Elle’s POV
After breakfast, I thanked Claire again, giving her a soft smile that I really meant. She smiled back shyly, and it warmed something inside me. Then I slipped out of the kitchen, my sandals making soft little taps against the polished wooden floor.
The hallways of the pack house felt like stepping into a memory. Everything looked exactly the same—every framed picture on the walls, every polished corner, even the faint smell of pinewood and wolves. But it didn’t feel the same anymore. It felt colder.
I passed the staircase where I used to sit as a girl, the spot where I would listen to the older wolves talk in hushed voices. I remembered laughing here, playing here… dreaming of the day I would stand proudly as my father’s heir. My chest tightened.
I walked through the big dou
