Lucien's pov

---

The hospital corridor stretched before me in clinical white and quiet echoes, but my mind was anything *but* calm. I left the room where Aria, Talia, Damon stood—fragile together and fierce apart—and stepped out into the night, each footfall a promise and a threat. I left my wife. I left my best friend. I left my pack in danger. But I *had* to move.

My wounds still burned—in the rib I cracked, the shoulder I tweaked, the ghost‑pain of blood lost. Yet nothing hurt like the knowledge my sister, Lily, was somewhere alone, pregnant and vulnerable, held by our enemies. My mother’s voice echoed in my mind:...