POV: Ayla

I close the door again after Caius leaves. The quiet that follows is different this time. It does not feel empty. It feels full of something that has been waiting under my skin for fifteen years.

I stand in the center of the room and let the rage finish what it started. It does not burn wild anymore. It settles into something precise and clean. I stop fighting the pressure in my chest. I stop treating the strain of my wolf like a deficiency I have to hide. I stop pretending the silence inside me was ever normal.

The seal does not break with violence. It opens from...