The rain did not stop when the ring emptied.
It kept falling long after the wolves dispersed, long after the echoes of submission faded into the trees. It washed the stone clean, seeped into the fractures Aria had carved into the land, and cooled the raw heat still humming beneath her skin.
She stood at the center of the ancestral ring, unmoving.
The bond was gone.
Not frayed. Not aching.
Gone.
The absence was not painful the way she had once imagined. There was no tearing sensation, no collapse. Just space. Clean and quiet. A scar that had healed so thoroughly it no longer remembered the wound.
Around her, the land settled.
Slowly. Carefully.
As if learning the shape of her without resistance.
Damien waited until the last Alpha crossed the boundary before approaching her fully. He did not rush. Did not touch her immediately. He knew better now. He could feel it too, the way her power was still wide open, no longer flaring but not yet fully contained.
