Dane:
The air in the training yard still smelled like smoke.
I’d been swinging my blade for hours, long after the others had gone to rest. The clang of metal against the practice post was the only sound left — steady, unrelenting, the rhythm of a man trying to forget.
Didn’t work.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the fire. The bodies. The boy’s shaking hands when he said Alyssa’s name.
And behind all of it — Cierra. Standing beside Dominic like she’d always belonged there.
I wasn’t sure when it started — the split in my loyalty, the crack that ran between blood and bond. Dominic was my brother, my Alpha King, the one who raised me when our father couldn’t. But lately, every order out of his mouth felt like a stone sinking into my gut.
He looked at her differently.
Like she was mo
