Freya’s POV


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    Finished


    The storm had broken two nights ago, yet its echo still lingered in Whitmor’s halls. For two full days he had not set foot beyond the estate walls, and I remained with him. My orders were protection, but the truth was simpler: I couldn’t bring myself to leave.


    The Whitmor estate sat heavy with shadows. Old walls breathed the secrets of his line, and I knew enough of wolf curses to recognize when a house itself remembered pain. I stayed close<b>, </b>watchful, making sure the darkness didn’t swallow him whole.


    It was on the third morning that an intruder came.


    <b>I </b>caught the scent first–familiar, blood–bound. Jocelyn Thorne. I should have expected her; our family threads spread long and tangled. But still, I wasn’t prepared for the sharp look she gave me the instant her eyesnded on me.


    “What are you doing here?” Jocelyn’s voice was edged with disbelief.


    “I live here, for now,” I answered evenly, refusing to let her see the shift of unease in my chest.


    Her expression twisted, storm clouds building in her gaze. She knew this house. Everyone who remembered the Whitmor history knew. It was the home Ss’s parents had once kept, the home he had kept closed to all but servants. For her, my presence here was not just strange–it was unthinkable.


    “Don’t fool yourself, Freya,” she sneered. “Staying here doesn’t make you special to him. This estate has its secrets. There’s a room he never allows anyone to enter. You haven’t stepped inside, have you?”


    I froze for half a breath. When I’d moved in, Ss had warned me, his tone absolute–never the room at the far end of the third floor. My instincts told me not to press. Wolfw respected boundaries, especially those soaked in grief.


    “No.” I admitted quietly.


    Jocelyn’s smile spread like a de catching light. “But I have. I’ve walked inside, where no one else was allowed.”


    Her words were meant to cut, to draw blood. She stood taller, victory in her posture, as if gaining entry to a forbidden room granted her dominance over me.


    “So what?” I asked, my tone t. I wasn’t here to y whatever dominance games she thought we were in.


    Her face flickered. I’d expected outrage, jealousy–something to make me reel. But I gave her nothing. The blownded on air, leaving her fist empty.


    Her jaw tightened, wolf energy snapping sharp. “You don’t understand what that means, do you? It proves I’m the only one special to him. The only one he forgives, even when I cross his boundaries.”


    Her chin lifted high, proud, smug.


    I exhaled slowly, fighting the growl that wanted to rise. I turned, intent on leaving. There was nothing for me in her words. Ss’s heart was his own–his wounds his own. Whatever secrets he’d shown her didn’t concern me.


    But Jocelyn wasn’t finished. She slid into my path, her voice dropping lower, more venomous. “You don’t know him. Not the savage wolf he bes when anger takes him, not the hollow boy when despair devours him. I’ve seen both. You’ve seen nothing.”


    Her words pressed like ws into scars I couldn’t see.


    “When his mother abandoned him, when his father ground him down, it was me who took him in. Me who stayed. Without me he would have broken. He would have died. Do you even realize how pathetic he was back then?”


    My fists clenched. The Iron Fang Recon Unit had taught me patience, but this–this careless tearing open of Ss’s wounds— was no better than cruelty.


    “That’s enough,” I snapped. “Those memories aren’t yours to wield. Stop before you say more.”


    But Jocelyn’s pride was drunk on its own venom. She mistook my warning for weakness and pressed harder. “Do you even know how his father punished him? What he survived? I do. Only I. That makes me the one who truly knows him.”


    6:08 AM P P


    My wolf bristled. This wasn’t just arrogance–it was desecration.


    I opened my mouth to silence her when movement caught my eye.


    Behind her.


    A figure stepped from the shadowed hall.


    Ss


    The Irond Alpha himself, silent as death.


    My stomach twisted. He had heard everything.


    Finished


    Jocelyn, drunk on her own gloating, didn’t notice. She kept on, her words sharpening like fangs. “He never told you how his mother died, did he? But I know. I was with him when-”


    Her voice cut off.


    Because his hand closed around her throat.


    One moment she was smirking, the next her body jolted, lifted slightly as Ss’s long fingers locked tight. I felt the temperature of the room plummet. His hand looked deceptively slender, but I knew the truth–those fingers were steel, forged from years ofmand and fury,


    Her breath hitched, strangled. Color drained from her face, her eyes widening in shock. She wed at him, nails scraping his skin, but his grip didn’t falter.


    His voice came low, cold, edged with a darkness that sent even my wolf rigid. “I wonder… how was I, back then? You seemed so eager to tell her. Say it again.”


    The air itself vibrated with his menace.


    I had seen Ss battle alphas, I had seen him bleed enemies dry. But this–this was worse. It wasn’t fury. It was ice, wrath restrained so tight it could shatter mountains when it broke.


    Jocelyn trembled. Panic painted her pale. Her wolf instincts screamed against the brink of death closing around her throat. “Forgive… forgive me, Ss… I didn’t mean-”


    Her words choked, thin, barely audible through the crushing force of his hand.


    I should have moved, should have intervened. But for a long, terrible moment I couldn’t. Part of me was rooted in awe, in terror. Part of me knew: she had trespassed where she never should have.


    Still, I forced myself to breathe, to steady. I was Freya Thorne, not a bystander. I was his protector, whether he asked for it or


    not.


    And I could not allow him to destroy himself through her.


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