Chapter Thirty-Eight- Frozen
Tristan froze.
Her question cut deeper than any claw or fang ever could, cleaving straight through his chest.
If you hadn’t been forced to accept our bond to survive, would you have chosen me?
The bond thrummed inside him, urgent and fierce, demanding yes—demanding he claim her, reassure her, crush every doubt. His wolf raged against his silence, desperate to answer for him.
But the man… the Alpha weighed down by war, duty, and the shadow of what the world saw in her—the fallen Pearl Luna—he couldn’t find the words. Not yet.
He stared at her instead.
Her eyes searched his, wide and vulnerable, brimming with a hope she was trying to hide. Her hands twisted in her lap as if bracing for rejection, but she didn’t look away. She held steady under the weigh
