LOGINKael's POV
Ayla didn't move when I said her name.
Not even when the bond pulled between us—alive and restless and demanding in a way that made it difficult to stand still. She just watched us, perfectly composed, her silver eyes holding mine without flinching. Without dropping.
That used to be different. She used to look away.
I'd spent years assuming her silence meant weakness—that it made her easy to overlook, easy to push around. Something that would bend if pre
Ayla's POVThe next morning felt heavier than it should have.Like the air had thickened overnight, the world waking up with a bruise spreading just beneath its surface. I felt it before I even left my room—a pressure that had no clean source and no clean edges.The packhouse was already awake when I walked in. Too many voices, too much movement, too many eyes that found me before I'd crossed the threshold and tracked me all the way to the table. Every step sent a ripple through the room. Every whisper dropped like water, radiating outward, circling back.I kept my chin up. My skin prickled with a hundred silent questions crawling across it.The triplets were already there.Ryker looked up first, then Soren, then Kael. Three sets of eyes—each one a checkpoint, measuring and steadying them. No words, but the moment I sat, something in the room settled. Not completely. Just enough to breathe.Their presence formed a wall between me and
Kael's POVThe moment we stepped onto the packed grounds, I felt it.There was a tension in the air that had nothing to do with the cold—thick and charged and already moving through the crowd before we'd gotten close enough to read faces.Ryker's eyes flicked to mine immediately."The pack has gathered in the clearing," Soren said, his attention moving down the slope toward the open ground below."Did Father—" I started.He shook his head. "We weren't included."Ryker was already moving. "Then we better find out why."I was about to pull him back when I spotted my father at the center of it—planted in the clearing, surrounded on all sides, and visibly unhappy about whatever had built up around him."He has his hands full," Fenrir muttered.I increased my pace.The voices grew as we approached, tension rolling through the crowd in waves."Enough!" my father roared.The pack qu
Ayla's POVThe room emptied slowly.The nurse left first, her quiet "rest" hanging in the air behind her like something meant to hold. The door closed with a soft click—the end of one kind of chaos, the beginning of another kind of quiet.My hand was still in Ryker's. Neither of us moved to change that.His thumb traced slow loops over my knuckles—unhurried, undemanding. A language that didn't need words and wasn't asking for any.Kael stood against the far wall, arms crossed, having watched the nurse work without speaking. I could feel his anger through the bond—controlled, buried beneath layers of composure, but burning underneath all of it. He remained steady, cold, and patient, a demeanor that was more frightening than heat.Soren stood beside him, rolling his shoulders once, the tension in his frame fully refusing to release. More contained than Ryker. Already thinking three steps ahead — I could feel it in the f
Ayla's POVI didn't remember when he picked me up.One moment I was against the wall, and then I was here and held against his chest, the world moving past at the edges of my vision while his heartbeat filled my ear. Loud. Real. Steadier than anything else.I didn't move. Too sore for that. I just listened to it—to the life in it—and tried to stay inside that sound instead of anywhere else."I've got you," Ryker said.The words reached me late, like sound traveling through water. My mind caught them and held them tight."About time someone carried you for a change," Tala said softly. No sharpness in it. Just quiet.Then the memory hit.My body tensed before my mind caught up with why.A hand around my arm from behind, hard, no warning, yanking me sideways into the locker room. The door slammed shut. The sound of it final and total.I looked up.Troy.My stomach dropped so fast it took my
Ryker's POV"Coach Jackson, you wanted to see us," Kael said as we filed into the small sports office at the end of the building."Yeah, get in here, boys." The coach waved us toward the chairs. "Have a seat."We sat. Coach started talking about the upcoming game, training schedules, and formation changes. I heard maybe a third of it.Duke shifted inside me, restless and low. A cold feeling crawled down my back.Through the window, I could see students streaming out of the building. School was ending."Ayla is waiting," Duke said."She'll be fine for a few minutes," I told him.Coach kept talking. The longer he went, the tighter the coil in my chest wound. My knee bounced under the chair, a restless energy with nowhere to land."Something feels wrong," Duke said, his attention pulling sharply toward the far side of the building.I lost the thread of what Coach was saying entirely. My eyes stayed on the window, on the emptying grounds, on the cold sensation twisting deeper in my gut wi
Ayla's POVThe hallway felt different when we stepped back into it.Quieter, but not empty. Never empty here.I walked between them, the space around me careful and unspoken, a buffer that none of us acknowledged but all of us maintained, like we were each afraid of what would happen if it broke.Eyes found us immediately. Some looked openly, others tried not to, and a few didn't bother pretending. Stares dug into my skin like cold pinpricks, the hunger of people wanting a story they hadn't earned. Whispers followed in our wake — low and quick, slipping into the cracks before I could close them.I kept my eyes forward. One foot, then the next. The scrape of shoes on tile. Rhythm over everything else.We turned the corner, and Ryker was there.Waiting near the stairwell with the coiled stillness of a storm that hadn't decided where to land yet. His eyes found us immediately—found me—then dropped to my clothes. The new ones. The ones that weren't covered in sauce and humiliation.The ai
Ayla’s POVThe forest is quieter this morning, as if everything is holding its breath, watching me flee from this miserable pack.I ignore the feeling and keep moving.I’ve only taken the basics—the clothes on my back and the money I saved from working at the coffee shop. It isn’t much, but at leas
Ryker’s POVI’m awake before I should be and groan out loud as my eyes flicker open. My head still spins from too much eggnog last night.I press my hand against my head, trying to stop the feeling. I lie there for a second, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what pulled me out of a soundl
Ayla’s POVThe closer I get to the packhouse, the louder the world becomes again—voices carry through the trees, followed by laughter and music. It sounds so bright against the darkness and quiet outside that it leaves a coldness under my skin.Every sound inside the packhouse hits my ears wrong; it
Ayla’s POVAlpha Jack and Luna Ria don’t stand in my way when I get up and head toward the door a second time. They know it’s time for me to leave.With one last silent nod, I exit the packhouse and slip into the cold.It’s dark now, the wind howling through the trees in the distance.I head toward







