"What did he say about the traps?" Alden asks. "The steel-jaws on the patrol trails."
"That the hunters were supposed to be a distraction. He called it a distraction." I look at him. "He didn't seem to register that traps on wolf patrol routes put his own packmates at risk.I pointed it out and something moved in his face, but he didn't have an answer for it."
"Because Gideon didn't give him one."
"Gideon gave him a purpose and a villain," I say. "You. You're the villain in the story Kieran was handed, and that story doesn't have room for the question of why his father was arming human hunters with pack patrol data." I set the notebook down on the desk beside him. "He's twenty-two and he wants to matter to someone who keeps him at arm's length. Gideon weaponized that."
Alden doesn’t respond immediately. "You got yourself out."
"I had tranq darts in my vest."
"That you insisted on carrying despite three separate conversations about field protocol." The corner of his mouth shifts fractionally. "Which I will not be relitigating."
"Smart choice." I watch him. "I ran toward the clearing because it was the only place I could think of where enough witnesses existed. I figured if I could say it in front of Brynn and the full pack, it was harder to bury." I pause. "Was I wrong?"
He exhales slowly. "No. You weren't wrong." He looks at me directly. "But your word isn't enough, Cassidy. Not against Gideon's standing in this pack, not with his vendetta against both of us already on record. The council will require physical evidence — the maps, the crates, decrypted communications if Ciaran can find them." He holds my gaze. "What you saw in that cabin matters, but testimony from Alden's human mate is the easiest thing Gideon's allies will dismiss."
I knew it before he said it. That doesn't make it land any softer. I look away toward the window, the red tint of the Blood Moon edging the curtain frame.
"Then we need the cabin," I say.
"Ciaran is already moving on it."
"And Kieran."
"He won't run. Wherever he is right now, he's not running." Alden's voice carries something I can't fully categorize—not sympathy for Kieran exactly, but a kind of weary recognition. "He was given a cause and he believed it. When it fails, he won't know where to go."
The adrenaline goes out all at once.
It's the strangest thing—one moment I'm sitting upright and cogent and the next my spine simply stops cooperating, and I end up at the bed with both hands braced on the mattress and a sudden, complete awareness of exactly how many hours it's been since I slept properly.
Alden is beside me before I collapse completely.
"Hey." His voice is quieter now, the Alpha register gone from it. "Talk to me. Are you actually all right?"
"I wasn't afraid," I say. The words come out before I've decided to say them. "In the cabin. When I woke up tied to the chair and Kieran was pacing—I wasn't afraid for myself." I look at the floor. "I was afraid for you. For what Gideon was doing in that clearing while I was stuck in a hunting cabin talking someone's son out of a worldview his father built him."
Alden shifts. He moves from the bed's edge to the floor in front of me, kneeling, and takes both my hands in his. His palms are warm and rough-callused and entirely grounding, and for a moment I just let that be what it is.
"I need to say something," he says.
"Okay."
"What you did tonight—" He stops, jaw working, like the words are requiring more effort than usual. "Running through those mountains and saying his name in front of the full pack. That took more nerve than most of my enforcers have with training and backup." His grip on my hands tightens slightly. "I was terrified. When the bond went quiet for those hours—when I couldn't feel the direction of you—" He stops again.
"Alden."
"I was terrified," he says simply. "I need you to know that."
The bond moves between us like a tide coming in—slow and warm and bigger than the room. Burning into my sternum, in the back of my throat, and looking at him kneeling on the floor of his own quarters because he needed to be at my level for this conversation does something to my chest that I don't have language for and don't particularly want any.
I lean forward and press my lips to his forehead.
He goes very still.
I straighten slightly, find his eyes, and then I kiss him—slow, deliberate, nothing like the urgency of before. This is something else. Relief and intention woven together, the kind of kiss that means something because both people know exactly what they're doing and choose it anyway.
Alden kisses me back with a gentleness that doesn't belong to someone his size and doesn't belong to this night, and it's exactly right.
