TESSA POV
He’d claimed the pack where I grew up.
The pack that had watched me crumble, silent, when Tyler rejected me.
The pack that turned their backs, pretending not to see when I cried behind the training hall, or when my mother worked two jobs to keep food on the table. They didn’t want to get involved. No one ever did, not for an omega’s daughter with no father, no brothers, no rank worth defending.
Back then, I thought that was just how the world worked. Some wolves were born to be followed, others to be forgotten.
And now here I was—standing on the same soil that used to choke me, beside a man who’d just claimed the whole damn pack like it was nothing. My mate. My Gunter.
The irony stung like a bite.
I should’ve been proud. Grateful, even. But what I felt was more complicated
