Lyra POV
The car’s engine hummed as Jaxon turned off the main road, the tires crunching over a gravel path that wound through a dense thicket of pines. The rock-country music had faded to a soft background murmur, and the tension from our roadside confrontation lingered, softened by the warmth of our clasped hands.
My heart still raced from Jaxon’s confession—his initial plan to use me to reach Calista, his unexpected love for me—but as the trees parted, revealing our destination, all thoughts of our tangled emotions paused. I leaned forward, my breath catching at the sight before us.
Jaxon’s home wasn’t what I’d expected. I’d imagined a modest cabin, maybe a rundown shack, something fitting for a banished Alpha scraping by in the shadows of his past. After all, he was the disgraced so
