REBECCA POV
We reached the packhouse and Riggs kissed each of us on the cheek like he meant it—soft, just for a breath—and then he was gone, swallowed by the yawning oak doors into the alpha office. Ten steps. Ten small, humiliating steps that felt like a canyon between us.
He had people depending on him. An alliance to build, rogues to protect, two pregnant she-wolves counting on a roof and enough wood for winter. He’d walked away from us into duty, into a room that smelled of old leather and decisions, and I should have felt proud. I should have felt like the sun had slid over the horizon and warmed everything into place.
Instead I felt hollowed out—an empty orange where a heart should be.
Rachele’s face was a mirror: pale, stunned, grief braided with something else that looked dange
