Chapter 450 - New Year Reunion

When Julian called himself the older cousin of my pups, the message was clear enough that it didn't need unpacking. Whatever bond we had once shared — the complicated, layered, costly thing it had been — he had buried it deliberately and with both hands. A year had passed since I clawed my way back from the edge, and in that time the pack's balance had shifted in ways I never anticipated and couldn't have predicted even if I'd tried. I used to believe fate played favorites, that certain people were protected by some invisible preference the universe had for them. Now I knew better. The pack doesn't forget what's owed, and it always finds a way to collect, on its own timeline, in its own terms.