The weight of an entire pack's fate settled over the room like a held breath.
Kade didn't answer immediately.
His gaze dropped to Dakota.
Not commanding. Not possessive.
Asking.
The entire room noticed it. That small, extraordinary thing, an Alpha King, with the power to end a pack with a single word, pausing to look at her. Offering her the choice. Offering her the agency no one in her family had ever thought to give.
Dakota's breath caught.
Slowly, she turned her head and looked at the shattered remains of the people who had raised her.
Her father, bleeding, proud, and still unable to bend.
Her mother, clutching her wounded son, her composure finally, visibly fracturing.
Her sister, staring at her like she had become someone unrecognizable.
The past.
Then she turned back. Toward Kade. Toward a future she didn't fully understand, didn't entirely trust, but was choosing anyway, with open eyes and steady hands.
Her fingers tightened in his shirt.
