Chapter 232
5 YEARS LATER
I wake before dawn because my body never forgot how.
There’s no alarm. There never is. I open my eyes to the same gray pre-light filtering through the narrow window above the bed, the world not awake yet but no longer asleep either. That in-between hour feels honest. Nothing is pretending to be calm. Nothing is pretending to be safe.
The cabin is quiet in that thin, waiting way, the kind of quiet that isn’t peace so much as a held breath. Neutral land has its own silence. No pack heartbeat humming through the ground. No Alpha presence pressing against the edges of your senses. Just trees, dirt, and a structure built to be useful, not comforting. No history soaked into the walls. No ghosts pacing the halls.
I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is cold. I let it be. I don’t flinch. It keeps me sharp, keeps me present. I pause there for a moment, elbows resting on my knees, breathing steady, checking in with myself the way I was taught after everything went wrong. No panic. No lingering echoes. Just
awareness.
The shower takes longer than it should because the water barely counts as warm. I installed it that way on purpose. Too much heat makes you soft. Makes you linger. Makes your thoughts drift into places you don’t need them to go. I stand under the thin stream and let it sting my skin awake, eyes closed, jaw tight. Steam barely gathers on the walls, and what does form fades fast. The soap smells like nothing. No floral nonsense. No artificial comfort. I scrub until my shoulders loosen, until the ache in my spine settles into something manageable instead of distracting.
When I brush my teeth, I don’t look at my face right away. I look lower.
The scar sits just below my collarbone, pale and uneven, a half-moon line that doesn’t hurt anymore. I honestly don’t remember how I got it. I remember the war. I remember blood and dirt and screaming. I remember orders shouted over gunfire, remember the sound a body makes when it hits the ground wrong. I remember running until my lungs felt like they were tearing themselves apart just to keep me moving.
But that exact moment? Gone.
That feels intentional. Like my mind stepped in and edited the footage before it could do real damage. Survival isn’t just about what you endure. It’s about what you let yourself remember afterward.
I spit, rinse, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and finally meet my own eyes
in the mirror. They look older than five years should allow. Not tired. Not hollow. Just… measured. Like I learned how to weigh everything before letting it matter. Like nothing gets in without permission anymore.
next. Same routine,
Coffee comes ne
same mug. Dark ceramic with a chipped rim that catches slightly on my thumb if I’m not careful. I found it at a roadside shop years ago and bought it because it felt solid in my hand. Unpretentious. Still standing despite the damage. I brew the coffee strong and bitter, the kind
that doesn’t pretend to be comforting or kind. The smell fills the cabin, sharp and grounding, anchoring me better than any memory ever could.
I don’t check messages yet.
First, I pull up the reports.
The tablet lights up the small kitchen table, pale blue glow cutting through the dim cabin. Lines of text scroll under my fingers as I read, absorb, categorize. Border disputes resolved overnight. Two minor crossings, settled without blood. A mediation request from a southern pack that still hasn’t figured out how to talk instead of threaten. Another pack, one I won’t name yet even in my own head, quietly asking if they can delay public accountability on a sanction they absolutely earned.
Five years didn’t erase the war. It just taught everyone how to hide their damage better.
I take a sip of coffee and let the bitterness sit on my tongue while I read. Numbers. Names. Patterns. Timelines. This is the part of leadership no one writes songs about. Paper cuts instead of claws. Slow pressure instead of explosions. Decisions that don’t feel heroic but still decide who gets hurt and who doesn’t.
I flag a few items for later, make a mental note of which ones will turn ugly if ignored too long, and only then do I check messages.
There aren’t many. There rarely are. No pack chatter. No emergencies. One short note from a courier confirming a delivery window. That’s it. Peaceful, if you squint hard enough and don’t look for what’s missing.
I dress quickly. Plain clothes. Durable pants with reinforced seams. Boots that have seen more ground than polish. A jacket with no insignia, no stitching that marks rank or allegiance. No symbols. No reminder of what I was, or what some still think I should be.
Non-Alpha, by design.
When I step outside, the air is cold
enough to bite. It cuts clean through the jacket and wakes me up the rest of the way. The sky is just starting to lighten a thin gray-blue line on the horizon like the world is being sketched back into existence. Ben is already moving along the perimeter, same route he walks every morning, checking lines that rarely change but still matter. He doesn’t jump when he notices me. Doesn’t stiffen or straighten. He just lifts a hand in greeting and keeps walking.