Chapter 5

Today was my last operation as Cain's Beta, and Celeste's first as the new liaison running point on the exchange.

In the back room of the Greywood staging post, I was checking the blade holstered beneath my jacket when the door clicked open behind me. Celeste stepped in, heels precise against the concrete floor.

She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, her gaze dragging over me like an appraisal. "Five years at his side, and he still won't let anyone know you exist. Must sting—being the wolf Cain Blackwell keeps locked in the dark."

I adjusted my cuffs and said nothing.

"Want to know what he told me at the lodge that night?" Her red mouth curled upward. "He said the years he spent running with me were the best of his life."

My fingers stilled on the buckle. The metal edge bit into the pad of my thumb.

"You've put in the hours, I'll give you that." She moved closer, her scent preceding her like a warning—deliberately heavy, marked with his. A provocation dressed as perfume. "His enforcer by day. His little distraction at night. But you must've figured it out by now—every way he touches you, everything that makes you forget yourself? I showed him first."

"If that's what you want him to hear, say it to his face." I turned to meet her eyes. "Or does this routine only work on an audience of one?"

Her smile cracked. She hadn't rehearsed a version where I hit back.

"Mara, holding onto a wolf who doesn't want you—doesn't that humiliate you?" Her voice dropped low and intimate, like she was sharing a confidence. "Deep down you know his wolf never chose you. You were just something to fill the gap while I was gone."

She took another step forward. "The gifts he gave you? Things I had no use for. The den? I helped choose it before you ever set foot inside. Even the man himself—I had him first. And we both know no wolf fits her alpha the way his true mate does."

His true mate. She'd saved that one for last, deployed it with surgical precision, watching my face for the flinch.

I studied her calmly. Something had shifted inside me—a stillness that had settled the moment I'd heard his breathing through my phone speaker, low and unmistakable. She wanted tears. She wanted me to shatter so she could step over the pieces. But my wolf had already gone quiet. Dead roots don't bloom, no matter how much poison you pour on them.

"If you two are such a perfect match," I said evenly, "then I wish you a very happy reunion."

I held her gaze one beat longer—just long enough to watch the triumph drain from her face—then turned and pushed through the door into the corridor.

Late afternoon light slanted through the staging post's high windows, catching the dust and turning it gold. I stepped into it and felt the warmth settle across my shoulders like a steadying hand.

Starting today, my life would look exactly like this—bright, and entirely my own.

In the operations room, Cain was reviewing the logistics for the evening's territorial handoff—a major border exchange with the Salazar pack at the northern crossing. We fell into our usual rhythm, the coordination as precise and wordless as the last five years of running side by side.

"Eastern approach—Rhen and two enforcers. Sealed at eleven."

"Confirmed."

"The Salazar alpha arrives by the north trail. His second brings the signed agreements."

"Verified."

Every call-and-response carried a goodbye he couldn't hear. As the trucks rolled out through the compound gates and the Greywood treeline rose dark on either side, I watched it pass, knowing this was the last time I'd ride at his right hand.

After tonight, I'd be the one giving orders. Running my own territory. Answering to no one but myself.

We reached the northern crossing just past eleven. The exchange was straightforward—two packs, neutral ground, hands shaken beneath a sky full of cold stars. Cain took point. I flanked left. Celeste, in her new diplomatic role, handled the introductions with the Salazar representative.

"Cain." She said his name like honey over gravel, her eyes cutting deliberately toward me.

Then everything went sideways.

A branch cracked somewhere in the dark tree line to the east—or maybe it was a shot. In contested territory at night, the difference was academic. The Salazar wolves stiffened. Hands moved toward weapons. In the chaos of that single split second, one of the supply crates stacked on the transport behind us lurched free and toppled from its ties.

Time stretched. I saw Cain's arm shoot out—not toward me, but toward Celeste. He pulled her against his chest and spun them both clear. The crate's iron corner caught my right shoulder on the way down, a sickening crack of impact that sent white-hot pain flooding down to my fingertips. I staggered but stayed upright, eyes already scanning the tree line, already assessing.

"Boss!" Rhen sprinted over, hand reaching for my arm.

I glanced at Cain—still shielding Celeste, one hand cradling the back of her head—and looked away without expression. "Secure the perimeter first. Get the Salazar wolves calm before this turns into an incident."

Rhen hesitated, then moved.

When the chaos settled, I walked to the broken crate and the snapped restraint strap hanging loose from the transport frame. "Who was responsible for securing this load?"

Celeste extracted herself from Cain's arms and smoothed her jacket. Her eyes flickered. "That was—my team handled staging. The strap must have been faulty."

I rotated my throbbing shoulder, keeping my voice level. "A faulty strap at a live border exchange. If that crate had come down on one of the Salazar wolves, we'd be looking at a territorial incident before the ink on the agreement was dry. This is basic."

"Mara." Cain's voice cut in, brow pulled tight. "It was an accident. There's no need to come down on her like that."

The words landed like a fist to the sternum. Three months ago, when one of the younger enforcers had failed to run a proper perimeter sweep before a summit, Cain had backed him against a wall and spent fifteen minutes explaining operational standards in a voice so cold it left the kid shaking for a week.

In this pack, there are no accidents, he'd said then. Only negligence, and the wolves who bleed because of it.

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Smiled bitterly, and walked away.

Back in the truck, the silence between us was suffocating. He started to speak twice before finally managing: "About what happened back there—I'm sorry. Celeste was right beside me. It was reflex."

"Forget it." I stared through the windshield at the dark crossing fading behind us. The whole thing struck me as grotesquely absurd—almost funny, in the way that only truly terrible things can be. "This was my last job with you anyway."

His jaw locked. His knuckles whitened on the wheel. "Is this about the crate?"

I turned from the window and shook my head slowly. "No."

He watched my profile for a long moment, then softened his tone the way he always did when he thought I needed managing. "Celeste has been away from active operations for years. She needs time to find her footing again. You could afford to cut her some slack."

And there it was. The final stone dropped onto the last fragile thing I'd been carrying.

My shoulder was still screaming, but the real damage was somewhere deeper—in the understanding that the wolf who'd made the mistake got his protection, while the one bleeding beside him got told she was being too harsh.

I said nothing for the rest of the drive. The pain radiating through my shoulder felt like punctuation—a hard, clean period at the end of a sentence five years long.

Some roads, it turns out, were always meant to be walked alone.