GUNTER POV
The next morning came too damn early.
I wasn’t ready to leave that bed, not after the night we’d had. Tessa was still half-asleep when I brushed her hair away from her face, her lips parted in a soft breath. I could’ve stayed there forever—wrapped in the scent of her, the feel of her skin against mine, the quiet pulse of our bond humming under my ribs like something alive.
But we had responsibilities now. A pack to rebuild. A mess to clean. A hundred questions waiting for answers.
By the time we reached the Pack House, the sun was barely crawling over the pines. The building looked smaller than I remembered from the day before, less like a fortress and more like a ghost of what it once had been. The air carried the stale scent of fear and dust.
Tessa walked beside me, chin
