The silence felt off. Ryker could sense it for the first time since fate had tangled him up with her. It wasn’t about the world going quiet, or the endless chatter of wind and leaves stopping outside the pack borders. The warriors outside still shouted, and the forest still hummed. No, the silence was inside him—a hollow space, an emptiness he’d never let himself admit.
He sat alone in the Alpha’s chamber, his shoulders rigid under the darkness of his shirt. Moonlight spilled in through tall windows, the kind that made this stone-carved room feel powerful, intimidating. Tonight, though, everything felt suffocating. The walls pressed in, the air weighed him down, and even the throne looked more like a prison than a sign he ruled this land.
Ryker’s fingers wrapped so tightly around the cha
