“You don’t understand what you’re doing, or what this means for us.”
“I understand exactly what I’m doing,” she fires back, braver now. “There is nousanymore, Hayes. Not after what you’ve done, and what you made me do.”
“You’re an idiot,” Hayes snaps, jaw tight. “After everything I’ve done for you, and you do this. Instead of coming home the moment you could, you stayed and let them rot your mind. I shaped you. I helped you improve.”
The shift is immediate as the threat becomes real all over again. His wolves step forward in preparation, and ours respond instantly, forming a line and waiting for the command.
“No, Hayes. You forced me to become what you and Dad wanted, then you dropped me the moment I stopped being useful to you,” Naia says, voice tight as she manages to get the words out. “I never had the chance to know differently before, but now I do.”
“I did all of this…I went through this bogus charade to get you back, and you’re refusing to listen. I’ll force you back if I have to—”
“Try it and see what happens,” I interrupt, stepping fully into place beside her now and leaving nothing up for questioning.
Hayes’ gaze locks onto mine, and for a second, I think he might. He’s arrogant enough to push and test how far I’m willing to go just to protect her.
Naia’s magic rises with more focus now, and it feels stronger than it had. It rolls off her in a wave that makes even my instincts sharpen in response.
Hayes feels it, and I see it in the way his stance shifts. How his eyes narrow in recalculation.
Now, it’s not just me, my pack, or the others backing us that he’d have to go up against. It’s her and what she can do now without him. It’s the fearsome woman she has become, and it’s clearly more than he ever expected.
“You’ve changed,” he says slowly as the fight in him slowly disintegrates.
Naia lifts her chin. “No, I’ve just stopped listening to you.”
After a long beat, he pulls his eyes from her and fixes me with a burning stare as his jaw twitches. “This isn’t over.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”
He looks at us one last time with quiet contemplation before tearing away and allowing his wolf to take over.
Instead of staying to fight, he breaks through the trees in retreat, and his wolves follow, leaving behind their subtle relief in the air.
They disappear into the trees like ghosts, and just like that, they’re gone.
The clearing settles with a note of finality. Even if Hayes decided not to push his luck and risk taking all of us on, he’ll be back eventually, but for now, it feels like the closest thing to peace.
I look around slowly and take stock of the bodies and the remaining carnage.
The rogues are done now, and whatever operation they were running is over. More blood was spilled than I wanted, but it was necessary to keep the balance. To keep them from harming more people.
With a slow exhale, the tension bleeds out of me in waves, and the feeling of Naia standing next to me eases all that remains in me. She’s here, and we’re both okay.
After everything, that’s what matters right now.
Chapter 28 - Naia
In a way, the silence Hayes leaves behind feels louder than the fight, and for a long moment, I don’t move. I can’t bring myself to.
Instead, I just stand there, staring at the space where he disappeared, my chest rising and falling a little too fast. My pulse still echoes in my ears, and I find myself playing back the exchange over and over again in my mind.
He’s gone. He actually left without jumping headfirst into something he couldn’t win.
I swallow around the lump in my throat and try to come to terms with that fact.
It’s very seldom that he backs down from anything, and yet, he did.
After standing my ground and receiving backup from Zane and the others, he actually listened. The realization settles slowly like something my body doesn’t quite know how to process yet.
