Chapter Two

The door locked behind her with a solid click.

Sienna stood in the center of the room and listened to the scout’s footsteps fade down the hall. The east wing had not changed much. Same wide windows. Same dark wood floors. Same faint scent of pine resin that clung to everything in the pack house. Someone had left a lamp on low in the corner. The light threw long shadows across the bed and the low chair by the window.

She did not sit.

Rain still tapped against the glass. She walked over and looked out. The treeline was a dark wall beyond the cleared ground. Lights from the main hall glowed warmer and farther away. Somewhere in that direction Lucas was speaking to people who had once watched her kneel in the dirt.

The bond sat heavy under her ribs. It did not ease with distance. If anything, the closed door made it sharper, like a wire pulled too tight.

Sienna took off her wet jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. Her shirt clung to her shoulders. She left it. The cold did not bother her the way it used to. Five years of living without a pack had taught her how to ignore small discomforts.

A soft knock came at the door.

She turned but did not answer.

The lock turned. Elena stepped inside and closed the door behind her carefully, as if noise might draw attention. She looked smaller than Sienna remembered. Or maybe Sienna had simply stopped measuring herself against her sister.

Elena’s hands twisted together once before she forced them still. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

Sienna leaned against the window frame. “People keep saying that.”

“Lucas is Alpha. The pack is stable. You being here will only—”

“Make people remember what he did?” Sienna’s voice stayed quiet. “Or make you remember what you took?”

Elena’s face tightened. “I didn’t take anything. He chose me.”

“After he rejected me in front of everyone.” Sienna tilted her head. “Did you ever ask him why? Or did you just enjoy the title?”

Elena took a step closer. The scent of her perfume was the same expensive one she had always favored. It sat strangely in the room, too sweet against the older smell of wood and rain.

“You were never going to be strong enough,” Elena said. “Everyone knew it. Even you.”

Sienna almost smiled. The expression did not reach her eyes. “You still talk like the girl who needed everyone to agree with her.”

Elena’s jaw worked. For a moment she looked like she might say something sharper. Then her shoulders dropped a fraction.

“Leave,” she said. “I’ll help you. Money. A car. Whatever you need. Just go before this turns into something neither of us can control.”

Sienna pushed away from the window. “I already told your mate. I’m not leaving.”

The word “mate” landed between them. Elena flinched.

Before either of them could speak again, heavier footsteps approached outside. The door opened without a knock.

Lucas filled the doorway.

Elena turned quickly. “I was just—”

“Out,” he said.

She hesitated only a second, then slipped past him into the hall. The door closed. The lock turned again.

Lucas stayed near the entrance. Rain still darkened the shoulders of his shirt. He had not bothered to change. The bond reacted the moment the door shut, a low pull that made Sienna’s fingers curl against her palms.

He looked at her the way he might look at a problem that refused to stay solved.

“You have a room,” he said. “Food will be brought. You will not leave this wing without an escort.”

Sienna crossed her arms loosely. “Is that the part where I’m supposed to thank you for the hospitality?”

“It’s the part where you understand the terms.”

“I understand you locked me in a room instead of answering a single question.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What question?”

“Why.” She let the word hang. “Why me. Why her. Why the public rejection if you were just going to force a claim five years later.”

He was silent for several seconds. The rain filled the space between them.

“Pack stability required a stronger Luna,” he said finally. “You were not that.”

The words should have cut deeper than they did. Sienna felt them land and then slide off, the way rain slid off the window glass.

“And now?” she asked.

“Now the bond is back.” His voice stayed flat. “Stronger. Ignoring it is no longer an option.”

She studied his face. The control was still there, but something underneath it had shifted. A tightness around the eyes. The way his weight stayed balanced, ready.

“You could have rejected it again,” she said. “In front of the pack. Same as before.”

“I won’t.”

“Why not?”

Lucas took one step into the room. The bond tightened like a fist.

“Because this time I decide how it ends.”

Sienna did not back up. She held his gaze and let the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable for both of them.

“Then we have a problem,” she said quietly. “Because so do I.”

For a moment neither of them moved. The lamp in the corner hummed faintly. Rain traced uneven paths down the glass behind her.

Lucas exhaled through his nose. “Get some rest. Tomorrow the pack will be told you are under my protection. Until I say otherwise, that is all they need to know.”

He turned toward the door.

Sienna’s voice stopped him.

“Lucas.”

He looked back.

She kept her tone level. “If you think locking the door is going to keep me where you want me, you still don’t know who you rejected.”

Something dark and unreadable moved across his face. Then he stepped out and shut the door. The lock turned once more.

Sienna stood alone in the quiet room and listened to his footsteps fade.

The bond did not fade with them.

She sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on her knees, and stared at the rain-streaked window. Outside, the pack house continued its night. Inside, the wire under her ribs pulled steady and relentless.

She had come back for a reason.

She planned to make sure he felt every mile of it.