaned across the booth to look Hazel directly in the eye before asking, “Well, what was it like? Was he any good?” At the question, Hazel’s insides tingled. She remembered all too well how good it had been, and it was clearly written on her face the moment Beetle asked, “That good, eh? Who would have guessed it from

Standing outside Damon's meeting room inside Lauchair's Manor, Snarl debated whether to knock for the hundredth time. He had been fighting the urge to approach his best friend for the last few days now. It had been two days since their return from New York and since Snarl had received the message from Hazel sister, and still Snarl was feeling as though something wasn't right. He had gone to where they met secretly over and overagain whenever he found himself alone, hoping and praying that she would come , even if it was only to tell him to fuck off. Even if she said she wanted to forget all about what had happened between them and that she never wanted him to contact her again, he could face that. What he couldn’t face was the dreadful thought that something awful had happened to her while he had been away in New York. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to forgive himself if something had happened. Why would it be my fault? he asked himself even as he raised his fist to knock

Message was sent to Snarl to receive a call from the Alph at a reserved office “Hey, Damon , I haven’t managed to get any new information on Hazel’s disappearance yet but…” “That’s going to have to wait,” Damon’s voice cut him off abruptly, and he had to bite the urge to growl at his first. The last thing he wanted to do was wait to find her. If it had been up to him, he would have found her days ago and she would be in his arms right now or running through the woods on the Scanthin estate with him in wolf form. She would be safe, he would be sure of it, one way or another. “But Damon , I…she was with a…” Snarl began, unable to get the words out because he couldn’t stop letting Damon ’s earlier words repeat in his mind over and over again. She’s probably just sleeping with some asshole to piss her parents off, he reminded himself, though it didn’t hurt any less than the thought that she might be in trouble. In fact, he thought it might even hurt more to think that she was sl