Leona paced the halls of the pack house, unable to shake the gnawing feeling in her chest. Something about Alpha Zane had always unsettled her—not in a bad way, but in a way that made her stomach twist with emotions she couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t just his authority or the way he carried himself as a leader. It was something subtler, something that felt like it reached across time and touched a part of her she didn’t know existed.
The Garden was always a place of solace, but for Zane, it was more than that. She had seen how he tended to it with almost reverential care, his expression softening in a way she hadn’t thought possible for someone so guarded. There was a connection there, one she couldn’t understand but desperately wanted to.
One evening, as she wandered the pack house, he
