The next morning, the air in the den was different.
Tighter. Thicker.
With his arms folded across his wide chest and his gaze fixed on the door as though he were daring it to open, Kael stood shirtless at the fire pit.
A new shift clung to my thighs as I sat curled on the furs' edge. After last night's claiming—slower, undoubtedly, but no less possessive—my body was tender and my gut hurt. I could still feel the warmth of his refusal to leave me, where his knot had pulsed.
Silently, I murmured, "You're tense.”
Kael didn’t answer.
I rose and approached him, hand brushing his forearm. He didn’t pull away.
Instead, he said, “A challenger is coming.”
“Another Alpha?”
He nodded once. “Thorne.”
The name made the air colder.
“Strong?”
“Strong enough to die with teeth in his thro
