Sebastian made a sound, sothing between a growl and a curse. He turned away from Agnes and walked to the window, pressing his palm flat against the glass. The muscles in his back were coiled so tight they looked like they might snap.
Nicholas sat perfectly still in his chair.
His expression hadn’t changed. His body language remained composed. But his eyes, his silver eyes....had gone cold in a way that suggested his wolf was extrely close to the surface. Kael was there, just beneath the skin, watching, listening, taking in every detail.
When he spoke, his voice was controlled.
"You will continue to watch over her, Agnes," he said. "And you will inform us imdiately if there is any improvent. Any change at all. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Alpha," Agnes said. "I understand. I will keep watching her and I will update you if there is any change."
She was turning to leave when Sebastian’s voice stopped her.
"Wait," he said. He didn’t turn from the window. His hand was still pressed against the glass. "I need you to report back by tomorrow morning. Early. As early as you can manage. I need to know if she’s improved."
Agnes bowed slightly, even though Sebastian wasn’t looking at her.
"Yes, Alpha," she said. "I’ll keep you updated. I will report back first thing in the morning."
She turned toward the door.
"Agnes," Nicholas called out, and she stopped. "If she wakes during the night, if she says anything, if she needs anything....you contact us imdiately. Understood?"
"Yes, Alpha Nicholas," Agnes said. "I will contact you imdiately if there is any change."
She opened the door and slipped out, closing it quietly behind her.
For a long mont, there was only silence.
Sebastian’s hand was still pressed against the window. Lucian had stopped pacing. Nicholas remained in his chair, perfectly motionless, like a statue carved from stone and ice.
Then Lucian spoke.
"What are we going to do if she doesn’t recover?"
The words hung in the air between them. Raw. Desperate. Filled with a fear that none of them had dared to voice until this mont.
Sebastian’s hand fell away from the window. He turned to face his brothers, and his expression was dark. Haunted. Like he was seeing sothing in the distance that terrified him.
"My wolf has been dangerously quiet since this morning," Lucian continued. His voice was lower now. More controlled, but underlaid with sothing that sounded almost like pain. "Zev has been silent. Completely silent. And I don’t...I don’t understand what that ans. But I know it’s not good."
Sebastian’s head ca up.
"I thought I was the only one," he said quietly.
He moved to the center of the office, away from the window. His hands clenched into fists at his sides.
"Rhen has been so quiet I don’t even..." He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "I can’t even feel him. And that’s dangerous. We all know that’s dangerous. When Rhen goes quiet, it ans sothing is wrong. Sothing fundantal."
Nicholas stood from his chair. He was taller than both his brothers, and when he stood, the air in the room seed to compress. His silver eyes tracked between them, assessing, calculating, understanding.
"Kael has been the sa," he said quietly. His voice was controlled, but there was sothing underneath it. Sothing that sounded almost like fear. "Since you took her away this morning, he’s been subdued. Not angry. Not feral. Just quiet. Like he’s waiting for sothing. Like he knows sothing that I don’t."
Lucian moved toward the window where Sebastian had been standing. He looked out at the grounds below, at the estate bathed in the fading evening light. His hands were in his hair, gripping like he was trying to hold himself together through sheer force of will.
"What if she doesn’t recover?" he asked again. The question was different this ti. Not a demand for answers. A genuine, desperate plea. "What if we broke her so completely that she can’t co back from it? What if her mind doesn’t heal? What if we’ve destroyed sothing that can’t be fixed?"
The words ca out jagged. Raw. Like they were tearing him apart as he spoke them.
Sebastian’s jaw clenched.
"We sent her away for just one day," he said. His voice was bitter. Angry. At himself, not at them. "One fucking day because our wolves couldn’t control themselves. One day of the full moon chaos, and we couldn’t even manage that. And the mont she ca back, the mont she was within the gates again....we turned into animals."
He pressed his palms against his eyes like he could push the mory away.
"I knew what I was doing," he continued, his voice muffled. "I knew I was going to hurt her when I started kissing her. I knew it, and I did it anyway. And then Nicholas..." He dropped his hands and looked at his brothers. "We did it because we couldn’t stop ourselves. Because our wolves were screaming for her so loud that we couldn’t hear anything else."
Nicholas turned away from them both. He moved to his desk and gripped the edge of it, his knuckles going white with the force of his hold.
"We have a problem," he said quietly. His voice was calm, but there was an undercurrent of sothing darker. Sothing that suggested he was on the edge of losing his carefully maintained control. "A problem that goes beyond what we did to her today. A problem that suggests sothing is fundantally wrong with how our wolves are responding to that oga."
Lucian looked at him sharply.
"What do you an by that brother?" he asked.
"I an," Nicholas said slowly, "that normal wolves don’t react like this. Normal alphas don’t lose control like this. We have years of training, years of discipline, years of learning to manage our feral nature during the full moon. And all of that dissolved the mont we saw her again."
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