= Mikael =
“What did you say?”
My eyes lifted from the reports in my hands, the words on the page blurring as I turned my attention to Lorne. He’d been standing there for a while, briefing me on the progress of the assignments I’d given him—territory checks, patrol rotations, routine things that usually required no more than half my attention. I’d been listening. Or at least, I thought I had been.
Then he mentioned Amara, as his last report.
“She wasn’t home yet, Alpha,” Lorne said carefully.
My fingers tightened around the papers. Slowly, I lowered them and turned toward the tall window behind my desk. Outside, night had already claimed the sky, the last traces of daylight long gone. The territory lay in shadows, the forest line swallowed by darkness.
Amara should have been home hou
