A full moon cycle passed before I heard anything real about Colin, and even then it came secondhand, filtered through Sylvie's endless network of pack gossip like water through a sieve.

"He botched the Shadowpine merger," she told me over coffee, scrolling through her phone with the satisfaction of someone reading a particularly good obituary. "Snapped at Derek in front of the whole negotiating table. Called their Beta 'irrelevant' to his face. Shadowpine walked out mid-meeting."

I should have felt nothing. I told myself I felt nothing.

"He keeps reaching for the link," she added, quieter now, watching my face. "According to Derek. Keeps going quiet mid-sentence, like he's listening for something that isn't there anymore."

I knew that ache. I still felt its echo some mornings, a dull throb where ten years used to live. But I didn't reach back. I'd meant every word I said on that porch, and meaning it was the only thing keeping me upright.

"Good," I said, and meant that too.

---

Benjamin's estate sat at the edge of a lake so still it looked painted on, ringed by pine and birch that climbed the hillside in the exact pattern I remembered from childhood summers in the Adirondacks. I noticed it the moment I stepped out of the car — the particular slant of afternoon light through the trees, the smell of cold water and resin.

"You built this to look like the woods where we grew up," I said, before I could stop myself.

Benjamin, waiting on the porch steps, went very still. "I did."

He didn't explain further, not then. He simply offered his arm and walked me along the shoreline, pointing out things without pressure — the boathouse, the trail that wound up toward the ridge, a bench positioned to catch the sunset. No mention of marks or ceremonies or alliances. Just quiet, unhurried company, the kind I hadn't been offered in a decade.

Dinner was set on the terrace overlooking the water, candles instead of overhead lights, the lake turning gold and then violet as the sun dropped. I found myself relaxing in increments, my shoulders dropping from around my ears for the first time in weeks.

"You wanted to know about the Adirondacks," Benjamin said finally, setting down his glass. "You've never asked. I've always wondered if that was kindness or if you simply didn't want the answer."

"Maybe both," I admitted. "Tell me anyway."

He was quiet a moment, his thumb tracing the stem of his glass. "I was thirteen. My wolf hadn't awakened yet — most Lycans come later than werewolves, and mine was late even by that standard. My family thought something was wrong with me." A faint, humorless smile. "Then the rogue came out of the tree line, and you screamed, and something in me just — broke open."

I remembered the scream. I remembered less of what came after, only fragments — fur and blood and Benjamin's small body suddenly not small anymore, suddenly enormous, standing between me and something with teeth.

"I shifted for the first time mid-air," he said. "No warning, no training. I didn't even know what I'd become until it was over and I was lying in the dirt bleeding from my shoulder, and you were crying over me, and I remember thinking — with total, absolute certainty, the kind you only get once in your life — that I would love you until I died."

My breath caught. The candle between us flickered.

"Thirteen years old," he continued, "and I already knew. It terrified me more than the rogue had."

"Then what happened?" I asked, though some old, bruised part of me already dreaded the answer. "You disappeared. No calls. No explanation. I thought—" I stopped myself.

"You thought I regretted it. Regretted you." His jaw tightened. "My family's advisors pulled me out of the hospital wing before I'd even finished healing. Silvercrest and Dawnridge had border disputes going back two generations — my father saw an injured heir bonding himself to a rival Alpha's daughter and panicked. I was forbidden from contacting you. Letters intercepted. Calls blocked. I fought it for months, Elena. I really did."

"And by the time you won that fight—"

"You'd already met Colin." The words came out flat, worn smooth by years of turning them over alone. "I told myself it didn't matter. That you deserved happiness even if it wasn't with me. I watched from a distance for twelve years, telling myself that was enough."

The candlelight caught the old scar peeking above his collar, and for the first time I let myself really look at it — not with pity, but with something closer to recognition.

Then it hit me. Cedar and winter mint, warm and clean, rising off his skin as he leaned toward the candle to relight it. I'd smelled it the moment I arrived, I realized, and simply hadn't let myself name it.

Something in my chest — quiet for a month, silent since the porch — stirred. Not grief this time.

My wolf, waking, and howling in recognition.