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Not the half-dead, soot-covered, hunched creature who dragged us through death and back. No. She was radiant. In a green dress that hugged her sharp curves, dark hair brushed smooth with silver streaks glinting like starlight, lips painted red, smoky eyes like dusk and mischief. She plucked an apple from the tray with a perfectly manicured hand and looked straight at Lexa.

“I find it funny,” she said dryly, “that you came to me for years, spilled blood on my floor, and never once asked for my name.”

Lexa tilted her head and smiled sweetly. “You called mewolf girlfor years. I thought we agreed we weren’t on a first-name basis.”

Garrick’s face lit up like the first fire of winter. “I saved you a seat next to me,” he said to Anika, patting the bench like a proud wolf.

Lexa turned slowly to look at me.

I turned slowly to look at her.

She groaned in the bond, long and dramatic.“Noooooo.Now she’s never going to leave.”

I swallowed my laugh, keeping a straight face.“She might. But… I fear she may take my beta with her.”

Lexa dropped her head against the back of her chair with a whine.“Gods, help us.”

Across the table, Garrick was already offering Anika half his lamb chop. And the witch? She winked at him.

After lunch, the hours drifted by with a strange, peaceful rhythm. We walked the grounds together, checking on the rebuilding, speaking with wolves, listening to plans and ideas like leaders should. Lexa gave her usual sharp-tongued feedback, and they loved her for it. Dain trailed behind us most of the day, climbing everything he could and nearly giving Garrick a heart attack when he tried to jump from a half-built terrace.

By nightfall, the sky was deep with stars, the scent of woodsmoke soft in the air. I returned to our room first, and she followed a little while later.

“He went down like a rock,” she said, closing the door gently behind her. “Didn’t even finish his story.”

I turned from the balcony, the cold night wind brushing over my bare arms. “You opened the windows?” she asked, eyeing me like I’d finally lost it. “Why? It's cold outside.”

“Come here,” I said instead.

She padded toward me, barefoot, hair upbraided now, loose and wild, her black dress whispering over her scarred skin. I took her hand and led her out onto the balcony, the wind tugging gently at her hair.

“All of this,” I said, sweeping my arm across the moonlit courtyard, the forest that stretched beyond it, and the lights flickering in the hills—“this is my pack. My land. Some of it inherited. Some of it taken by sheer force.”

She stayed quiet, fingers resting against mine.

“I’ve bled for it. Killed for it. Buried people I loved here. And for most of my life, I thought I’d die alone protecting it. That no one would ever see it the way I did. That no one could understand what itmeansto be bound to something this deeply, to carry the weight of so many lives on your back and still walk like you're not breaking.”

I looked at her then. Really looked at her.

“But you do. You understand. Youfeelit. And somehow, without ever asking, you became part of it. You fought for it. Forme. Forthem. You didn’t ask for this, and gods know you never begged to belong, but… here you are.”

She smiled. I stepped away for a moment and returned with the box. Dark wood. Silver vines carved into its surface. When I opened it, moonlight caught the necklace within—elegant silver, shaped like flowing branches, with two opal stones set in the middle that shimmered green like her eyes when she was furious.

“I never thought I’d ask anyone this question,” I said, my voice rough, “least of all astray.”

Her brows rose. I smiled.

“But Lexa… will you be my Luna? And lead this pack with me?”

Her eyes widened, stunned for the first time in a long while. I felt it through the bond—her wolf howling with joy,tail high, pacing circles in the space between our souls.

But of course—Lexa being Lexa—she smirked a slow curl of her lips that dared me to push further.

“I’ve known you for only two months, Alpha,” she said, crossing her arms. “Asking a girl a question like that... What does it say aboutyou?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Hmm, yes, and you claimed me and fucked me after three weeks. What does that say aboutyou?”

She narrowed her eyes.