Asher led me through the familiar halls of the pack house without speaking.
Little had changed in three years. The same dark wood floors. The same scent of pine and old power soaked into the walls. Yet everything felt different. I no longer belonged here, and the house seemed to know it.
He opened the door to his study — the same room his father had once used — and waited for me to enter first. I stepped inside, scanning the space automatically the way Raven had taught me. Large desk. Bookshelves. A wide window overlooking the training grounds. Only one exit.
Asher closed the door behind us with a soft click.
For a moment neither of us spoke. The fractured bond throbbed between us like a second heartbeat, impossible to ignore in the closed room.
He moved to stand behind the desk, as i
