Chapter 232 Part Two

5 YEARS LATER

I wake before dawn because my body never forgot how.

There’s no alarm. There never is. I open my eyes to the same gray pre-light filtering through the narrow window above the bed, the world not awake yet but no longer asleep either. That in-between hour feels honest. Nothing is pretending to be calm. Nothing is pretending to be safe.

The cabin is quiet in that thin, waiting way, the kind of quiet that isn’t peace so much as a held breath. Neutral land has its own silence. No pack heartbeat humming through the ground. No Alpha presence pressing against the edges of your senses. Just trees, dirt, and a structure built to be useful, not comforting. No history soaked into the walls. No ghosts pacing the halls.

I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is cold. I let it be. I don’t flinch. It keeps me sharp, keeps me present. I pause there for a moment, elbows resting on my knees, breathing steady, checking in with myself the way I was taught after everyt