“She needs someone who gives a damn about what she wants,” I say. “Not someone who manages her like a resource.”
“Is that what you think I do?”
“It’s what I’ve watched you do my entire life.”
Silence. My father’s face goes very still, and for a moment I see something behind the Alpha mask that looks like it might be hurt. Then it’s gone, replaced by the controlled expression of a man who’s had thirty years of practice at not letting his son get under his skin.
Rebecca intervenes. Not with words but with a look, directed at my father, that carries a whole conversation in a single glance.Let him have this. Push harder, and you lose him.
“What do you want?” my father asks. The question costs him. I can hear it in his voice.
“I want to tell her myself. Tonight. Alone. No pack, no protocol, no ceremony.” I hold his gaze. “After that, Rebecca can be involved. She can help with the emergence and answer the questions I can’t. But the first conversation is mine.”
“And if she rejects you?”
“Then she rejects me. And I’ll deal with that.”
“And the pack?”
“The pack will get an Omega when Phoebe decides she wants to be part of it. Not before.”
My father stares at me for a long time. I watch him weigh it, the Alpha calculating against the father, hoping, and for the first time in my adult life, I see the two halves of him struggling against each other.
“Tonight,” he says. “And Rebecca stays close. Not in the room, but close.”
It’s not permission. I didn’t ask for permission. But it’s an acknowledgement that I’ve drawn a line, and for once, he’s choosing not to cross it.
“There’s something else,” he says, and the Alpha is back, fully and completely. “Last night. A single wolf, eastern boundary. Crossed our markers and came within half a mile of the village.”
I move closer to the table despite myself, looking at the map. “Where exactly?”
He points. The marker sits on the eastern approach road, close to the cluster of cottages at the edge of the village. Close to Ivy Cottage.
My blood goes cold.
“The trail,” I say. “Which direction?”
“Southeast. Towards the old logging road. Lewis lost it at the river.” He watches me study the map. “If her scent is getting stronger, she’s broadcasting to every wolf within range. The rogues aren’t pushing closerbecause of territory, Roan. They’re pushing closer because of her.”
I stare at the marker. Half a mile from Phoebe’s cottage. Half a mile from a woman whose changing scent is drawing exactly the attention she can’t defend herself against.
“Double the eastern patrols,” I say. “Pairs, overlapping shifts. Extend the perimeter from the logging road to the church.”
“Already done.” My father’s voice is quiet. “I assigned the teams this morning. Whatever else you think of me, Roan, I protect my people. And if she’s your mate, she’s my people too.”
I don’t have an answer for that. It’s the most honest thing he’s said to me in years, and it sits uncomfortably against the narrative I’ve built about who he is.
Rebecca catches my eye as I turn to leave. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. Her expression says:Go. Tell her. And for once in your life, don’t run afterwards.
I feel her before I reach the cottage. The bond pulls me towards her with brutal certainty, every instinct in me narrowing to protect.
The mate bond has been a background hum since the day I woke up with her scent on the bandages. A steady pull, persistent but manageable, pointing towards her no matter where Istand. Today it’s different. Today it’s a wire pulled taut, vibrating with a frequency that translates directly into my nervous system as distress.
She’s afraid. Not the sharp, immediate fear of danger but something worse: the slow, creeping dread of someone who can feel themselves coming apart and doesn’t understand why. It seeps through the bond, and by the time I reach her lane, my wolf is pacing so hard my hands are shaking.
It’s early evening. The surgery sign is dark. The curtains are drawn, which is wrong. Phoebe keeps her curtains open until she goes to bed. She told me once she likes watching the light change over the hills in the evening, and the fact that I remember this tells me everything about how far gone I am.
I stand at her gate, and I have a choice.
