After that day, Aurora learned how to disappear without leaving. She stopped wandering into Ethan’s meetings. Stopped perching beside him during briefings, and stopped offering those quiet, unsettling observations that once made grown men pause and rethink. When Ethan was present, she spoke only when spoken to, and even then, carefully, as if every word cost something.
He told himself it was for the best. Silence was safer than the look in her eyes, the one that felt too old, too wounded for a child her age.
One afternoon, after an especially long council meeting, Jason and Liam asked for a private word.
“With all due respect, Alpha,” Jason began, his voice lowered as he chose his words with tactical precision, “but I’ve noticed the CEO of Voss Dynamics has been getting… very close to y
