Chapter 5

Selene POV

"Maya, what do you mean he is coming?" I said into the phone.

"He left this morning," she said. "I tried to call you yesterday but you did not pick up. Selene, he told the pack he is going to bring you home."

"I am not his mate anymore. He rejected me."

"I know that. You know that." She lowered her voice. "He woke up this morning and I think the reality of it hit him and now he is driving north and he would not listen to me."

I pressed my back against the nearest tree and looked up through the branches. "He does not know exactly where I am."

"He knows about the cabin. You mentioned it once, apparently, and he remembered."

Of course he did. Damien had a precise and selective memory. He forgot birthdays and anniversaries and the things that mattered to me but he retained every piece of information that might one day be useful to him.

"How far out is he?" I asked.

"Four hours maybe. He left around seven this morning."

I checked my phone. It was just after ten.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?" Maya sounded uncertain. "What does okay mean?"

"It means I am handling it. Thank you for telling me, Maya."

"Selene, please be careful. He is not in a good headspace."

"He is never in a good headspace," I said, and I ended the call.

I stood on the path for a moment and thought about my options. I could stay in the cabin and deal with Damien when he arrived. I could leave the mountain entirely, which I was not willing to do. Or I could go back up to the packhouse and inform Colt that an uninvited Alpha was about to drive onto his territory.

The third option was the correct one and I knew it.

I turned around and went back up the path.

---

Colt was still on the front porch when I came back through the tree line. He was talking to a large, dark-skinned man with close-cropped hair and the build of someone who trained seriously, but he stopped when he saw my face.

"What happened?" he said.

"My former Alpha is driving to this location," I said. "He will arrive in approximately three to four hours. I wanted you to know because this is your territory and you should not be blindsided by an uninvited Alpha arrival."

The man beside Colt straightened slightly.

Colt's expression did not change dramatically but something in his eyes went very quiet. "He rejected you and now he is coming after you."

"Yes."

"Did he give you any indication he intended to do this before you left?"

"No. According to his sister, he woke up this morning and decided." I kept my voice even. "I am not asking you to intervene. I just wanted you informed."

"What is his name?" the man beside Colt asked.

"Damien Crowe. Blackridge Pack."

The man looked at Colt. Something passed between them, a silent communication that long familiarity made possible.

"This is Rafe," Colt said. "My Beta."

Rafe gave me a nod that was professional and warm at the same time. "We know Blackridge Pack by reputation."

"Most people do," I said.

"Come inside," Colt said.

"I do not want to make this into more than it is," I said. "I can handle Damien."

"I am sure you can," Colt said. "Come inside anyway."

There was nothing aggressive in how he said it. It was simply a man who had made a decision and was being clear about it. I went inside.

Petra appeared from the kitchen with a look on her face that said she had heard everything. She handed me a glass of water without a word, which was the most tactful thing she had done since I met her.

We sat in a room off the main hall that appeared to serve as a meeting room. A long table, chairs along both sides, windows looking out toward the east path.

"Blackridge is a mid-sized pack," Rafe said, sitting across from me. "Maybe two hundred members. Crowe has been Alpha for two years."

"Three," I said.

"His father handed it over?"

"His father is still alive. He handed it over early."

Rafe nodded slowly. "Young Alpha with something to prove."

"Something like that," I said.

Colt sat at the head of the table and he was very still in the way I was beginning to recognize as his default state when he was thinking. "When he arrives at the territory border, my sentinels will stop him. Standard procedure for any Alpha entering Ashford land. He will be asked his purpose and who he is visiting."

"And when he says me?"

"Then I will speak with him."

"Colt." I looked at him directly. "He cannot know about the bond. Not yet."

He held my gaze. "Why?"

"Because he will use it. He will use it to make this about territory and dominance and pack politics instead of what it actually is, which is a man who cannot accept a decision he made himself." I paused. "I know how he thinks. Give me the chance to talk to him first."

Colt was quiet for a moment. "If he becomes a threat to you in any way—"

"Then you have every right to remove him from your territory. But let me try first."

Another silence. Rafe was watching Colt with the practiced neutrality of a Beta who had learned to let his Alpha process without interruption.

"Agreed," Colt said finally. "You speak with him first. But not alone. I will be present."

"He will see that as a challenge."

"Good," Colt said quietly.

Petra made a sound from the doorway that she quickly converted into a cough.

We spent the next three hours at the packhouse. Petra took me on a full tour, which I suspected was partly genuine hospitality and partly a strategy to keep me from sitting and stewing. I met more pack members. A woman named Sylvie who ran the pack infirmary and had the calm competent energy of someone who had seen everything twice. Two teenage boys who were clearly in the middle of some ongoing argument that paused briefly to acknowledge my existence and then resumed. An older man named Garrett who shook my hand with both of his and said my grandmother had been a fine woman, which made my throat tighten.

The pack felt lived-in. Real. Like a family that had chosen each other.

At half past one, a young sentinel came to find us.

"Alpha," he said, finding Colt in the main hall. "Black SUV at the south border. Driver identified himself as Damien Crowe, Alpha of Blackridge. He is asking for Selene Voss."

Everyone in the hall went quiet.

I set down the mug I was holding and stood up straight.

"Tell him she will meet him at the border in ten minutes," Colt said.

The sentinel left.

Colt looked at me. "Ready?"

"Yes," I said.

Rafe appeared at Colt's shoulder. Petra appeared at mine.

"You do not have to come," I told her.

"I know," she said cheerfully, and fell into step beside me.

We walked down through the packhouse and out the south entrance and along the wide path toward the territorial border marker, four of us moving through the cold mountain air, and I kept my chin up and my hands relaxed at my sides and I reminded myself that Damien Crowe did not own a single piece of me anymore.

We came through the last stand of trees and there he was.

Damien leaned against the front of his black SUV with his arms crossed and his jaw set, and when he saw me he straightened and something complicated moved across his face.

Then his eyes moved to Colt beside me and his expression hardened into something entirely different.

"Selene," he said. "We need to talk."

"We really do not," I said.

His eyes cut back to Colt. "Who is this?"

Colt said nothing. He simply stood and let his presence answer for him, which it did, thoroughly.

Damien looked back at me and something I recognized moved through his eyes then.

Regret. And underneath it, possession.

Both of which he had forfeited the right to feel.

"You need to come home," he said.

"No," I said. "I do not."