Damon's POV
I found Ronan in the training hall.
The place was alive with movement and noise. Steel clanged against steel as the night patrol ran drills beneath the hanging lights.
Boots scraped across the worn wooden floor. Wolves shifted between human and partial forms, practicing strikes, blocks, and coordinated attacks the way we had trained them to.
The scent of sweat and metal hung thick in the air.
Ronan stood at the center of it all.
Commanding.
Watching every movement like a hawk.
Even in the chaos, he looked exactly the way he always had—calm, controlled, completely in charge.
For a brief moment, the sight twisted something inside my chest.
Because this man had been my right hand for ten years.
My closest ally.
My brother.
Then he looked up.
And the moment our eyes met, he knew.
I saw it in the way his posture shifted.
In the way his expression hardened just slightly.
He had read my face instantly.
"Everyone out,"
Ronan said without looking away from me.
