Rowan
The front door slammed open hard enough to rattle the frame, and Alec’s voice carried down the hallway like sunlight cutting through storm clouds. “Well, you all look like someone died.” Of course it was him.
Only Alec would walk into a room charged with Alpha tension and treat it like a mildly awkward social gathering.
He stepped into the space, boots easy against the wooden floor, grin already forming before he had even assessed the situation properly.
Then he stopped. He took in the silence, the way Elise stood wrapped in Ulath’s arms, the way Ulath held her without apology, without hesitation, as though the rest of us were irrelevant.
Then Alec’s gaze shifted to me and beyond me to Harper, to the way she stood pressed against Luca’s side.
I felt it before I fully regist
