“Yes,” I cut in. “We’re not erasing what happened. We’re rewriting it.”
The innkeeper lifts the brand fully from the coals now. It glows faintly, heat shimmering off the metal. He nods once at me.
“Shirt off,” he says.
I obey, the cool air hitting my skin. The old scars across my chest catch the light, scratches from old fights, burns, one half-moon bite where a pack wolf tried to make a point.
This will be the first mark I choose.
“Last chance,” the innkeeper says.
“Do it,” I answer.
He presses the iron to my skin, and I grit my teeth against the white-hot, blistering pain that’s so intense my knees buckle. My wolf howls inside my skull, the sound silent to the world and deafening to me. The smell of burned flesh and magic mixes into something sharp and metallic.
I don’t pull away.
Not an inch.
When the iron lifts, my chest is on fire. I’m shaking, breathing hard, sweat pouring down my back. The world swims for a second, then slowly returns.
The innkeeper looks mildly impressed. “You took that better than most.”
“I’ve had worse,” I rasp.
Beau stares at me like I just walked through flames and came out a god. His hands are shaking visibly.
“Your turn,” I say gently.
He backs up a step. “I—I don’t know if I can.”
“Yes, you can,” I say. “You survived everything else. You can survive this.”
His eyes well up. “What if I’m not… good enough for it?”
There it is.
The rot at the center of him.
“Beau,” I say softly, “all your life you thought you were too stupid and too soft and too much of a screw-up to have a pack. And all your life, you had one.”
He swallows.
“It was us,” I continue. “It was me and Froggy and you, stealing food and sleeping under porches, and keeping each other alive when we had no right to be. You were the heart ofthat pack. The dumb, loyal, golden heart that refused to stop beating.”
A tear rolls down his cheek, carving a clean track through the dirt.
“You’re my beta,” I say. “Not because you’re perfect. Because you’re you.”
He laughs weakly, broken. “You sure you don’t want someone smarter?”
“Smarter than you?” I snort. “Doubt they exist.”
A watery smile flickers across his face.
The innkeeper raises the brand again. “Ready?”
Beau takes a breath. Then another. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I’m ready.”
