Nash’s pov
I stood near the hitching post past the southern gate of Moonlight Town, my leather gloves pulled tight over my knuckles as I checked the saddle cinches on my warhorse. My back throbbed with a dull, familiar ache, but my eyes remained fixed on the dark, misty ridge half a mile away.
Behind me, Tabitha stood in the shadows of the timber overhang, her dark woolen cloak pulled tight around her chin.
For years, she had lived under the illusion that she could claim my mark, my title, and my bed. She had sat in my hall, scrubbed my mother's floors in the washhouse, and followed me south into the mountain fog. But seeing me drop to my knees on Chloe's porch—seeing me weep for a wolfless female and claim a six-year-old child as my daughter—had shattered whatever quiet patience she p
