The Alpha floor never truly slept.
Even in the deepest hours of night, there was movement woven into the stone. Guards changing shifts with soft murmurs. The distant echo of boots along stairwells. The low, constant awareness of a pack that had learned, through pain, that vigilance was not paranoia but survival.
Lila woke slowly, the way one did when rest had been real instead of stolen.
For a moment, she didn’t move. She lay still beneath the covers, breathing in the familiar scents of pine and clean linen, listening to the quiet pulse of the territory around her. The warmth in her abdomen was steady, present, no longer a fragile flicker but something more rooted.
Still cautious.
Still precious.
But no longer alone.
She turned her head.
Caleb slept beside her, not touching, not cr
