Emily
I leaned against the railing, watching the sky bleed slowly toward midnight.
Stars blinked through thin clouds, distant and uncaring. Unlike the ballroom full of wolves behind me, the stars didn’t ask questions or judge what they didn’t understand.
Michael’s voice still rang in my ears. Not what he’d said, but what he hadn’t.
It was the absence of an apology. The quiet edge of entitlement. As if we were still pieces on a board, and I should be flattered to have been considered.
I didn’t know what hurt more, his casual smugness or the way part of me had still wanted him to regret it.
It wasn’t personal. The words meant nothing o
But they’d sunk in like a splinter anyway.
The door behind me clicked open, then eased closed.
Logan’s energy was different from anyone else’s. It was more palpable somehow, heavier without being oppressive. He moved like he didn’t need to announce himself, like room shifted for Him whether he wanted it to or not.
ther
“You okay?” he asked, voice low.
I didn’t want to lie, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell the truth either.
“He’s courting Dawnhearth’s heir,” I said instead.
Logan moved to stand beside me, close but not touching. “I noticed.”
There was no jealousy in his tone. No accusation. Just quiet observation, like he was letting me lead again.
“I didn’t expect it to shake me,” I admitted. “I thought I was past all of it.”
“And now?”
I exhaled. “Now I feel like I’ve been holding onto the idea of being over him longer than I actually have been.”
Logan didn’t press, but his presence was solid beside me. Grounding. A quiet reminder that I wasn’t standing here alone.
“He said our match was ‘strategic.“” I said with snort.
Logan’s jaw tightened. I saw it in the way his shoulders tensed. “Is that what you think it is becoming?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I whispered. “What we started was about revenge. Power. Survival. But lately…”
He turned then, slowly, and I felt the weight of his gaze land on me
I kept my eyes down or I wouldn’t be able to say the truth, “…lately it doesn’t feel like strategy,” I finishe
The wind picked up, brushing cold fingers across my skin. I shivered once, and then I felt his jacket, warm from his body, settle over my shoulders.
I glanced at him, surprised, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring out at the tree line, jaw tight, hands tucked in his pockets like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to touch me or keep his distance.
“You don’t owe me anything, Emily,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“But I’m not letting him, or anyone else, reduce you to a move on a board.”
The words landed differently than I expected. Ther was something close to respect there. Loyalty.
Chapter 95
+25 BONUS
We stood there in silence again, just long enough for my mouth to voice my thoughts before I meant to.
“Do you ever think about the future?”
He turned slightly. “What do you mean?”
I hesitated but decided to lay it all out there. “About what comes after this. After the contract ends.”
A beat passed. “You know what’s in the contract,” he said carefully “We’re not meant to build anything beyond it. ”
“No children,” I said. “No bond.”
“No expectations,” he added, voice unreadable.
I nodded. “It just hit me tonight. Seeing Michael. Thinking about what I used to want.”
He looked at me, then, truly looked. “And what do you want now?
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I think I want the chance to find out.”
Logan
I didn’t go back inside. I waited until the noise of the gala dulled into something distant and unimportant, and then I drove home alone, the image of Emily’s smile burning behind my eyes.
She had left the gala a couple of hours earlier but still had a few Alphas I hadn’t spoken to so I stayed.
+25
