The months that followed settled into a rhythm Jasmine had never once imagined possible for herself — not the constant, grinding vigilance of survival, but something closer to genuine governance, genuine partnership, genuine peace. She found herself, more often than not, simply grateful for the sheer ordinariness of a full day without crisis, a luxury she'd once assumed was reserved for people whose lives had never been shaped by war.

She split her time between Liora's fortress and the Blood Moon pack's ancestral lands, slowly rebuilding a relationship with a territory that had once cast her out as unworthy and now, cautiously, welcomed her back as its Luna. Xavier ruled...