Dante's POV
The first time I saw Tanya in the training yard, I thought she looked so small and breakable.
Not fragile like glass… glass shatters quickly. She looked like something thin and withering under pressure from years of facing storms alone, but still somehow standing. A tree whose bark had been stripped, yet refused to fall.
She was awkward in her stance, shoulders hunched slightly as if expecting a blow from any direction, especially from my pack members. Her hands curled into loose fists that didn’t yet know how to strike. She flinched when Holt corrected her form. And yet… she never stopped trying.
That was what made me pause.
Most outsiders that wandered or were brought into Crimson territory never lasted a day even on the off chance that Tion gave them a choice to fight,
