Chapter 107

Sloane offered a polite, almost detached smile, just enough to be courteous, never enough to invite more conversation. Then she pivoted on her heel and walked away, her calm stride hiding every accomplishment, every quiet victory she refused to parade in front of people like Lyra. When she learned she was pregnant, Damon had stopped trying to touch her altogether. It wasn’t kindness, not really. It was the guilt that softened him, the heaviness that made him hover at the edges of their home like a man afraid of his own shadow. And then Lyra returned. The moment that woman stepped back into their orbit, the temperature of her marriage dropped. Damon’s voice became careful, his eyes evasive. The coldness wasn’t loud or violent; it was subtle. A door closed a little too gently. A conversation ended a second too quickly. A faint, lingering scent on his clothes that wasn’t her own. His wolf, always restless lately, carried notes that didn’t belong to Sloane. She noticed. Of course she notic