*Tristan*

I take the first punch because I deserve it.

I had seen Eve’s face alight with Raphael’s invitation, and I know within the depths of my soul that it is probably the first one that she has ever received from a ranked wolf. Her father, for all his love for her, had kept her in a gilded cage, one so beautiful and filled with such kindnesses that she had not even realized it surrounded her.

And I am going to deny her the pleasure of accepting it because if I spend time in my brothers’ company, I have little doubt that they will see into my dark soul and...