Aiden's POV

The packhouse was too quiet.

I stood at the study window, watching the first light of dawn creep across the training grounds below. My knuckles still ached from last night's fight, the skin split and bruised. The scent of blood - Dane's, Eva's, my own - still clung to me no matter how long I'd stood under the scalding shower.

Elora was safe. That was what mattered.

Safe and currently curled up in Adeline's lap in the guest suite, clinging to her like she might disappear again. The image burned behind my eyelids every time I blinked - my daughter's small hands fisted in Adeline's shirt, her tear-streaked...