His voice came from somewhere to her left, low and rough around the edges. Brooks stepped out from between two pines, shoulders tight, jaw set. The moonlight caught the gray-gold of his eyes, and for a moment, he looked every inch the Alpha he refused to be.

He stopped a few feet away, close enough that his scent—pine and earth and something warmer underneath—reached her clearly. His gaze swept over her, quick and assessing, the way he checked everyone after patrol. But with her, it lingered.

He already knew the answer. It was written in the set of her shoulders, the emptiness of her hands.

A figure detached itself from the shadows beneath the oaks. Tall. Lean. He moved with the kind of ease that came from knowing exactly where the moonlight fell and where it didn’t.