She was here again, standing in front of the Alpha’s office door. It was becoming routine now—this slow walk down the long corridor, the tightening of her chest as she reached the heavy wooden door, and the weight pressing down on her shoulders.
For the past few days, it felt like her life had been reduced to this single hallway, this single door, this single room where every time she entered, she left more broken than before.
The walls of the pack house seemed to close in on her, suffocating her with whispers and judgment she could never escape.
Elaine’s fingers hovered over the door for a moment before she finally knocked, her knuckles brushing the wood with more force than she intended.
“Come in,” Alpha Efrein’s voice called from within, calm, steady, as if nothing in the world were
