LOGINDanielle’s POVA YEAR LATERI 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.I shift carefully,
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
Danielle’s POVBreakfast with Rhett feels nothing like I imagined it would. Nothing what it has felt like for the past couple of months here.It isn’t stiff or formal or weighed down by the weight of last night, as I expected. Instead, it’s… quiet. Not uncomfortable either, just charged, like everything between us is suspended on a thin thread that could snap if either of us breathes wrong.The morning light from the sun pours into the dining room, spilling across the long table dressed in linen and silverware that beams like it’s rarely used. I sit across from him, hands folded in my lap, acutely aware of every inch of space between us and of the fact that I woke up wrapped in his arms only hours ago.He pours coffee himself, no servants hovering like usual. No Alpha commands like other days—just Rhett.That alone unsettles me.And for some reason in my eyes, he looks different in the morning, less guarded. His hair slightly disheveled, shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled to hi
Danielle’s POVI wake slowly, drifting up from sleep with the strange sensation of warmth wrapped too tightly around me and at first it feels like I’m still dreaming.The bed now feels completely soft under my weight. My body for some reason feels heavy in that languid, boneless way it only does after a deep, uninterrupted rest. My cheek is pressed against something firm and warm, rising and falling steadily beneath me.I inhale and then I freeze. A familiar cologne scent hits me all at once. A scene too familiar and something unmistakably… Rhett.My eyes snap open.For a heartbeat, my mind refuses to make sense of what I’m seeing. A broad chest fills my vision, bare skin and my fingers; my fingers are curled into muscle, as if they belong there. Like they’ve been there all night.And then it hits me when I look down.I’m naked.The realization slams into me so hard my breath leaves in a sharp gasp.I clamp my hand over my mouth instantly, my heart hammering so violently I’m sure it







