Kade glanced down at her touch, then back to her face. "This is nothing," he said simply. It wasn't dismissal. It was fact—an alpha's body already erasing the evidence of violence the way it always had.
His attention drifted briefly to Takoda, still curled tight against Dakota's chest, breathing slow and undisturbed. "She didn't wake?"
Dakota exhaled, the sound carrying a thread of relief. "No."
For a moment, something unspoken passed between them—gratitude that the pup had been spared the terror, that the bond forming between the three of them had remained untouched by the brutality.
Then Kade's gaze returned to Dakota, sharper now, edged with something deeper than concern. "Why did you stay like that?"
His hand lifted, flicking lightly against the tip of her nose—not harsh, not scolding, but carrying the weight of an alpha's reprimand all the same. "What if they had completely lost control?"
