Ronan’s POV

The night after the evaluation, I couldn’t sleep.

The dorms were quiet, lights dimmed, the hum of the academy’s security drones fading into the dark. But my mind wouldn’t settle. It kept circling back to him.

Arden.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same thing; the way he froze when I brushed close to him during drills, the faint tremor that didn’t belong to an Alpha, the scent that shouldn’t have existed at all.

And that look in his eyes, defiance masking ...