Jace pov
I arrived at the community center twenty minutes before the first challenge was set to begin, my usual punctuality serving me well as the newly minted Alpha of the Moonrise Pack. At twenty-two, I cut an impressive figure—broader through the shoulders than I had been three years ago, my face more angular, marked by the kind of weariness that came from carrying the weight of leadership. The carefree arrogance of my youth had been tempered by responsibility, though traces of it still lingered in the way I moved through crowds.
I had changed in other ways too, ways that weren't immediately visible. The easy charm that had once made me the center of every social gathering had turned into something more calculated, more distant. I worked obsessively, throwing myself into pack business
