Chapter 290

Third Person POV

By dawn, every pack bordering the rogue lands had increased patrols. Old watch routes were reactivated, boundary wards reinforced, and warriors recalled from leave without complaint.

Signal fires burned longer into the night. Scouts moved in overlapping patterns, ensuring no stretch of land went unwatched for long enough to invite disaster.

This was not panic.

It was instinct.

The entire kingdom had watched the attack live on television. They had all seen the brazen attack on the family of a powerful alpha, on his children. Nolan had protected his family, but that didn’t take away from the anxiety that such an attack caused.

Alphas all over the kingdom, whether they were allies of Silver Fang or not, recognized the threat that this kind of rogue activity could pose.

Cassian stood at the heart of the response in Moonstone, sleeves rolled up, maps spread across the strategy table. Markers shifted constantly beneath his hands as reports came in-sightings, disturbances, dead zones where scent trails vanished too cleanly to be natural.

He coordinated defense teams with ruthless precision, pairing experience with adaptability, rotating patrols to avoid predictability. No one questioned his orders. Not after the debate. Not after the attack. Not after Felicity vanished into the rogue lands like a phantom.

If a storm was coming, Cassian intended to be braced for impact.

Ellie’s world narrowed instead of expanding.

She spent her days deep within the inner chambers of the packhouse, where the stone walls were thick with old wards and the air hummed faintly with layered magic. The priestesses of Silver Fang worked around her in quiet concentration, scrolls unrolled across the floor, candles burning low and steady.

Ellie sat among them, her posture tense but composed, hands clasped tightly in her lap.

None of this was new to her anymore.

Not long ago it would have filled her with unease and a sense of being out of place. She would have questioned her worthiness of being in this position and wondered if she was simply losing her mind.

Now she knew better. This was real power, a real connection to the goddess. It wasn’t madness or an overactive imagination.

The work she started with the aid of the priestesses was important, even if it didn’t yield anything world shattering right away.

She had already reached the conclusions that now unfolded again across parchment and whispered translation.

Nolan was the storm.

Not chaos-but pressure. Convergence. The kind of force that reshaped everything around it.

And August and lan were the children of the storm.

Naming it again didn’t make it easier.

If anything, it made it worse.

Alaric stood near the edge of the circle, arms folded, his presence heavy and grounding. He listened without interruption as Ellie spoke, as the priestesses confirmed what she had already known in her bones.

When she finally looked to him, searching his face for doubt, she found none.

“You’re right,” Alaric said simply. “About all of it.”

The words landed harder than any contradiction could have.

Ellie’s breath caught. “You’re certain?”

“I am,” he replied. “I’ve seen storms like this before. Not this exact shape—but the weight of it. The way it bends fate around itself.” His gaze softened slightly. “And Nolan has always carried that kind of gravity.”

Ellie swallowed, her composure cracking at the edges.

“My babies,” she whispered. “They didn’t ask for any of this.”

“No,” Alaric agreed. “And that is precisely why they must be protected.”

Her hands curled into fists, nails biting into her palms as the rest of the vision settled into place.

The shadow woman.

The outcast followed by blood.

There was no escaping it anymore.

“It’s Felicity,” Ellie said quietly. “She’s both. She’s always been obsessed-she just learned how to weaponize it.’

No one argued.

Silence filled the room, thick and grim.

Ellie felt hollowed out by it. Shaken to her core by the knowledge that danger wasn’t abstract or distant-it had a name, a face, and a history with the people she loved

most.

Nolan’s response was immediate and uncompromising.

“The twins will have a constant guard,” he said flatly, standing in the nursery doorway as August and lan slept unaware of how much the world had shifted around them. “Day and night. No exceptions.”

Ellie nodded, though her chest tightened. “They’re already sensitive. Too many unfamiliar people-“

“Then we manage it carefully,” Nolan replied. “Familiar faces first. Slow rotations.” He hesitated only briefly before adding, “Rae will be part of their entourage.”

Ellie looked up at him in surprise.

“You’re sure?”

“She knows how to protect without frightening them,” he said. “And they trust her. That matters.”