(Rhea POV)

Thirty wolves at my border. I could feel them before the scouts confirmed it — a wall of pack energy pressing against the territory line like a hand testing a door.

Torren brought the count. "Thirty warriors. Full combat formation. And Declan's at the front."

I was in the war room, marking supply lines on a map that was already out of date. I put the pen down. "Full formation for a custody dispute. Subtle."

"He's using Alpha command at the border. Ordering our sentries to stand down."

"Are they?"

Torren's mouth twitched. "They laughed."

Of course they did. My wolves weren't pack wolves. They didn't carry a bond that could be yanked like a leash. Every single one of them had walked away from that kind of obedience, some crawling, some bleeding, all of them choosing the cold and the hunger over one more day of being owned. Declan's Alpha command hit them like wind hitting a mountain. Loud and ultimately irrelevant.

"I'll go out," I said.

"I'll bring a squad."

"Bring two. And keep them back. This is a conversation, not an engagement." I paused. "Unless he makes it one."

The walk to the southern border took twelve minutes. Enough time to notice that the morning was clear, the frost was melting on the wire fences I'd strung between the posts two summers ago, and my hands were perfectly steady. I had waited six years for this and spent exactly none of that time rehearsing it. Some things you don't practice. You just arrive and find out who you've become.

Declan stood at the boundary stones with thirty wolves fanned behind him in a V formation, which was a nice touch if you were trying to intimidate someone who'd never seen a real fight. He wore his Alpha's cloak — fur-trimmed, ceremonial, the kind of thing you put on when you want people to remember your rank. Behind me, my sentries wore whatever they'd woken up in. Some of them hadn't brushed their hair. I liked that about them.

Six years. He'd been twenty-four the last time I'd seen him, standing in the great hall of Silverpine with his mother at his shoulder, watching two enforcers drag me toward the gate while I screamed about a baby they told me was dead.

He was thirty now. Broader. Jaw heavier, dark blond hair longer than he used to wear it. He looked like his father, which was unfortunate — I'd liked his father, right up until the old man died and left Silverpine to a boy who couldn't hold it without his mother's hand on the back of his neck.

I stopped three paces from the boundary line. Close enough to talk. Far enough that neither of us could reach the other without crossing the stones, which would be an act of territorial invasion and therefore technically grounds for me to kill him.

Technically.

"Give me back my daughter." His voice carried — Alpha projection, the bass rumble designed to make lesser wolves drop their eyes. He probably used it in Council meetings when he wanted to sound like someone who made decisions.

Nobody on my side moved. My wolves stood behind me in loose formation, relaxed, some of them watching the treeline instead of Declan because they genuinely did not consider him the most interesting thing happening right now.

"Your daughter," I said.

"Lily is my child. She was taken from my territory. This is kidnapping, Rhea."

He said my name like it cost him something. Good.

"She wasn't taken. She walked out on her own. Five years old, alone, in the dark, with silver burns on her wrists and ankles and neck." I let that sit. "Children don't run from good homes, Declan."

Something crossed his face. Not guilt — that would have required a depth I wasn't sure he possessed anymore. Discomfort. The look of a man who'd been expecting a fight and was getting a mirror instead.