TEN YEARS LATER

RHETT

The fire crackled gently between us, its rhythm soft and constant, like a lullaby hummed by the earth itself. The glow stretched out in lazy arms, brushing against my face, warming the skin it could reach. A breeze drifted through the trees, shifting the smoke just enough for the scent of burning pine to settle into my clothes.

I sat cross-legged in the clearing with my brothers—my Beta, Rowan, and my Gamma, Cale. The night wrapped around us, thick with stars and silence, broken only by the occasional hiss of sap in the flames or the low rumble of our voices.

Cale had just finished describing how his youngest pup threw a tantrum so wild she halfway shifted into her wolf—tiny fangs, fur on her ears, the whole thing. Rowan chuckled so hard he had to brace himself with his palms in the grass, trying to keep from toppling over. The sound rumbled through his chest and spread into the night like a soft drumbeat.

Even without my sight, I could see it all.

I heard the twitch of Cale’s lips when he smiled—he always did it crooked, like one side knew the joke better than the other. I felt the way Rowan’s shoulders rocked forward every time he tried to muffle a laugh. The ground even gave him away—he pressed too hard with his right hand, digging his fingers in like the laughter might knock him down.

I didn’t need eyes. The world still whispered to me. Still let me trace its shape in sound and breath and motion.

Cale’s voice shifted, the humor fading into something quieter, gentler. “My little girl calls me ‘Alpha Daddy’ now,” he said.

I turned my head slightly toward him. His voice held something I hadn’t heard in a long time—peace. Steady. Rooted. Like he’d found the center of his world and never stepped away from it.

“She says it with pride, too,” he added, almost laughing again. “Walks around the den like she owns it.”

He paused, probably seeing our grins. Then he leaned forward, voice a notch lower, like he didn’t want the trees overhearing. “And Mira—goddess, man. She still looks at me like I hang the moon. Even after ten years. Even when I forget to take out the trash. She just… loves me. Like nothing ever changed.”

I felt the smile rise to my lips, automatic and hollow.

It didn’t stay long.

The warmth inside me, the easy calm that came with the fire and the laughter, flickered. Then it vanished. Snuffed out like a candle between two fingers.

A heaviness settled in my chest. Not sudden. Just quiet. Familiar. Like a coat I’d worn too long to notice anymore.

I nodded once, keeping my chin relaxed, my face neutral. I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want anyone to know.

But his words clawed through me anyway.

That kind of love. That kind of life. I didn’t just miss it.

I envied it.

I hated that I did.

The love. The laughter. The simple, stupid joy of being someone’s world. Of having someone whisper your name like it meant everything. I didn’t remember the last time someone looked at me like that. Or if anyone ever had.

Rowan cleared his throat and shifted beside me, his laughter gone. Maybe he felt it too—that crack in my voice, the fracture in my silence.

I lowered my head a little, reaching toward the fire with both hands. I rubbed my palms together close to the heat, pretending it was the cold I was shaking off.

But it wasn’t.

I didn’t say anything. Neither did they. They were wolves—we didn’t need to speak everything out loud.

Instead, Cale passed me a mug of tea, warm and fragrant, his fingers brushing mine just long enough to say I see you, even when you don’t want to be seen.

I took it.

Held it.

And listened as the fire cracked again, steady as breath.

I had none of it.

Not anymore.

Not for a long time.

Their laughter faded, like the smoke drifting from the fire—still visible, still present, but too faint to touch. I held my mug tighter, though I didn’t drink. The warmth didn’t reach far enough. Not to the place inside me that stayed cold, no matter how long I sat near the flame.

Beta shifted. It was subtle, but I felt the change in him. His weight leaned forward. His breath stilled. His voice lost all trace of amusement.

“There’s something you both need to know.”

The mood broke.

Even the trees seemed to quiet, as though they too leaned in to listen.

Cale straightened beside me. I turned my face toward Rowan, my jaw already tense, bracing.

“They’re coming,” he said. “The royal family. They’ll be visiting the Moonshade Pack. Expected by the next full moon.”

The words hit me like a rush of winter wind.

The air thinned.

My spine locked upright, every muscle in my body turning rigid. Heat flashed beneath my skin like a spark trying to catch fire. My fist curled slowly over my knee, tendons pulling tight.

Lyra.

Her name struck like thunder.

Ten years.

Ten years, and still, her name echoed louder than any other.

I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. But the weight of that memory—of her—pressed against my chest like stone. My heart beat slower. Heavier. Each thud a drum against old scars.

I remembered the way she had looked at me.

Disgust.

She hadn’t worn it openly—not at first. Not when the words were just a hint in the air, lingering like smoke. But I saw it, felt it. I could hear it in the way her voice shifted, in the pause that hung heavy before her smile even dared to form. And when she finally spoke—when those words tumbled out of her mouth—they weren’t soft, weren’t whispered. They were loud, clear, as if she were speaking for the entire world. For the gods. For every wolf who stood beneath the silver moon that night, watching her.

“I can’t marry someone useless.”

The way she said it—it was cold, distant. Like I wasn’t even worth the dirt beneath her boots. She didn’t just say the words. She spat them. Each syllable cut sharper than the last.

She hadn’t just walked away, either. No. She had torn the ground out from under me, leaving nothing but empty air beneath my feet. I stood there—blind, broken, shattered—and felt everything crumble around me. My title, my pride, all of it echoed in the silence that followed, and yet, it turned to ash before my eyes. She stripped me of more than love. She stripped me of honor, leaving nothing but a hollow shell in its place.

And I understood it then. Even as the sting of her words cut deep, I understood. She was royal. She was above it all. And I was no longer whole. Not in the way I used to be. Not in the way I could ever be again.

I understood.

But knowing why didn’t make it hurt any less.

Beta’s voice cut through the storm of my thoughts, steady and calm, as if he had known how I would react before I even spoke. “For the safety of the wolf pack, you must be tolerant.”

Tolerant.

The word hung in the air like a bad taste, sour and sharp. My fingers tightened around the mug, trembling with the anger I couldn’t release.

Tolerant.

Tolerant of her. The one who threw me away like I was nothing.

Tolerant of the girl who climbed higher by using my weakness as her stepping stone.

My jaw clenched so tight I thought it might crack. I didn’t say anything. Silence was all I had left. It was the only defense I could still claim as my own.

They thought I was past it. That time, with all its cruelty, had dulled the edge of the wound she left. But they were wrong. Time didn’t heal everything. Some wounds didn’t close. Some scars stayed red, raw, never quite fading, no matter how many years passed.

And some betrayals—some betrayals never died.

I lowered my head, the burn in my chest flaring again as if she had just walked away. My heart beat heavily under my ribs, but I kept quiet. I didn’t speak aloud, but in the dark silence of my mind, I whispered the same vow I had made that night beneath the moon.

I would never forget.

And I would never forgive.

.