My muscles ache from the morning's training with Theron, each movement a reminder of how much I have yet to learn and how little time I may have to learn it.
The fallen log at the compound's edge offers rough comfort beneath my thighs, and I allow myself to sink into its solidity while the cold mountain air fills my lungs.
The settlement hums with distant life behind me—voices, laughter, the ordinary sounds of existence continuing despite everything that has fractured in my own world. I turn my back on all of it and face the endless stretch of forest instead.
Letting the view blur as tears I have been refusing finally gather behind my eyes.
Three weeks ago, I believed in futures that made sense—graduation ceremonies and cramped dorm rooms and the ordinary miracle of becoming someone new in a place where no one knew my name.
That girl packed her boxes believing she would carry them somewhere better.
That girl never imagined those boxes would still be sitting in Margot's farmhouse, gathering dust while their owner learned to throw punches and identify tracking patterns. Surviving among creatures she once dismissed as fairy tales.
I permit myself this moment of mourning for the life I thought I would have.
The tears come slowly at first, then faster, and I do not wipe them away. They deserve to fall. That ordinary future deserved a proper burial, even if no one else will ever know it existed.
The snap of a twig jerks me upright, every muscle coiling tight as Theron's morning lessons flood back. My hand finds a fallen branch beside the log and I hold my breath while scanning the tree line for movement.
A massive silhouette emerges from the underbrush, and my grip on the branch tightens until I register the familiar breadth of those shoulders, the particular way he carries his enormous frame.
Rhett.
The tension drains from my body so quickly it leaves me lightheaded.
He moves toward me with noise that seems intentional, each footfall a courtesy that gives me time to compose myself. I appreciate the consideration more than I can express, so I simply wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand and wait.
He emerges from the tree line like a mountain deciding to relocate.
"May I sit?" His damaged voice carries no expectation, only inquiry.
I nod, and he lowers himself onto the log beside me with movements so careful they seem rehearsed.
The wood groans beneath his weight but holds, and we settle into silence together. Not the awkward kind that demands filling, but the comfortable sort that needs nothing beyond its own existence.
The bond between us pulses with warmth I have not felt from the others.
Grogan's connection carries guilt and desire while Hrollok's burns with hostility I cannot seem to breach. Jarek still holds clinical distance contrasting with Theron's flickers between charm and shadow.
But Rhett's bond feels steady and warm, like a hearthfire burning in a cold room.
Minutes pass before I find the courage to speak.
"Your scar," I say finally, my eyes tracing the puckered line that runs from ear to ear across his throat. "How did you get it?"
His hand drifts upward, fingers brushing the damaged tissue in what looks like an unconscious gesture.
"I was an Alpha once." The words emerge slowly, his already rough voice scrapes even lower. "Had a pack, a territory, a family that depended on me to keep them safe. A mate. Children."
"What happened?" I ask, though part of me already knows this story ends in ash.
"I failed them."
He stares at the darkening sky, and I watch the last light catch the wetness gathering in his eyes.
"Hunters came in the night, more than we expected, better armed than we prepared for. I was supposed to protect them—that is what Alphas do, what I swore to do when I took the mantle. Instead, I froze."
His massive hands curl into fists against his thighs.
"I watched them die. I could not move, could not fight, could not do anything but watch while they screamed for me to help them and I stood there like a coward."
"Rhett…" I begin, but he continues as though the words have been damned too long to stop now.
"They cut my throat and left me to bleed out beside the bodies of everyone I loved."
His fingers trace the scar again, and I understand now that the gesture is not unconscious at all.
It is ritual, punishment. A daily reminder he forces himself to endure.
"I should have died with them. But I healed, because apparently the universe decided my suffering was not complete. This scar is my reminder of what I am—a failure who breathes when better people do not."
His eyes are wet, but the grief pooling there is too old and too vast for tears to touch.
This is sorrow that has calcified into something permanent. A companion he has carried so long he no longer remembers what it felt like to walk without its weight.
"I do not deserve to bond with someone," he says, and the confession cracks open something raw in his voice. "I could not protect my first family. Why would the Moon Goddess give me another chance to fail someone who trusts me to keep them safe?"
I reach out before I can stop myself, before logic can remind me of all the reasons to maintain distance. My hand covers his—massive, scarred, trembling slightly—and the bond between us flares with recognition.
"Maybe this Goddess of yours is not giving you a chance to make up for the past," I say quietly, watching his profile as he processes words I am not certain I have any right to offer. "Maybe it is just giving you a chance to have a future."
He turns to look at me, and the raw hope blazing in his brown eyes breaks open something in my chest that I thought I had locked away.
I do not think when I lean up and press my lips to his.
The bond between us ignites with something gentle and devastating. Sorrow and hope and desperate longing tangle together, humming through the connection like a melody I have always known but never heard played aloud.
The kiss is tender and aching, tasting of salt from tears neither of us has finished shedding. It is the first moment since the forest that has felt like a choice rather than compulsion.
The moment shatters when Hrollok bursts into the clearing. Chest heaving, his wolf eyes glowing wide with panic rather than the anger I have come to expect from him.
His entire body vibrates with urgency that sends terror spiking through our bond.
"Get away from her," he rasps, looking at Rhett with none of his usual hostility. "It is too late."
Rhett rises immediately, positioning his massive frame between me and whatever threat might have followed. "What is happening?"
I scramble to my feet, heart racing with borrowed fear from all five connections screaming alarm in my chest. "What is it?"
Hrollok looks at me. For the first time since we met, his hostility is completely absent, replaced by grim finality that terrifies me more than his hatred ever could.
"The Executioners."
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