I didn't think about Corbin much anymore.

That wasn't entirely true. I thought about him the way you think about a scar—aware it's there, aware it shaped you, but not dwelling on it unless something pressed directly on the wound.

What I didn't know, couldn't have known, was that he was thinking about me.

Dara told me later—months later, when the truth finally came out—that Thornridge was falling apart. Rogue attacks on the borders. Warriors deserting. Resources drained by a Luna who cared more about the title than the pack it was supposed to protect.

And Corbin, haunted.

Not by guilt. Not by regret. Not yet.

By my scent.

The phantom of it, anyway. Honeysuckle. Faint and fleeting, surfacing without warning during meals, during training sessions, during the nights he spent beside Lilith in the bed that should have been mine. A biological punishment his own wolf inflicted on him for severing a bond the Moon Goddess had ordained.

I didn't know any of this at the time.

I was too busy learning how to breathe again.

---

The healing ward became my anchor.

I wasn't officially assigned there. Dara never asked me to stay. But I kept coming back—rolling bandages, sorting supplies, cleaning instruments after the day's cases were done. The work was familiar. Grounding. It gave my hands something to do while my body finished purging the wolfsbane and my mind tried to make sense of everything that had broken.

I stayed late one night. A young pack member—barely eighteen—had come in with deep gashes across his ribs from a training accident. Dara had stitched him up, but the wounds needed dressing, and he was too shaken to do it himself.

I stayed. I cleaned the wounds. I wrapped the bandages carefully, the way I'd learned years ago in Thornridge's pack house. The boy thanked me in a quiet voice and left.

I was washing my hands at the sink when I felt the presence behind me.

Not heard. Felt.

The scent hit me first—honeyed cedar and iron, winter frost underneath. I turned.

Henrik stood in the doorway.

He didn't step inside. Just stood there, hands loose at his sides, his gray eyes steady on mine. He looked tired. Not physically—Lycan Princes didn't get physically tired the way regular wolves did—but something in his expression was worn.

"How are you sleeping?" he asked.

The question was so plain, so direct, that I almost laughed. Not as a prince. Not with any authority. Just as a man asking a question he actually wanted the answer to.

"Poorly," I said.

He nodded. Didn't try to fix it. Didn't offer empty reassurances.

He crossed the room—not quickly, not slowly, just with the unhurried confidence of someone who knew exactly where he was allowed to be—and sat in the chair beside the sink. Not close enough to crowd me. Close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off him.

We sat in silence.

It wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't charged. It was just… quiet.

I dried my hands on a towel and set it down. My fingers were still shaking slightly—a lingering side effect of the purge that Dara said would fade eventually.

Henrik noticed. Of course he noticed.

But he didn't comment.

"The boy you helped tonight," he said after a moment. "Owen told me you stayed three hours past shift end to make sure he was stable."

I shrugged. "He needed help."

"You didn't have to give it."

"Yes, I did."

Henrik looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, very quietly, "You're going to be extraordinary."

I went still.

Those were Owen's words. Dara had told me. But hearing them from Henrik—spoken in that low, certain voice—made them land differently.

I didn't know what to say.

Henrik stood. He didn't touch me. Didn't step closer. Just stood and looked at me once more, his gray eyes holding mine.

Then he left.

The honeyed cedar scent lingered long after he was gone.

This time, I didn't retreat from it.

---

I didn't see Henrik again for two weeks.

But I felt him.

In the room reassignment that gave me a window facing the forest. In the medical supplies that appeared in the healing ward before Dara even realized we were running low. In the quiet efficiency with which Silvercrest ran—no drama, no cruelty, just wolves doing their jobs and taking care of each other.

This was what a pack was supposed to feel like.

I'd forgotten.

On a Tuesday morning, Owen Hale appeared in the healing ward doorway. He watched me work for a moment—I was restocking bandages, my hands moving on autopilot—then crossed to where Dara was reviewing patient charts.

They spoke in low voices. I caught fragments: "…message from Thornridge…" "…Alpha jurisdiction…" "…Henrik's already handled it…"

Dara glanced at me once. Her expression didn't change.

Owen left without speaking to me directly.

I kept working.

Later, when the ward was empty and the evening shift had taken over, Dara sat down beside me at the supply table.

"Corbin tried to contact Silvercrest," she said. No preamble. No softening. "He sent a formal message requesting your return to Thornridge. Said you were still a pack member under his Alpha jurisdiction."

My hands stilled on the bandage I was rolling.

"Henrik replied," Dara continued. "Single sentence. You're a resident of Silvercrest under the Lycan Prince's personal protection. Any further correspondence will be treated as a territorial provocation."

I looked at her.

"He didn't tell you," Dara said. "Because he didn't think you needed to know. But I'm telling you now, because you deserve to know that Corbin tried, and Henrik shut it down before it ever reached you."

I sat there in the quiet healing ward, feeling something tight in my chest loosen and tighten at the same time.

Corbin had tried to reclaim me.

And Henrik had refused to let him.

Not because Henrik wanted to possess me. Not because he was staking a claim.

Because he'd meant what he said that night in the hallway.

*You're under my protection.*

I pressed my hand to the scar on my neck—the dead-white mark that would never glow gold again—and felt the phantom ache of the severed bond pulse once, faintly.

Then it faded.

And underneath it, something else stirred.

Not my wolf. Not yet.

But close.

So close I could almost hear her breathing.