Viktor nods. “Dismissed.”
I turn and walk out. Close the door behind me. Stand in the corridor trying to process what just happened.
He didn’t do this, my wolf is telling me. Frame. Trap. Someone set him up, and I’m the only one who sees it.
But I can’t prove it. Can’t point to evidence that contradicts the evidence.
I can only stand here knowing that Jericho didn’t kill Samien and that Aurora is going to execute him for it anyway.
My hands are shaking.
I don’t know what to do.
Don’t know how to prove his innocence.
Don’t know how to stop this.
Just know that they’re going to kill him.
My wolf pushes at me. Insistent. Certain. Showing me what she’s known since the mountains. Since before the heat cycle. Since the moment we met him.
Mate.
I feel it. The physical ache when I think about him trapped in detention. The absolute certainty that he’s innocent when all evidence says otherwise.
That’s what mates feel. Recognition that goes deeper than logic.
“Or it’s just…” I search for an explanation. “Connection. Something. I don’t know what to call it.”
My wolf radiates patience. She knows what it is. She’s waiting for me to accept it.
But I can’t. Not yet. Not while Chance’s memory still weighs on me like a stone. Not while I haven’t figured out how to want someone new without betraying someone I lost. Not while the guilt crushes me every time I think about that night in the training facility.
How do I reconcile that? How do I let myself feel anything for Jericho when Chance’s ghost stands between us?
I don’t have answers. Just this pull that won’t quit. This certainty that he’s innocent. This desperate need to do something before Aurora executes him for a crime I know he didn’t commit.
I walk down the corridor. No destination. Just movement because standing still means facing truths I’m avoiding.
Like the fact that defending him means betraying Aurora.
Like the fact that I’d be choosing between the people I call family and him.
And I’m not ready to let go of Chance. Not ready to reconcile what Jericho did.
I just don’t know if I can.
But I know one thing with absolute certainty: he didn’t kill Samien.
And I’m not going to let Aurora execute an innocent man.
Everything else—the pull, the bond, whatever this is between us—I’ll figure out later.
If there is a later.
Chapter 26
Jericho
