But “Alpha”?
That title belonged to Jonas’s ashes. It was poisoned, cursed. And it wasn’t mine to claim—not while Aurora still looked at me like the enemy.
I left the packhouse and strode across the clearing. The air was sharp, the sky bruised with low clouds. Smoke still rose from charred ruins, curling into the cold. People moved in slow clusters, dragging beams, clearing rubble, patching roofs with tarps. No one met my eyes.
I didn’t blame them.
To them, I was Jonas’s shadow. His Beta. The man who’d enforced his laws. The man who had stood at his side while he tore their lives apart.
They didn’t know the nights I spent secretly undoing what I could. The silent rebellions, the little saves. They only saw the blood on my hands, the uniform I wore, the commands I’d shouted that weren’
