But he just nodded once, stiffly, and walked toward the door.
He paused at the threshold. Didn't turn around.
“I'm sorry,” he said quietly. “I read it wrong. Read you wrong. It won't happen again.”
“No. It won't.”
“And Daniel?” His voice was barely above a whisper now. “I'd appreciate it if this stayed between us. I'm already the outsider. The stray everyone's watching. If they knew I'd done this, tried this...” He swallowed hard enough that I heard it. “I'm just starting to feel like I might belong here. Please don't take that away.”
I should have said no. Should have told him that secrets were poison and that pack trust required honesty.
But I thought about what Luke had said. About treating a traumatized wolf with suspicion and isolation. About turning someone into the enemy by expecting them to be one.
Rafe had made a mistake. A bad one. But he'd also stopped when I told him to, apologized when I demanded it, asked for mercy instead of assuming it.
“This stays between us,” I said finally. “But Rafe? If you ever try something like this again, with me or anyone else in this pack, I'll know. And we'll be having a very different conversation.”
“Understood.” He didn't look relieved. Just tired. Defeated. “Thank you.”
He left. The door closed behind him with a quiet click.
I stood alone in my office, hands shaking slightly, and tried to figure out how the morning had gone so sideways.
Michael's scent still lingered in the room. Coffee and warmth and something that made my chest ache with wanting.
Rafe's scent was there too. Sharper. Wrong in ways I couldn't name.
I moved to the window, watched Rafe cross the mill yard toward the tree line. Watched him disappear into the forest with his shoulders hunched and his head down.
He looked small. Broken. Like a man who'd bet everything on a bad hand and lost.
I wanted to believe that's all it was. A lonely wolf making a desperate play, misreading signals, reaching for connection in the wrong direction.
I wanted to believe I hadn't just made a mistake by letting him walk away.
But as I stood there watching the empty tree line, I couldn't shake the feeling that something fundamental had shifted. That the careful balance I'd been maintaining was starting to crack.
And somewhere underneath all of it, buried under duty and suspicion and the weight of being Alpha, was the simpler truth:
I wanted Michael.
Wanted him with a fierceness that scared me. Wanted mornings in this office and arguments about filing systems and the way he laughed when I pretended not to understand things. Wanted to close the distance between us and find out what we could build together.
But wanting was dangerous. Wanting made you vulnerable. And I had too many wolves depending on me to let vulnerability win.
So I went back to the desk. Picked up Michael's notebook. Started reading through his careful notes about inventory systems and supply tracking.
16
WHAT WE CARRY, WHAT WE LEAVE
MICHAEL
Ifound Evan in the kitchen at the pack house, eating cereal like a man who'd given up on the concept of proper meals.
“Have you seen your dad?”
Evan looked up, spoon halfway to his mouth, milk dripping back into the bowl. Something flickered across his face.
