Chapter 5 THE PHOTOGRAPH

Joyce's POV

I stared at the photograph of the oak tree for three full minutes before my hands stopped shaking enough to call Harper.

"I’m scared, Harper," I said when she answered.

"I'm coming over."

"No." I looked out my window at the darkening street. "Stay home and lock your doors. They have pictures of you, too."

Harper was silent for a moment. "This is insane, Joyce. These people are stalking our entire pack because of some twisted vendetta against mate bonds?"

"Apparently." I closed the curtains, suddenly feeling exposed. "Victoria said their leader lost his daughter to an abusive mate. He thinks he's saving people."

"By killing them? That's not saving anyone. That's murder."

I couldn't argue with that.

"Joyce, I know this is overwhelming, but we need to stick together—the three of us. Whatever happens, we face it as a unit, okay?"

"Okay," I whispered, grateful for her steadiness when everything else felt like it was crumbling.

After we hung up, I tried to distract myself. I made tea I didn't drink. I picked up a book I couldn't read. I reorganised my bookshelf for the third time this month, a nervous habit I'd developed after Dalton left.

My mind kept circling back to Mrs Patterson's story from the bookstore.

What had Dalton done to prove he'd changed?

He'd come back, yes. But he brought Victoria, let me think she was his fiancée, and then dropped a bomb about death threats and terrorist organisations. He had made choices about my safety without asking me, again.

Had he actually changed? Or was he still the same man who thought he knew what was best for me?

My phone lit up on the nightstand. I grabbed it, half-expecting another threat.

It was Dalton.

Are you okay? I can post guards outside your house.

I typed back quickly. No guards. That'll just confirm I'm important to you.

Three dots appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again.

You are important to me. Everyone in this pack already knows that after today's meeting.

I closed my eyes. He wasn't wrong. The way he'd looked at me in that hall and announced our bond to everyone, there was no hiding it now.

Another text came through. I know you need time. I'm trying to give it to you. But Joyce, if anything happened to you because I wasn't there to protect you...

I could feel the desperation in his words. The same desperation I'd felt for five years, wondering why he left.

You left once to protect me, I typed. *It didn't work. Maybe trying to protect me isn't the answer.

Then what is?

I stared at that question for a long time. What was the answer? Let him reject me again? Run away? Pretend the mate bond didn't exist?

I don't know,  I finally replied. But I need to figure this out on my own terms. Not because you're making decisions for me, or because the Hunters are threatening us. I need to choose.

The three dots appeared and stayed there for almost a minute.

Okay. I'll give you space to choose. But I'm not giving up on us.

My phone vibrated again almost immediately. And Joyce? I should have asked what you wanted five years ago and trusted you to make your own choices. I'm sorry I didn't.*

I stared at that message for a long time. It was the first time he'd actually acknowledged taking away my right to decide my own fate.

Thank you for saying that, I typed back.

I set the phone down and tried to sleep, but every sound made me jump.

Around midnight, I gave up and went to make another tea. As I waited for the water to boil, I looked out the kitchen window.

My heart stopped.

Someone was standing across the street, half-hidden in the shadows between streetlights. Just watching my house.

I grabbed my phone with shaking hands, ready to call for help.

Then the figure stepped forward into the light.

Dalton.

He wasn't trying to hide. He stood in the falling snow, his coat unbuttoned despite the cold, staring up at my window. When our eyes met, I saw something in his expression that made my chest ache. Not the confident alpha who'd addressed the pack. Not the boy who'd left me five years ago.

This was someone haunted. Someone carrying a weight I couldn't see but could feel across the distance between us.

We stared at each other for a long moment. Then he turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched against the cold, footprints disappearing behind him in the snow.

I pressed my hand against the window glass, watching until he vanished around the corner.

The kettle whistled behind me, but I didn't move. I stood there in the darkness, my breath fogging the glass, wondering what demons were chasing him through the snow.

The next morning, I found something slipped under my door. An envelope with my name written in Dalton's familiar handwriting. Inside was a single note and a photograph.

The photograph showed Dalton at maybe nineteen, standing between an older man and a teenage boy. All three were smiling, arms around each other's shoulders. On the back, someone had written: Alpha Israel, Dalton, and Michael. First day of training.

I turned to the note. The handwriting was messier than usual, like it had been written in a hurry or through tears.

Joyce,

There's something I never told anyone in Pine Ridge. The real reason I ran.

This is Israel and his son Michael from Riverside Pack. Israel was supposed to train me to be alpha. I arrived at the pack house a day after I rejected you.

I'd left Pine Ridge thinking I was protecting you by getting distance, by training somewhere else until I was strong enough to face whatever was coming. Instead, I got three good people killed just by being near them.

They killed Israel, his mate Elena, and Michael. Then, they made it look like an accidental gas leak.

But I knew better. I'd seen the surveillance photos they left behind. Photos of Israel and Elena together. Photos of me training with them.

The Hunters wanted me to know they could reach anyone I cared about. That being close to me was a death sentence.

I found the bodies, Joyce. I pulled Michael from the rubble. He was sixteen and wanted to be a doctor.

So I ran. I kept running. Because everyone I stayed close to ended up dead.

I'm not telling you this to manipulate you or make you feel sorry for me. I'm telling you because you deserve to know why I became someone who carries the weight of everyone I couldn't save, and believed that distance protects.

Except it doesn't. I know that now, but it took me five years to figure out what Israel tried to teach me. That running away doesn't protect anyone; it just means you're not there when they need you most.

Meet me at the oak tree tonight at eight if you want to talk. If you don't come, I'll understand.

~Dalton

My hands were shaking. I read the note three times, trying to process what he was telling me.

He'd left because people died. Not just died, they were murdered because they knew him. Because he trained with them.

I looked at Michael's young face in the photograph. Sixteen years old.

For five years, I thought that Dalton left because I wasn't good enough. Because an alpha deserved better than a bookstore girl, but the truth was so much worse.

He left because he thought loving me would get me killed.

I thought about that night five years ago. How cold his voice had been when he said we couldn't be together. How he wouldn't look at me when he walked away. I had thought he was cruel and heartless.

But he'd been terrified.

I looked at Michael's young face in the photograph one more time, then tucked it carefully back into the envelope.

Tonight, I would get answers. And then I would decide if those answers were enough to rebuild what we'd lost.

Or if some things are once broken, they could never be made whole again.