Auren POV

The pack was celebrating tonight.

I sat on the back porch, a quiet observer while my people filled the yard laughing, eating, drinking like the world had finally loosened its grip on their throats. Freedom. Actual freedom. The word felt surreal, almost fragile, as though saying it too loudly might shatter it.

I’d never seen them like this. Not in my lifetime. Not even close.

My Gamma hadn’t relaxed patrols, not truly he’d simply shifted the guards farther in from the ...