DARIUS
I didn’t even sleep after Rhea took off. Couldn't.
My life of the last twelve hours replayed in my mind. The council confrontation. My public declaration. The vote that almost cost me my Alpha.
I should have been strategizing. Repairing political relationships. Consolidating power.
Instead, at 3 a.m., I was in my office pulling open a locked drawer I hadn’t accessed for five years.
Inside were the items I could not bring myself to discard.
The moonstone ring I'd had made for Rhea's Luna ceremony. The stones had been a fortune, carefully selected to match her wolf's silver pelt. Photos of our two years together, laughing around pack campfires, running as wolves under the full moon. A scarf she’d left that still faintly held her scent, but it had faded over the five years.
I wa
