I pace the length of the guest room, five steps in one direction before the wall forces me to turn, five steps back. The space feels like a cage, though it's more luxurious than anything I've slept in since fleeing the Council. My muscles ache from days of running, from shifting back and forth between forms as I tracked Sophia's scent across territories. But it's the hollow pain in my chest that keeps me moving, the void where Lora's presence used to hum, warm and constant. Twenty-four years of having her in my mind, and now there's only silence.
A knock at the door interrupts my circuit. I pause, nostrils flaring as I catch an unfamiliar female scent.
"Enter," I call, straightening my shoulders by instinct, the Beta's posture I wore for two decades before becoming this hollow-eyed rogue
