AISLYNThe pack doesn’t wake the next morning.

It exhales.

The difference is subtle enough that most wouldn’t name it, but I feel it the moment my feet touch the stone floor. The air is lighter. The tension that once hummed just beneath every interaction has thinned, like fog burned away by patient sunlight.

Ashlyn still exists.

But the pack has already moved on.

I pass wolves in the corridor who greet me without hesitation now. Not with deference, with ease. With the quiet certainty that I ...