Exclusive Sneak for the Stormborn

From Book Two: The Alpha’s Retribution

The forest is quieter now. Quieter in that way right before something finally breaks. The wind barely moves. The branches don’t dare creak. Even the moon feels like it’s holding its breath.

But I’m not fooled. I know what silence like this means. It’s the kind that forms right before a scream. Samuel’s blood still clings to the back of my throat — metallic, bitter, familiar.

A warning. A memory. A promise.

And the shadows… gods, they won’t stop moving.

They claw along my bones, coil around my ribs, whispering in a language older than anything Bridgehaven was ever meant to hold. They want out. They want him. They want more.

Every time I close my eyes, I see Jackson’s body exactly as it fell: still, cold, stolen from me under the bleeding moons. And the ache inside me shifts into something sharp. Something hungry.

Vykara tells me vengeance is a road you walk barefoot, bleeding. She says pain is the toll, and purpose is the destination. But I’m not afraid of the pain. I’m afraid of how good it feels to lean into it… to let the darkness settle beneath my skin like a second heartbeat… to finally stop pretending I’m something softer than what I was born to be.

Padriotis is calling to me — through the veil, through memory, through blood. The runes in my dreams glow brighter each night. Something in that realm stirs when I do. And I feel its gaze on me like a shadow stretching across a world.

The gods are watching. The dead are listening. And my darkness… the one I spent my whole life hiding, fearing, denying…

It’s awakening.

And this time, I’m not running from it.

🩸 Freya Rougarou