The forest felt quieter after Kael left, but it was not the kind of quiet that brought peace. It was the kind that settled heavily into the ground, into the trees, into the spaces between breaths, as if something had shifted in a way that could no longer be undone.
Even the pack seemed to feel it.
Wolves moved through the clearing with more awareness than before, their gazes lingering a second longer than necessary, their conversations quieter, more measured. The tension had not disappeared with Kael's departure; it had simply changed shape.
And somehow, I was at the center of it.
Rowan did not leave immediately, which in itself felt unusual. He was not someone who lingered without purpose, not someone who allowed moments to stretch unnecessarily, and yet now he walked beside me in silence as we moved away from the clearing, as if neither of us was quite ready to break whatever fragile stillness had settled between us.
"You shouldn't have stepped between us," he said eventually.
