**DEREK POV**
I am awake before the alarm because sleep never fully took. It hovered. Shallow. Fragmented. The kind that never lets your body forget it is responsible for what comes next. I lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, listening to the packhouse breathe around me. Doors opening. Footsteps moving with purpose rather than ease. The low murmur of voices drifting up from the lower floor, not loud enough to be social, not quiet enough to be private. Too early for laughter. Too late for silence.
The pack is already moving.
That tells me more than any report ever will.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand without lingering. The mirror catches my reflection as I pass. I do not stop to study it. I already know what I will see. Tension held behind discipline. Con
