How long had it been since they stood like this?
No masks. No borrowed faces. No shields.
Just them—laid bare, stripped of pretense, of all the battles fought in silence, of every wound they had inflicted on each other in the name of something neither could even define anymore.
Before Ryley knew it, sorrow welled up, and his brown eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
His trembling hands pressed against the Alpha's chest, light yet searing, as if trying to push him away—yet not quite letting go.
"You don't have a home anymore, Clyde… it's gone…"
Clyde hadn't planned for this. Not any of it.
Yet here he was, standing at the precipice of a choice he knew he should have never made.
It brought him back—far back—to the voice of The Beast, etched into his bones like scripture. A lesson not just taught, but engraved.
"Mercy is a weakness unbefitting of a true ruler."
He could still remember the old man's piercing gaze, the way his words carried the weight of centuries.
