Chapter 4: Protocol and Restraint
1024 Words
Ronan POV
I shifted back to human at the tree line, yanked on the sweatpants I'd left stashed in the hollow of an old oak, and forced myself to breathe like a man instead of a wolf standing on the edge of losing control.
Steady, I told Ash. We do this the right way.
The right way is claiming what's ours.
The right way is making sure a family fleeing an abusive Alpha doesn't walk into another one. That shut him up, at least for a moment. I wasn't going to become Draven. I wasn't going to be the man who looked at a scared seventeen-year-old and decided she belonged to him before she'd had any say in the matter at all. Whatever Ash felt, whatever I felt, none of it mattered if it came at the cost of her safety, or her right to choose anything for herself.
I walked out onto the road as the car came to a full stop at the checkpoint, two of my warriors already stepping forward on either side. I kept my expression flat, my shoulders relaxed, forcing every ounce of Alpha authority I usually let saturate the air around me back down into something quieter. The last thing this family needed was to feel like they'd traded one predator for another.
The driver's door opened, and a man stepped out with his hands raised a clear, deliberate gesture of peace that told me everything about who he was before he said a word. Trained. Careful. A warrior who understood exactly how dangerous first impressions could be in another Alpha's territory.
"Alpha." He inclined his head respectfully as he approached, stopping a careful distance away. "Thank you for letting us come here."
"Mr. Moore." Callum had briefed me on the names before I left the packhouse Desmond Moore, formerly of Ironwood, a decorated warrior who'd apparently been passed over for head warrior despite being, by every account, the best fighter in his pack. "Welcome to Stormhollow. I'm glad I could help."
"It means more than I can say." His voice cracked slightly on the words, just enough that I understood exactly how much fear this man had been carrying to get his family here. "Please, call me Desmond."
"Is it your children in the car?"
"Yes, Alpha. My son, Micah, and my daughter, Sage."
The name hit me harder than it should have. Sage. I kept my face carefully neutral, though Ash surged forward inside me at the sound of it, wanting closer, wanting to see her, wanting things I had no intention of allowing either of us tonight.
"We have a house prepared for you," I said, keeping my voice level. "But first, I'd like all of you to come to my office so we can formally welcome you into the pack. It's safer to make it official quickly no one will mistake you for rogues that way."
What I didn't say was the real reason: making her a full pack member as fast as possible put another layer of protection between her and anyone who might come looking. Desmond didn't need to know that part yet. He'd figure it out eventually.
"Yes, Alpha. As you wish."
I glanced past him toward the car, and that was my mistake.
Through the windshield, I could see a young man in the passenger seat, alert and watchful, clearly cataloging every warrior in sight the way a trained fighter would. And in the back seat, half-turned toward the window, was a girl with dark hair pulled back, sharp brown eyes taking in the tree line like she was looking for exactly the kind of threat I'd spent the last hour running from.
Our eyes met for less than two seconds.
It felt like longer.
Everything in me went perfectly, dangerously still. Ash roared to life so violently I had to lock my jaw to keep any sound from escaping. She was young achingly, obviously young, seventeen at most, exactly the age Desmond had said and every instinct I had screamed at me to look away, to give her the privacy of not being stared at by a stranger twice her size on the worst night of her life.
I looked away.
It cost me more than I expected it to.
"Luca will show your family to the packhouse," I told Desmond, my voice rougher than I intended. "I'll run ahead and meet you there."
"Thank you, Alpha. For everything."
I didn't trust myself to say anything else. I turned and walked back toward the tree line, and the second I was sure no one could see my face, I let out a breath that shook more than I wanted to admit.
You saw her, Ash said quietly.
I saw a scared kid who just fled everything she's ever known. That's all I saw.
That's not all you smelled.
I didn't answer him. I shifted back into wolf form and ran, hard, putting real distance between myself and the checkpoint before I let myself think about the way her eyes had locked onto mine like she'd felt something too something she couldn't possibly understand yet, something I had no right to explain to her even if she asked.
We wait, I told Ash, as firmly as I could manage. However long it takes. Months. A year. Until she's old enough to understand what any of this means and choose it for herself, if she even wants to. Do you hear me?
I hear you. A pause, heavier than the silence around us. I don't like it.
Neither do I.
But some things mattered more than what either of us wanted. I ran the rest of the way back to the packhouse in silence, arriving well before the car, and I stood at the edge of the training yard trying to compose myself into something that looked like an Alpha and not a man whose entire world had just tilted sideways over the scent of strawberries and white chocolate carried on cold morning air.
I had no idea yet how impossible that promise to wait was going to be to keep.
- Writer
