The bond aches like an infected wound. Like a bruise I can't stop poking, it pulses dully behind my ribs. But there's no tug, no dreams about Beau. Just an ache.

I tried to reach out for him. Right as I left the perimeter of the forest.

There had been a brief moment where I could feel golden eyes watching through the trees, where I swear I heard the pained howl of a wolf. I'd paused, almost afraid to leave the shadow of the trees. Afraid that I was making the wrong choice. That I should turn around and go back. I tried to reach out.

Not literally. Not physically. Just that faint stretch of awareness that was tethered between us. I searched for some trace of him in the silence, but there was nothing. There is nothing.

No rejection, I don't think. Not yet. But absence. A wall where he used to be.

My wolf feels it too. She hasn't emerged from that hidden place she's tucked herself into. I can feel her grief, her loneliness, but I can also feel her discomfort the further go from the wild forests. She doesn't like the hum of the car, the noise of Jackson, the isolation of not having a pack around her. She tucks tighter and tighter into herself until it feels like it's only me residing in my body.

If I look hard enough, she's there, but only just.

A ghost.

I suppose it's fitting. I look ghastly. Haunted. Like someone who got attacked in her apartment and then coped by taking an impromptu trip of soul-searching and didn't like what she found.

Which, I guess, is true.

Chicago.

That's what I told Hughes. What I told Cassie. Because that had been the plan. A tour of law schools. A break after everything that happened.

When Beau handed me my keys, let me know that my hybrid was parked with the rest of the pack vehicles, I'd found my phone on the front seat. A spiderweb of cracks across the screen. It had been tucked into the backpack I'd taken hiking.

The shards of my mom's urn were tucked inside it.

Beau must have gone back for my things.

With my heart already raw, I didn't inspect those shattered pieces. I didn't look to see if there were ashes left behind. Just plugged my phone into its charger, texted Cassie that I was doing okay and emailed Hughes that I would be in tomorrow and drove back to Jackson.

Back to my tiny, but somehow too big, apartment.

My key doesn't work. I'd forgotten that the building manager had offered to change the locks while I was gone. He's quick to let me in. To give me a new set of keys. Kind enough to not comment on anything other than he was happy to see me back. To take care of myself.

I smile weakly and wait for him to leave before letting myself in.

It smells clean. Empty.

I drop my backpack and sit on the edge of the couch, still in borrowed clothes, my boots. I wonder if Nora will want her clothes back. The image of her burning anything I touched pops into my head. I can't imagine any one in the pack will think kindly of me once Beau tells them I've gone. I didn't say goodbye. A part of me thinks that it's easier this way: if their last memories of me make it easy to let me go. A selfish outsider—better left forgotten.

The silence is loud.

There's no birdsong, no gentle crash of waves on the lakeshore. There's no chatter of voices down the hall. No children screaming. Just the occasional sounds of traffic. The ache in my chest.

I let my my fingers trace that quietly bleeding place where the bond lives, where it throbs. I don't know what I'm hoping for. A flare of sunshine? A whisper of pine in my chest?

Nothing.

I could reject it. Lila said it was possible. I'm sure with enough time, I could figure out how to completely sever these torn threads between us, the half-woven braid. I could cauterize this ugly, aching wound with a clean break.

I almost try.

But my hand falls to my lap instead.

I can't. Not yet.

It goes against everything I've been promising myself for the last six years, but I want to hold onto this pain. It hurts. It hurts far more than I realized it would, but I want to feel it. I need to.

Not because I think he'll come running for me.

Not because I'm regretting my decision, planning to run back to the pack.

But because I'm still me. The me that fell for Beau. The me that... that loves him. I'm not ready to give her up yet. I'm not ready to bury it away, to become that cold and invulnerable person again.

I let myself cry. Not loud. I swear I can feel the quiet whine of my wolf as we embrace the raw ache. When it's over, I get up. I move on.

Falling back into the comfortable rhythm of routine, I shower with my own shampoo and conditioner, brush the wild tangles out of my hair. My little bathroom doesn't have a lake view, but it does have all my cleansers and lotions and face masks and all the little pieces of habit that make me feel more like me. Or, at least, the me that can survive living alone.

I lay out my clothes for the morning: high-waisted trousers with a silk blouse, designer pumps, an oversized blazer. I might be ready to allow this warm, vulnerable part of myself co-exist, but I'm not doing it without armor. I know how to look like I have everything under control. But I pick a warm rose gloss instead of brown matte lipstick. A splash of turquoise at my neck. Things the softer Rhea likes. The things that I like.

A weak balm against the disappointment settling into my chest.

The sun arrives the follow morning like any other. Which is, somehow, the most disappointing thing of all.

I watch the sun bleed across the horizon in shades of lavender and slate, chasing away the growing moon. Cold light. It strips my skin of the little warmth I'd hoped to coax into it. Everything about my outfit, about my makeup, says competence. Control.

And somehow the world still feels wrong.

The buzz of summer traffic scrapes against my nerves. The air smells like wet pavement and engine exhaust, and my stomach turns. I didn't realize how much I'd grown used to the clean air, the scent of crisp forest and mossy undergrowth. I miss the quiet. I miss the wild. Almost as much as I miss Beau. The smell of pine and sunshine.

I force myself to move. To force a smile for the barista who pours my coffee. To ignore the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. To wave and nod at the familiar faces of the firm as the clatter of typing clicks in the background. Everything's exactly the same.

I hate it.

No one—besides Andy Harper, maybe—is unkind. No one is watching me like I might burst into tears. No one cares. Nothing has changed... except me.

Cassie's already at her desk, squinting at the dual monitor full of spreadsheets and court filings. She looks up, startled as I wave, and then smiles like sunshine.

"Hey, stranger!"

I manage a smile back. "Hey."

She stands and approaches, like she might hug me, but thinks better of it. Her hand finds my arm instead, a light touch. It's gentle. The old me would have flinched away from the casual contact, but I can almost feel my wolf begging for that friendly touch. For anything to steady us, to anchor us. We aren't meant to be alone.

Cassie doesn't seem to notice. "You look good," she lies. It slips easily from her lips, smooth as syrup. A part of me loves her for it. "Honestly, I wasn't sure you'd come back."

"Neither was I."

"I'm glad you did."

It settles something in me. Small, but solid. The lights seem a little softer. The hum of the office not quite as sharp. I wonder if I could build something for myself. A little pack of my own. Not of wolves, but of friends and colleagues. The thought makes it a little easier to sit at my desk, to log into the computer.

The usually familiar rhythm of emails and documentation and filing doesn't come as quickly as I want it to. It's like my fingers have grown clumsy in my absence, or maybe that they itch to do something else. I can't decide.

But I'm grateful for the distraction when Cassie pops her head in a few hours later.

"Rhea, I hate to ask," she starts, chewing her lip. "But I need a favor."

I make a noise that I'm listening.

"I'm pulling together the Crestline discovery—the stuff we're sending over to that pro-bono firm the locals hired. It's a mess. Full of duplicates and garbage. And you're so good with the environmental stuff..."

"You want me to help sort it."

Cassie grins sheepishly. "I'll get coffees?" And she names one of the little local shops that I like.

I pretend to wince. "It's that bad, huh?"

"You have no idea. I requested this stuff ages ago, and their secretary just electronically dumped half of it last night."

I owe Cassie for when she helped with my own discovery disaster. And I can't pretend I'm not interested in taking one last look at Crestline. Now that I know it was wolves stalking me and not corporate enforcers, I don't even have the hint of paranoia to deter me. I nod my head. "I can help," I say, turning back to my screen. "Send it over."

Cassie exhales with relief. "You're the best."

Her email inviting me to the shared drive pings a few minutes later. She wasn't kidding. The files are a mess of duplicates and improperly scanned documents and outdated revisions. I sight and start renaming files. Categorizing. It's mindless in a way I used to find comforting. I slip into it, muscle memory taking over. The girl who never made mistakes, who redacted by hand, who indexed entire civil filings by color-coded tab.

But something catches my eye.

A PDF labeled Teton County-Parcel Registry Update 2023 flashes past me, and I click to open it without thinking. I scroll through. The coordinates jump out first, just a bit north of Moran. The wooded, secluded territory that requires a bumpy trip down a private access road. That leads to a secluded, mountain-cradled lake.

Beau's lake.

It's labeled as abandoned land.

My fingers go still.

Fast-tracked for Crestline acquisition. Slated for residential and commercial development. No mention of recent owners or current stewardship or federal ties. Nothing.

That can't be right.

Cassie seems to hear that my fingers have paused.

"Something wrong?" She calls.

"No," I lie. "Just some weird zoning discrepancies."

She laughs. "There's a lot of that. The agent Crestline sent to county said the records were a mess. We petitioned for a lot of the parcels to classified as abandoned or unclaimed if there was no title activity."

I think of Beau meticulously packing his bag for out hike, checking my boot laces, coordinating all the moving parts of his pack... there's no way he would have let something like this fall through the cracks. Someone else, maybe, but not him.

My fingers hover over my phone.

I could unblock Beau's number.

I know I shouldn't. The boundary between ethical and unethical is already smeared thin, and texting Beau about the land ownership would grind it out completely. Even if I don't tell him what I saw—if I just ask a question, something vague—it would be a violation. And worse, it would be weak. Like I'm looking for an excuse to pull him back into my orbit. Like, for all my talk, that I'm not strong enough to let him go.

But the urge is there.

Does he know? About the zoning? About Crestline trying to file it as abandoned?

Did his grandfather or father ever explain the trust? If they died before he got the chance, would Beau have known to pay the taxes? If no one's been paying them, maybe that's the crack Crestline is sliding through.

I stare down at my screen, heart stuttering. I could ask. One message. He might not even respond, but at least I'd know I tried.

But even now, I can feel the raw, open edge of the bond. I can feel the hollowness on the other side.

I can't.

I set the phone down and push it away. Before I can stop myself, I'm typing the coordinates into my phone's notes.

If there's a record of the trust, it will be in the county registry. Titles. Land designations. If Beau's grandfather filed it properly, there has to be a paper trail. And if Crestline is burying evidence, then Beau and the rest of pack deserves to know. I deserve to know.

I exhale hard through my nose and stand.

Cassie pops her head back in. "You okay?"

"Yeah," my voice sounds steadier than I feel. "I just need to step out for a bit. I'll be back."

She doesn't ask questions. Just nods and heads back to her desk.

I gather my bag, my resolve. I'm halfway to the exist when I hear my name.

"Dawson."

Hughes's voice snaps like a whip behind me. I freeze. Inhale once. Twice. Then turn.

The man's forehead is devoid of expression but even without a visible angry thundercloud flashing over his head, I can read the annoyance in the way he's griping the manila folder in his hand. There's a certain tightness to his mouth that makes me think of the scowls he saves for interns who spill coffee or paralegals who think too loudly.

"You have a minute?" he asks, not really asking.

"Not really," I say evenly. "I was just stepping out to—"

"Great. Take a seat."

He gestures to one of the empty conference rooms. I hesitate, jaw tight, then follow. The room is cold, half-lit, and smells like bleach wipes and toner.

Hughes drops the folder between us, like he's about to win his case at a murder trial.

"I've reviewed the latest uploads to Morningstar," he says. "And I'm not thrilled with what I've found."

Rationally, I know I've done nothing wrong, I haven't touched the Morningstar files in weeks, but my pulse still thunders like I've been caught doing something illegal. I keep my face smooth and let him continue.

"There are multiple filings under your name that are incomplete. Sloppy formatting. Poor redactions. One of them references a zoning map for the Crestline project of all things. If I hadn't have caught—"

I blink. "I didn't upload any new filings."

He crosses his arms. "It's your log-in."

"That doesn't mean I—"

"We're a small firm, Dawson, but I've never allowed this kind of incompetence. I need team members who can handle the pressure. Not ones who go off-grid for two weeks, return looking like they crawled out of a cave, and start re-organizing discovery without telling anyone."

There it is.

He's not annoyed. He wants me gone.

I stare at the folder, at the highlighted pages inside. Some of them I've never seen before. Others have been altered—tags moved, categories changed, notes erased.

"You think I did this," I say quietly. "And you're going to fire me."

He straightens, clearly pleased I've caught up. "I'm giving you the option of quietly resigning. Take some time off. Avoid burning bridges."

I lean back in the chair.

And then, to my own surprise, I smile.

Because it's so simple now. The ache in my chest quiets, just a little. If I resign, I'm not longer bond by confidentiality. I can expose everything I've found. Everything I find. I can walk into that records office with a clear conscience.

My wolf stirs the smallest inch.

Hughes notices the smile and frowns. "What?"

"You're right," I say. "I should resign."

His posture relaxes.

"But you're going to give me that glowing letter of recommendation," I add. "Not some corporate boilerplate crap. Enthusiastic language. Mention my initiative, my work ethic, my indispensable fucking presence."

His face hardens. "Excuse me?"

"Because if you don't," I continue calmly, my heart pounding, "I will make it very public that your firm assigns unsupervised paralegal to do junior associate work without proper oversight. That you've mishandled discovery documentation, buried key evidence, and filed misleading redactions to a pro-bono team."

"You're bluffing."

I tilt my head. "Try me."

He glares, teeth clenched so tightly I swear I hear them splinter. Then he grabs the folder and tucks it back under his arm.

"You know what your problem is, Dawson?" He sneers. "You've always been a bitch. Cold. Self-righteous. Like you're too good for this job—"

I smile wilder.

"Yeah," I say, standing. "I am a bitch."

Hughes flinches at the slightly feral edge of my voice, takes I step back when I lean in. I keep my eyes fixed to his, wait until he blinks nervously. "And you should be very careful about pissing off the bitch that knows all about this firm's dirty laundry."

He opens his mouth. Then closes it.

I grab my purse and stand. "I expect that letter by the end of the week."

And then I walk out, heels clicking against the floor, every step a drumbeat.