They're all staring.

Good.

Let them see what the rogues built. Let them see the Omega's daughter who clawed her way to Alpha while their precious bloodlines sat in their stone halls and rotted.

I walk through the summit hall. Every step deliberate. Every wolf in this room will remember the way I entered. My wolves fan out behind me. Not servants. Soldiers. Every scar on my body is a medal. Every year in exile made me harder.

The girl Marcus Croft rejected is dead. I made sure of it.

The whispers start before I'm ten steps in. I catch fragments: Rogue Coalition... impossible... how did she...

Let them wonder.

The hall is ancient stone and vaulted ceilings, pack banners hanging like trophies of wars long settled. A fire burns in the central pit, throwing shadows across the faces of Alphas who've never had to fight for anything in their lives.

I've fought for everything.

Kira falls into step beside me, close enough that her shoulder nearly brushes mine. "They look like they've seen a ghost."

"They have." I keep my voice low, my eyes forward. "The ghost of the girl they buried five years ago."

"She's definitely dead." Kira's mouth twitches. "The woman who replaced her is much scarier."

I don't smile. I don't do that here.

We're halfway across the hall when it happens.

The bond.

It hits me like a fist to the chest. Five years of silence, five years of keeping it caged, and now it wakes up screaming. Clawing at my ribs. Thrashing against the walls I built to contain it.

My step falters. Just for a second. Just enough that Kira notices.

"Sera?"

I force my legs to keep moving. Force my face to stay neutral.

No. Not here. Not now.

But I already know. Before I turn my head, before I let myself look, I know.

He's here.

I look anyway.

Marcus Croft stands across the hall, and he looks like hell.

The years haven't been kind. There are shadows under his eyes that weren't there before. A tightness around his mouth that speaks of sleepless nights. He's still broad-shouldered, still powerful, still the kind of man that makes other Alphas step back.

But something is broken in him.

Good.

I find his gaze across the crowded hall. Five years collapse into nothing. I'm twenty-two again, standing in that clearing, his words carving me open in front of everyone we knew.

You're not worthy to be my Luna.

I shut it down. Lock it away. I am not that girl anymore.

His wolf howls. I feel it through the bond, even suppressed. A sound of desperate recognition. Of need so sharp it borders on pain.

My wolf stays silent. Caged.

Good girl.

Marcus starts moving. Walking toward me like he can't help it, like his body is acting without permission from his brain. The crowd parts around him. They can feel the violence in the air, even if they don't understand it.

My wolves tense. I signal them to hold.

This is my moment. Not his.

He stops three feet away. Close enough that I can see the gray in his eyes has gone dark. Close enough that I can smell him: pine and smoke and something underneath that my wolf remembers even if I've tried to forget.

"Sera."

He says my name like he's been saving it. Like the word itself is a wound he keeps reopening.

I look at him the way I'd look at a stranger.

"Alpha Croft." My voice is ice. My hands don't shake. "I don't believe we have business."

Something flickers in his expression. Pain. Hope. I don't care which.

I turn to walk away.

His hand catches my wrist.

The bond detonates.

Five years of carefully constructed walls. Five years of teaching myself not to feel. Five years of becoming someone he couldn't break.

Gone. In one touch.

Sensation floods up my arm and slams into my ribs. My wolf surges against her cage, howling, reaching for him. The bond roars to life like a wildfire, consuming everything I built to contain it.

I don't gasp. I don't flinch.

But he sees it. The crack in my armor. And his whole body leans toward me. Instinct. Need.

"Sera." His voice is scraped raw. "Please. I need to..."

I yank my arm free.

"Touch me again," I say, "and I'll take your hand."

I mean it. He knows I mean it.

I walk away. My wolves close ranks behind me, a wall of fur and teeth between me and the man who destroyed me.

But I feel him watching. I feel the bond howling, demanding I turn around, go back, let him explain.

And worst of all, I feel my wolf stir for the first time in five years. She presses against the cage I built for her, whimpering.

No, I tell her. He's nothing to us. Not anymore.

She doesn't believe me.

Neither do I.