His voice wasn’t a growl, but it carried that same low resonance, vibrating straight through bone. It wasn’t an accusation.
It was a fact.
“Yes,” I replied. “I did.”
A ripple passed through the group behind him. I couldn’t tell if it was outrage or approval.
“Some of us are still deciding how we feel about that,” he continued.
My chest tightened.
There it is.
“I imagine you are,” I said carefully. “The Hunger Path affected everyone. Ending it wasn’t meant to strip choice away.”
The alpha tilted his head slightly, studying me anew. “It stripped certainty. We’d learned what its motives were since Malore implemented it. We could walk the outskirts and know how to avoid unpleasantries.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “And I don’t pretend it didn’t.”
Silence stretched between us.
Behind him, another alpha, smaller, leaner, gray-furred, paced closer.
Her eyes never left my face. Others fanned out subtly, not surrounding us exactly, but adjusting their positions in a way that made my instincts scream 'formation'.
My thoughts raced.
Maybe they didn’t agree with the ending.
What if they saw it as a weakness?
They could be here to reclaim control or try to take over and assert dominance while the world recalibrated.
The brown alpha took another step forward.
Every muscle in Keegan’s body went rigid.
If Keegan shifted now, a traitorous part of my mind whispered, he’d be bigger.
Another part answered immediately,It wouldn’t matter.
Any of them could take me down in seconds.
All of them could.
I forced myself not to flinch.
“You came here,” I said, my voice steady despite everything in me wanting to brace, “instead of marching to Shadowick or sending a challenge. That tells me something.”
The alpha’s gaze flicked briefly to the Academy doors behind me, then back to my face. “It tells you we are restrained.”
“It tells me you want to talk,” I said.
A faint rumble passed through his chest. Almost a laugh.
“Perhaps.”
The Silver Wolf stepped forward then, just enough to be seen without intruding.
