“Calder Voss,” Daniel continued, the name dropping into the silence like a stone into still water. “Some of you remember when he was actually an Alpha worth respecting. Those days are long gone.”
An older wolf near the back spoke up, voice rough with exhaustion. “How long has he been... like that?”
“Fully rogue? Maybe five years. But he's been slipping for longer.” Daniel's expression darkened. “I watched it happen. Watched a rival become something that barely remembers what it means to be human.”
The words settled over the room like a shroud, heavy with implication and shared dread. I could see it in their faces—the fear that whatever had taken Calder could happen to any of them.
“That's not the worst part,” said a younger wolf I didn't recognize. “The way those others moved with him. They weren't just rogues. They were organized.”
My mouth opened before my brain could engage the filter. “They moved like they were being controlled.”
The entire room turned to stare at me. Some looked like I'd just tried to explain rocket science to toddlers. Others looked like I'd personally insulted their mothers and maybe kicked their dogs too.
Heat crawled up my neck, but I forced myself to keep talking. “I'm serious. They had coordination, but not... not like a pack. Like puppets.”
“Puppets,” Daniel repeated, and there was something in his voice that made my spine straighten. “Interesting choice of words.”
Evan tensed beside me, protective instincts flaring so hard I could practically feel his wolf stirring beneath his skin. “Dad?—”
“No, he's right,” Daniel said, cutting him off. “The boy sees what some of you missed.”
The validation from the scariest person in the room hit like a shot of good whiskey—warm and dangerous and completely addictive.
That's when Gideon stepped out of the shadows by the window, moving with that subtle grace I was only now recognizing as supernatural. He'd been so still I'd almost forgotten he was there, silver hair catching the lamplight in ways that made him look older and infinitely more dangerous.
“Because they weren't whole anymore,” he said quietly, voice carrying undertones I'd never heard before. “Calder's not leading those wolves. He's herding them.”
“For who?” Evan demanded.
Gideon's weathered hands gripped the back of a chair until his knuckles went white. Something flickered across his face—pain, maybe, or guilt so deep it had carved permanent lines around his eyes. “Someone old. Someone patient. Someonewho's been waiting a very long time for the right moment to collect on old debts.”
"Stop being cryptic and just fucking tell us," said a woman with short dark hair and scars across her knuckles. "Who's pulling Calder's strings?"
Gideon's eyes found Daniel's across the room, and I watched something pass between them that looked like shared secrets and old wounds. Daniel's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly—not surprise, but resignation. Like he'd been dreading this moment for years.
"Silas Duvall," Gideon said finally, the name falling from his lips like it physically hurt to speak it.
Several wolves actually flinched. Others muttered under their breath, the syllables carrying weight like prophecy or nightmare made manifest.
"Bullshit," the scarred woman said flatly. "The Duvalls are extinct. Have been for decades."
"Most of them," Gideon agreed, and his voice sounded hollow now, scraped raw. "But not all."
"Who were the Duvalls?" I asked, though part of me already knew I wouldn't like the answer.
"Witches," Daniel said bluntly, but his eyes never left Gideon's face. "Old bloodline that used to call Hollow Pines home, back before my family claimed it as pack territory."
"Used to," Gideon repeated with bitter emphasis, and I caught the way his hands trembled slightly before he clenched them into fists. "Until they were hunted down and driven out. Or killed."
"What happened?" I asked.
Daniel's jaw worked for a moment before he spoke, and I noticed how he kept glancing at Gideon like he was waiting for permission or forgiveness. "My father's generation made some hard choices. The Duvalls were powerful, tied to the forest inways that went deeper than pack bonds. When tensions rose, when territory disputes turned bloody..." He shrugged, but there was nothing casual about it. "They were seen as a threat."
"Seen as," Gideon said, voice flat as winter stone. His eyes had gone distant, like he was seeing something the rest of us couldn't. Something that hurt to remember.
"Gideon," Daniel warned, but there was something gentle in it now. Protective, almost.
"No." Gideon stepped forward, power crackling faintly around his fingers like he wasn't quite in control of it. "He asked what happened." His voice cracked slightly on the words. "Silas Duvall was twelve years old when your pack decided his mother was practicing dark magic. Twelve years old when they dragged her out of her home and burned her alive while he watched."
