Logan's POV
I'm staring at surveillance footage of Sophia in the training yard at three in the morning and I need to stop.
This is the third night this week I've pulled up the video feeds just to watch her move. To watch her practice the combat sequences Marcus taught her. To watch her shift and unshift like she's learning to live in her own skin.
I tell myself it's strategic. I tell myself I need to monitor her progress. I tell myself I'm assessing whether she's becoming a liability or an asset.
I'm lying.
The truth is harder to ignore every single day. I'm obsessed with her.
I close the laptop and stand up from my desk. The Alpha quarters are dark and cold around me. This is my space. My territory. The place where I've spent seven years building walls so high nobody can climb them.
Sophia is climbing them anyway.
The training sessions are the worst. I tell myself I'm checking on her progress but really I'm just watching her. The way her body moves. The way her silver eyes focus when she's concentrating. The way she doesn't give up even when Marcus pushes her harder than should be possible.
Yesterday she asked Marcus if she was strong enough yet. Strong enough for what, he asked. She didn't answer but I knew. She was asking if she was strong enough to stand alone. Strong enough to survive without needing anyone.
I wanted to tell her she already was. I wanted to tell her that her strength isn't in her power. It's in the way she refuses to break.
Instead I watched from the shadows like I always do.
The meals are another thing entirely. Marcus noticed first. He pulled me aside and told me I was being obvious. I told him it was necessary. I was monitoring her integration into pack life.
We both knew I was lying.
But I sit across from her in the dining hall anyway. I watch her eat slowly and carefully like she's not sure she deserves to take up space at the table. I ask her questions about her life before the attack. About her family. About what she wanted to be if she'd been born with power instead of weakness.
She answers carefully. She doesn't trust me and I can't blame her. The Alpha ignored her for her entire life and now he wants everything about her.
But when she talks I realize something that scares me more than anything I've felt in seven years.
She's brilliant.
She notices things other people miss. During a meal yesterday she observed that Marcus was favoring his left side. That one of the guard rotations was timed wrong. That the way the council members looked at her had shifted from hostile to calculating.
She reads people like she's reading a book. She understands motivation and strategy and the small tells that give away what someone really wants.
She's strategic in ways that don't come from being taught. It's instinct. Ancient instinct. The kind of thinking that comes from bloodlines that ruled entire packs.
I see myself in her. The version of myself I could have been if someone had bothered to look at me when I was small and powerless. If someone had seen value in me before I became Alpha.
Instead I was alone. I clawed my way to power because nobody gave me anything else to hold onto.
Sophia had people who should have loved her and they made her invisible instead.
I know that kind of pain.
It's late when I find her on the compound balcony. She's standing at the railing looking out at the forest. The moon is high and silver and casting shadows across her face. She looks so alone it physically hurts me.
She's wearing one of the simple dresses that were left in the guest quarters. Nothing fancy. Nothing designed to impress. Just a girl who got given clothes because she showed up with nothing.
"You should be asleep," I say.
She jumps and turns. Her hand goes to her chest like her heart is racing. Good. At least I affect her somehow.
"I couldn't sleep," Sophia says. She turns back to look at the forest. "There's too much to think about."
I walk closer and stand beside her at the railing. I can smell her. Lavender and something wild and uniquely her.
"Your father," I say quietly. It's not a question.
"My parents," she corrects. Her voice is hollow. "They both knew. They both kept it secret. They both let me believe I was nothing."
I want to tell her that parents are liars. That people who should love you will destroy you if it serves their purposes. I want to tell her that trusting anyone is a mistake.
Instead I say something different.
"I was wrong for not noticing you before," I tell her. My voice sounds rough. "For your entire life you were here and I didn't see you. That's on me. That's my failure."
She looks at me and her silver eyes are questions I can't answer.
"You're not invisible anymore," I continue. "You're the most visible thing in my world right now."
She's quiet for a long moment. Then she says something that breaks something inside my chest.
"Why?" she asks. "Why do you care? You're the Alpha. You have power and control and everything figured out. I'm just someone who was invisible. Why would you suddenly care?"
I reach out and touch the railing beside her hand. I don't touch her because if I do I won't stop.
"Because being near you makes me feel less alone for the first time," I say quietly. "Because you're looking at this world like you're trying to understand it. Because you're brilliant and strategic and you see people like they actually matter. Because I think you might be the only real thing I've felt in seven years."
She pulls her hand away from the railing. She steps back from me.
"Your attention feels like a trap," Sophia says. Her voice is shaking. "You're the Alpha. You have power over everything. You have power over me. How am I supposed to trust that?"
"You're right to not trust it," I say. "You're right to be careful."
She looks at me like she's trying to figure out if I'm telling the truth. Like she's reading me the same way she reads everyone else.
"I need time," she says finally. "I need to understand myself before I can trust anyone else. I need to figure out who I am without my family's lies or your attention."
I nod. "Then I'll wait."
But the truth is I've never been good at patience. And as I walk away from her I know that waiting is going to destroy me.
My phone buzzes with a message from Marcus. He needs to meet with me privately. He has information about Victor Blake.
I'm about to respond when another message comes through. This one from an unknown number.
A video file.
I pull it up and see footage from the council chambers. Victor Blake is meeting with three other council members. They're discussing Sophia. They're discussing whether she's a threat. They're discussing how to eliminate her if she becomes a problem.
One of the council members says something that makes my blood run cold.
"We should have let her father finish the job. We should have let those rogues kill her when we had the chance."
Another council member responds. "We still have that chance. We just need to be patient."
I realize in that moment that the danger to Sophia isn't over. It's escalating.
And if I don't act soon, the council is going to move against her with everything they have.
The worst part is I don't care about the politics anymore. I don't care about the pack dynamics or the strategic implications.
I care about keeping her alive.
And that's something I've never cared about before.
That's the most dangerous thing of all.