Something shifts—not submission, not dominance.
Alignment.
“Fine,” he says quietly. “Then we do this your way.”
I tilt my head. “Our way.”
He nods once.
And for the first time since I learned what he really is, I don’t feel like I’m standing across from a wall.
I feel like I’m standing next to a fault line.
The weight of it settles—not demand, not threat.
Decision.
“Then we do this honestly,” he says.
“Then you’d better start catching up,” I reply.
I’m not staying because I think I’m invincible. I’m staying because ignorance already failed me once.
Running would only blind me again.
Whatever Moonhaven is—whatever it’s been hiding, whatever it’s cost the people who got too close—I’m choosing to stay.
And if containment has failed, it isn’t because I’m reckless.
It’s because secrecy stopped being neutral a long time ago.
Now it’s his turn to reckon with that.
22
CALEB
The pack does not gather unless something has already gone wrong.
They don’t need summons or alarms. They feel the tension long before words are spoken. By the time I step into the clearing behind the old mill, they’re already there—shadows among trees, bodies half-turned toward me, eyes reflecting moonlight with varying degrees of restraint.
This isn’t a council.
It’s a reckoning.
I take my place at the center without ceremony. Alpha by position, sheriff by law, something far more fragile by choice. The bond hums low and uneasy, not resisting me but questioning—testing the weight of what I carry.
Rowan speaks first. He always does when no one wants to be accused of ambition.
“You brought her into it,” he says flatly.
Notasked. Notwhy.
A statement of fact.
“Yes,” I say.
Murmurs ripple outward. Discomfort. Anger. Something close to fear.