For a moment, everything stilled. The humming, the fear, even the strange warmth in her chest. Gone.
In its place: silence—thick and heavy, but not crushing. Just real.
Shelly blinked, and when her gaze met Andy’s again, it was like fog lifting from a mirror.
There he was.
Not the stranger cloaked in tension and shadow.
Not the cold Alpha who barely looked her way.
This was just a boy— one who laughed once, years ago, too loud at something dumb his friends had said. The one who stared at the stars too long, like they owed him answers.
Her chest loosened.
Andy’s eyes softened too. Just for a moment. And then, wordlessly, he stepped past her.
Shelly didn’t flinch.
She didn’t need to.
Because for the first time in what felt like weeks, she trusted what she saw in him. The quiet strength. The barely-restrained fury. The control.
He crouched beside Lucy.