Jax noticed it before anyone else.
He always did.
Raya was standing at the long windows of the eastern hall when he stepped behind her, close enough for his breath to stir the loose strands of her hair. The estate was quiet; patrol rotations had shifted an hour earlier, and the tension from the incursion still lingered like smoke in the beams.
He inhaled.
Then stilled.
Her scent had changed again.
Not sharply. Not wrong. But layered.
Alpha—undeniable, commanding, clean as cold iron. That part had always been there since the Trial. Since she survived what should have broken her.
But beneath it now was something darker. Older. Not decay. Not corruption.
Depth.
Jax’s hand came to her waist slowly, possessively, as if testing whether she was still entirely solid beneath his palm. “De
