Marcus exhaled once. The game had shifted beyond espionage. Now it involved instinct. Blood. Two hundred Alphas. And a woman walking unknowingly into a dominion where the very thing she believed restored might become the force that unmade her.
Kade had barely drawn breath before Marcus—holding his questions back with remarkable discipline—finally spoke.
"Alpha…"
Too quiet. The careful tone of a man stepping onto dangerous ground.
Kade did not look up immediately. His attention stayed fixed on the phone, expression hard as the city blurred past tinted windows. Then—
"What?"
Marcus hesitated. A mistake. Kade turned fully, irritation flashing cold in his gaze.
"And don't keep calling my name like the sky is falling," he said sharply. "Speak."
Marcus cleared his throat. "Yes, Alpha."
Still, he did not begin. That deepened Kade's annoyance.
"Out with it."
Marcus drew a breath. "Are you… truly decided on Dakota Winters?"
Silence. Immediate. Heavy.
