Marcus's hand was warm around mine, but I never made it to the SUV.

A crash split the night.

The outer gates of the Black Moon estate slammed open with a groan of metal, and a second set of headlights flooded the drive. Not Marcus's. These came from the south road—the road that led to Moonridge.

I froze on the bottom step.

A convoy of dark vehicles rolled in fast and stopped clean, doors swinging open in unison. Warriors poured out in disciplined silence. They didn't run. They didn't shout. They moved like one creature with many feet, fanning into formation across the gravel.

And at the front of them, walking with that long, unhurried stride I'd known since we were children, was Evan.

His Beta aura hit me before he did. It wasn't a wave. It wasn't a storm. It was something deeper—steady, low, the way a riverbed feels under fast water. The Moonridge warriors at his back straightened with it. The Black Moon warriors gathering on the porch shifted on their feet, eyes darting, hands twitching toward weapons they didn't quite dare draw.

Oscar's dominance had felt like a fist. Evan's felt like a wall you couldn't move.

Marcus glanced at me. One eyebrow lifted. He let go of my hand.

"Adele."

Evan said my name the way he always had. Quiet. Careful. Like he was making sure I heard it before he came any closer.

I hadn't realized I'd stopped breathing until I exhaled.

Behind me, the pack house doors banged open again.

"GET AWAY FROM HER."

Oscar's voice tore down the steps. He shoved past two of his own warriors and planted himself between me and Evan, chest heaving, hair wrecked, the red mark of my palm still burning on his cheek. His Alpha aura flared out around him in desperate waves, trying to push, trying to crush, trying to be what it had been an hour ago.

It didn't reach Evan.

Evan stopped at the bottom step. He looked up at Oscar without a flicker. His scent moved through the cold air—cedarwood, clean rain, something green and alive—and it cut straight through the cloud of Oscar's cologne like a knife through cheap fabric.

"Move, Oscar," Evan said.

No Alpha tone. No raised voice. Just three syllables that landed like stones in still water.

Oscar's lip pulled back. "You don't give me orders on my own land, Beta."

"I'm not giving you an order." Evan tilted his head slightly. "I'm telling you what's about to happen."

They held each other's eyes.

I watched it. I'd watched Oscar stare men twice his size into submission for ten years. I'd seen warriors drop their gazes, drop to one knee, drop the conversation entirely. I'd seen it work.

It didn't work now.

A long second passed. Then another. Oscar's shoulders trembled with the strain of holding his aura up. A muscle ticked in his jaw. His eyes flickered—just once, just for half a heartbeat—and then they slid sideways.

He looked away first.

Something inside the pack house made a sound. A small, sharp inhale. One of his own warriors, watching from the door, had seen it too.

Evan didn't gloat. He didn't even shift his weight. He just stepped around Oscar like Oscar wasn't there and climbed two stairs until he was on my level.

Then he held out his hand.

Palm up. Fingers loose. No grasp. No grip. Just an open hand, waiting.

"If you'll let me," he said softly, "I'll take you home."

My throat closed.

Ten years. Ten years of fingers digging into my chin, of grips on my arm, of commands dressed up as affection. And here was this hand, just sitting there in the cold, waiting on me to decide.

I put my hand in his.

His fingers closed around mine, gentle, careful, like I was something he was afraid of breaking. The cedarwood scent wrapped around me, and somewhere inside my chest the place that had been screaming for ten years went very, very quiet.

My wolf, who had not made a sound in months, sighed.

"Adele." Oscar's voice cracked on the second syllable. "Adele, don't—don't do this—"

Evan turned us toward the convoy.

We walked down the steps together. Marcus fell in on my other side without a word, his men closing around us in a moving shell. Gravel crunched under my heels. The night air was sharp and clean and smelled like nothing of the Black Moon Pack.

"ADELE!"

Oscar's roar followed us across the drive. I heard him stumble down the steps behind us.

"You're my mate! The Moon Goddess made you mine—you can't choose him, you can't—Evan, you bastard, this is pack law, this is sacred—"

His voice broke and reformed and broke again.

"Adele, look at me. LOOK AT ME!"

I didn't.

Evan opened the rear door of the lead SUV. I slid in. He climbed in after me, closing the door with a soft, final click. Through the tinted window I saw Oscar standing in the middle of his own driveway, arms half-raised, mouth still moving, the porch lights painting him in harsh yellow. Behind him, in every lit window of the pack house, faces were pressed to the glass. Watching. Counting. Calculating.

Gideon stood in the doorway with his arms folded.

He was already counting too.

The convoy pulled forward. The gates swung wide. We rolled through them, and the Black Moon estate began to shrink in the side mirror—Oscar a smaller and smaller shape on the steps, alone under his own porch lights, screaming into a night that no longer answered him.

Evan's hand was still around mine.

He hadn't said another word.

He didn't need to.