ログインDenver.The staff was already gathered in the main hall, waiting in that quiet, deliberate way that told me everything had been arranged before I got there.I didn’t need anyone to tell me my mother was behind it. The arrangement had her fingerprints all over it—neat, controlled, unnecessary.I had told her I didn’t want a ceremony. Not today. Not for this. Not for something that still didn’t feel settled.It wasn’t denial.It also wasn’t accepted.I wasn’t about to let them turn something uncertain into something permanent just because it made things easier to manage.She called it tradition.I called it pressure dressed up as duty.Still, she had insisted I be present.“For appearance,” she said, like that ended the conversation.It always did with her. She spoke as if disagreement was just another detail I would eventually learn to ignore.So I came.Talia stood near the center of the hall with her parents.I noticed the change immediately.Her pregnancy was no longer something sub
Denver.Five cycles.I didn’t need anyone to tell me how much time had passed since my last meeting with the council of Alphas. The implications of their warning follow me everywhere. I could barely close my eyes to sleep, not when I kept waking up like something had been taken while I wasn’t looking. Even my body had started acting like rest wasn’t necessary anymore.Every lead followed the same pattern—reports that sounded certain until they weren’t, scents that faded before they could settle into anything real, names that turned out to belong to someone else.It was always close enough to keep me moving, but never enough to finish it.I had men covering territories that didn’t even concern us—calling in favors I don’t give. Watching places I shouldn’t have to care about.Yet, nothing. At some point, I stopped calling it a coincidence. Every lead felt like I was always one step too late. Like someone had already moved her before I got there.I stood in my office, one hand braced
Denver.The drive back to the pack was quiet in a way that didn’t settle anything inside me. It wasn’t peace. It wasn’t peace. It was the kind of silence that makes you realize you’ve been holding your breath longer than you meant to. Everything I’d been pushing down was still there, pressing against the inside of my ribs like it wanted out.Selena.Her name lingered in my thoughts. I could have sworn I almost found her. She felt so close, yet so out of reach.By the time the pack gates opened and I drove through, I had already forced that weight back into place.I saw it in the guards before I even reached them. That quick straightening. That shift like they were bracing for my mood more than my presence.I kept moving until the main estate came into view, and that was when I felt it.Not tension.Arrangement.Something deliberate is waiting for me.The hall felt off before I even stepped fully in. Too arranged. Too still. Like it had been reset for something I wasn’t part of.The C
Talia.By the time I got back, the anger I had brought with me had settled into something colder.What happened in Denver’s pack wasn’t just rejection, it was dismissal. The kind that strips everything down to nothing and leaves you standing there with no ground to recover on.And I refused to sit with that.If he wasn’t going to play his part, then the person who dragged me into this needed to answer for it.Christopher.The name alone tightened something in my chest as I made my way toward his quarters, my steps quicker than usual, my thoughts no longer careful or measured.Thinking hadn’t helped. Nothing had gone the way it was supposed to.Nothing.I didn’t knock. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.Then stopped.Not because I didn’t understand what I was seeing, but because I hadn’t expected it to look so careless.Christopher lay stretched across the bed, completely at ease, like nothing outside that room existed, like nothing was unraveling. Like none of this mattered.A
Third Person POVThe drive to Jameson’s place was quiet.Not the kind of quiet that felt peaceful, but the kind that came after something had almost gone wrong.Selena sat in the passenger seat, her hands resting in her lap, her fingers loosely intertwined as she stared ahead without really seeing the road.Her body was in the car, but her mind hadn’t left the basement, still caught in that moment, still with him.She could still hear his voice.“I know you’re here.”Her fingers tightened slightly.Jameson noticed.He didn’t say anything at first. He drove, his grip steady on the wheel, his expression thoughtful, like he was still trying to piece everything together without pushing her too far.When they finally pulled into the compound, Selena blinked, pulling herself back to the present.The building was clean, quiet, and well-kept, not extravagant, but comfortable in a way that felt safe.Jameson parked and stepped out first.Selena followed more slowly, her eyes moving over the su
Third Person POVThe basement was quieter than the rest of the hospital.The moment Denver stepped out of the stairwell, the air changed. It was cooler, still, filled with the faint smell of oil, metal, and something else that did not belong there.Something familiar.He paused for a second, letting it settle.Then he started walking.Slow.Measured.Every step was deliberate, his gaze moving across the parked car, his senses stretching beyond what his eyes could see.She had been here.Not long ago.The certainty of it sat deep in his chest, stronger than anything he had felt upstairs.Closer.Too close.---Inside the black SUV, Selena sat completely still.Her fingers were still wrapped tightly around the keys Jameson had given her, her breath shallow, controlled, as if even the sound of it might give her away.She had barely settled into the seat when she felt it again.That shift.That presence.She didn’t need to look to know.But she did anyway.She leaned slightly and looked t
Selena.Later that evening, I sat at the edge of my bed, fingers tracing the edge of the silk sheet, thinking about the day. The conversation.with Denver mother, Tiana cold words lingered, but none was enough to take my mind from thinking about him.About Denver. About the way his eyes lingered o
Denver.I was heading back to my room that evening when a guard intercepted me.“Alpha… your mother would like to see you in the sitting room,” he said.I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to wipe away the fatigue that had settled into my bones after the endless meetings, the elders’ scrutiny, a
Selena.I stood at the window and looked out at the land below. From here, I could see how large Denver’s pack truly was.The buildings stretched far into the distance. Roads, lights, homes, training grounds, guard towers. It was bigger.More developed. More structured than the pack I had come from
Denver.I was halfway down the hall to my room when one of the guards walked up to me.“Alpha, Tiana was here asking for you,” he said. “She’s waiting.”I didn’t think twice. “Give her access.”The door to my room had barely shut behind me when I started pulling off my jacket. My body felt heavy, t







