“That doesn’t matter,” he snapped. “Perceptionmatters. You think any of them care what’s true?”
Her voice trembled. “I just wanted to…feel like I wasn’t useless.”
His shoulders stiffened. For a heartbeat, she thought he might soften. But when he turned back to her, his face was stone. “You want to feel useful? Then stop making this harder for me.”
For me.
The words twisted like a knife.
He moved past her, shoulders tense and angry. “You’re done with this. I mean it. I catch you doing it again, and I’ll tell the Alpha myself.”
Layla’s breath hitched. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
He stalked away before she could respond, jaw tight, every line of him radiating frustration.
Layla stood frozen in the doorway, tears streaking silently down her face, listening to his heavy footsteps thundering down the stairs.
“You used to stick up for me,” she whispered into the air.
But he was gone.
And she was alone.
Chapter 1 - Dominic
Eight Years Later
The music throbbed through the walls, heavy and pounding.
Dominic Volkhov stood at the edge of the patio overlooking the garden, a glass of whiskey in his hand, untouched. Before him, the Volkhov Pack was in full swing.
Five years since he took the throne. A just cause for celebration.
Wolves in human form filled the long tables, laughter and music tangling with the heavy scent of meat and smoke. Lanterns hung from the trees, massive kegs of beer settled into the damp grass. Through all the noise and commotion, the ocean lapped against the piers of Skymist, icy cold and wild.
It should have pleased him.
It didn’t.
She wasn’t here.
He told himself it didn’t matter, thatherabsence from the celebration was beneath his notice. She was no one important. A daughter of a low-status family, only tolerated within the pack’s hierarchy because of her brother. She’d been missing from these gatherings for years. He shouldn’t have noticed at all.
And yet he had.
He’d looked for her without meaning to, scanning the grounds between the shadowy figures of his pack. Every time the gate opened, a part of him had expected to see her there, softcurves, nervous hands, quiet. Watching from the edges as she always used to.
But she hadn’t come.
He drained his drink in one gulp, grimacing at the burn.
“Dominic!”
The voice cut through the din, easy and familiar. Theodore Hawthorne wove through the crowd toward him, his smile wide, his shirt half unbuttoned, a second bottle already in hand.
“You’re hiding up here again,” Theodore said as he reached him, jumping up the steps. “Five years of glory, and you’re brooding like it’s a funeral.”
