Chapter 6

~ ROSELLE ~

My heart doesn't stop racing, because it's almost impossible to believe that the same stranger who caught me on the stairs is Alpha Ronan. The Alpha of Death. The same man Warren so casually signed my life away to, like I was nothing more than a transaction he'd been waiting to close.

I don't understand why he stood up for me.

I'd been bracing for someone twice the devil Warren is. That's what the stories painted, brutal, merciless, a man whose very presence ends lives. And he is terrifying, don't get me wrong. There's something about him that makes the air feel different, heavier, like the atmosphere itself adjusts to accommodate him. But he's… different. So different that my heart does something embarrassing every time he so much as glances in my direction.

Which is dangerous.

Because he's not safety. He's death wearing a very convincing disguise, and I'd do well to remember that. Six women came before me. Six. And not a single one of them made it out. Whatever he is, whatever this pull is that makes my chest do strange things when he's near, it doesn't change the ending. I've just swapped one cage for another, and this one happens to have better-looking walls.

The drive to his pack is anything but silent.

I spend most of it staring out the window, watching Westbrook disappear behind us. I keep waiting to feel something about leaving, grief, maybe, or relief. Instead there's just this hollow quietness sitting in the center of my chest. Westbrook was never truly home, not after Father died and everything that was supposed to be mine was stripped away piece by piece, starting with my voice and ending with my dignity. Everyone turned their backs the moment he was gone, and I couldn't even scream about it.

The truth is, even if I wanted to fight this; fight him, I have nowhere to go. No pack at my back, no wolf at my side, no voice to call for help. If I run, I get dragged back. If I resist, I end up in a cell worse than Warren's. At least here, for whatever strange reason, someone looked at Warren hitting me and decided it wasn't acceptable.

Nobody has ever decided that before.

I steal a glance at him from the corner of my eye. He's looking straight ahead, jaw set, one hand resting on his thigh. Nikolai, his Beta, is in the front seat, and the two of them haven't spoken since we left. The silence between them isn't uncomfortable though.

I look back out the window.

"He's still going to get you killed, Roselle," an eerie little voice whispers at the back of my head, and I sigh. I know. But I'm not dead yet.

When we arrive at his pack, the sight of it takes my breath away. I don't mean that softly or poetically, I mean it literally steals the air straight from my lungs the moment we pass through the gates. Cobblestone streets line every path, smooth and even. The houses are magnificent, grand, surrounded by greenery so deliberately kept it looks like the land itself is proud to be here. Pack members move through the streets freely, children running without looking over their shoulders, women talking in groups, men laughing at something without watching the exits first. This is what a pack is supposed to look like.

My chest aches with something I don't have a name for.

He walks slightly ahead, leading us toward the pack house, and to say I'm petrified is an understatement, every single person we pass bows, not just to him but to both of us, heads dipping, eyes lowering to me.

They're bowing to me?I almost stop walking.

I haven't had anyone bow to me since I was a child, since before everything fell apart and I became Westbrook's best kept shameful secret. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be seen as something other than a burden. My throat tightens and I keep my eyes straight ahead because the last thing I need is to fall apart on a cobblestone street in front of strangers.

The pack house is even more extraordinary up close.

Guards usher us in without a word, and I follow Ronan through doors that open like they've been expecting him, which I suppose they have. The interior is warm, I barely have time to take it in before we're ushered into a room where three people are already waiting.

An elderly man with a stethoscope hung around his neck. Two women standing beside him, both with the kind of quiet competence that tells you they know exactly what they're doing. They turn when we enter, and I'm already prepared for them to look at him, to acknowledge only him the way everyone in my life always has.

They bow to both of us.

"Alpha." The elderly man's voice is warm. Then his eyes move to me, and he bows his head again, lower this time. "Luna."

Luna?

The word hits me somewhere behind my sternum and just stays there.

Is this a dream? Because it feels like something my brain constructed during those long dark days in the cell when I had nothing to do but imagine a life that didn't feel like slow suffocation.

"Get to work," Ronan says simply, and the three of them move immediately, efficiently, and it's only when the elderly man takes a gentle step toward me that the reality of what's happening starts to crystallize.

They're going to examine me. My stomach drops straight to the floor, which means they're going to see everything, every scar, every bruise still yellowing at the edges, every mark that tells the story of years I've spent being someone's punching bag, someone's convenient outlet, someone's proof that power without accountability turns people into monsters.

My hands ball into fists at my sides. I don't want them to see.

It's not even about the pain, I made peace with the pain a long time ago. It's the exposure. It's standing in front of strangers and watching their faces shift when they realize how much damage one person can carry and still keep walking. It's the pity. I cannot stand the pity.

I feel Ronan's eyes on the side of my face.

I don't look at him.

The elderly healer stops in front of me, his expression gentle. "I'm going to need you to trust me," he says quietly. "Can you do that?"

I stare at him, then nod very slowly.