LOGINRhett’s POVThe pack house is silent in a way it rarely ever is, feeling different from usual. Not the tense silence that comes before violence, not even the brittle quiet that follows a challenge or a death. This in particular feels different. Morning light pours in like every other day, through the tall arched windows of the pack house, casting long gold streaks across the stone floor. Dust motes drift lazily in the air and I stand alone near the center of the hall, hands clasped behind my back, staring out over the space that once held nothing but unrest.“A year, a full year without bloodshe,” I mutter to myself feeling glad about how better things have become. How life has been lately, without threats delivered in hushed tones, council summons dripping with suspicion. Without wolves posturing for dominance at borders like starved animals.I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and I remember when this place used to feel heavy. When the pack house during urgent
Danielle’s POVPain swallows everything.It comes in waves so sharp they steal the air from my lungs, dragging me under until there’s nothing left but Rhett’s hands gripping mine and his voice anchoring me through the ache I feel. Time fractures before me, stretching, collapsing until I lose all sense of where I end and the pain begins and then suddenly—A cry.For a moment, I don’t understand it. My body is trembling, my vision blurred, my ears ringing as though the world itself has cracked open.And then Lady Seraphine’s voice cuts through the haze, steady and reverent.“You did it.”Something warm is placed against my chest and just then, the room fades, the pain from earlier recedes.And there he is. So small. So impossibly real.My breath catches for a second as I stare at him. Not from agony this time, but from the overwhelming, soul-deep certainty that this is what everything was leading to. His tiny chest rises and falls against mine, his skin warm and damp, his cry quieting
Danielle’s POV A YEAR LATER I wake to sunlight spilling across the room, warm, painting the stone walls in quiet promise. For a moment, I lie still, one hand resting instinctively over the gentle curve of my stomach, breathing through the slow rhythm of another morning that feels almost unreal in its peace. A year, a year since the hallway. A year since everything changed. There’s a steady weight behind me familiar, and warm. Rhett’s arm is draped around my waist, his palm spread protectively over my belly as though even in sleep, he knows exactly where he belongs. His breathing is deep, even, the sound anchoring me more than I ever thought another person could. I smile before I can stop myself, I was never supposed to have this. Wolfless and barren. The words once carved themselves into my bones, spoken so often they felt like truth. And yet here I am pregnant, loved, safe wrapped in the arms of the very man who refused to let the world define me by what I lacked. The one thin
Danielle’s POVI don’t plan to leave my chambers, not at first. I tell myself I need one more hour. One more stretch of quiet where I can breathe without the weight of memory pressing against my ribs. Where George’s voice doesn’t echo so clearly in my head, where Rhett’s does not follow right after, calm and steady and infuriatingly protective over me.But the walls are starting to close in. And I need to get out to confront him.The longer I stay here, the louder my thoughts become, circling like rogues over old wounds that never fully healed. I pace from the window to the bed and back again, fingers twisting together, heart restless from all the thoughts in my head.The thought of where he stood for me, slips in again, unwelcome and persistent in my mind.He didn’t soften it or dress it up for the council. He didn’t ask for permission. He didn’t even look at me before he did it.He just… did, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like I was worth defending.I squeeze my
Rhett’s POV“Don’t just leave!” Zane yells in my head, but I force him back down, gritting my teeth. George’s voice on the other end still won’t leave my head.It echoes there repeatedly, smug, laced with the kind of cruelty that pretends to be civility. I replay every word, every pause, every look he dared to level at her across the council table.My jaw tightens until it aches as I walk down the hallway, my teeth clenched from frustration.I pace the length of my chambers when I get in, boots striking the marble floor with restrained force. The room feels too small for the fury coiled inside me, too polished, too calm for the violence clawing at my ribs. My hands flex at my sides, fingers curling as if they’re searching for a throat that isn’t here. I should have broken him.Alpha to Alpha, pack law be damned—I should have put him on his knees for daring to speak about her like she was something defective, something discardable.I inhale slowly, forcing the rage down into something
Danielle’s POV“And whatever it is he has to say to you, he has to answer to me first,” he adds, taking me by the hand and that does something to me as I walk away, headed back to my chambers.I don’t say it out loud, I mean I don’t dare. But the truth circles me like a predator, slow and patient, waiting for the moment I stop running from the thoughts in my head.I’ve fallen completely for Rhett.The realization settles in my chest with a weight I don’t know how to carry. It presses down on my ribs, squeezes the air from my lungs, and makes my heartbeat feel too loud in my ears. I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on my knees, staring at him like he might give me answers if I look long enough.Knowing how dangerous this feels, I mean falling has never ended well for me. With George it was worse and now this.I tell myself not to think about it. That the tightness in my chest is nothing more than shock from all that’s happening. That anyone would feel unsettled after being dra







