Alaric's POV
The café had begun to smell like sunlight and nerves. Bright, human. Ordinary. The kind of place where someone could waste an entire immortal lifetime pretending life was simple.
I sat in the corner—back to the wall, coat draped over the chair so no one could see the faint shimmer of steel along the cuffs—and watched. Watched and waited.
Evander's men were easy to spot if you knew what you were looking for. Shoulders too straight, attention too sharp. They tried to look casual, but their eyes kept scanning, and they listened too hard to the rhythm of footsteps, to the doors, to every stranger who breathed near their Alpha. Wolves always gave themselves away in the way they protected.
