He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, stubborn fire still burning in eyes that had grown harder over the past two weeks. “Better broken and useful than useless and whole.”
Sleep became elusive after that, spent lying awake watching Nate's form beside me in the narrow bed. He twitched and muttered in dreams I couldn't enter, fighting battles that existed only in his subconscious. Sometimes he cried out, Anna's name torn from his throat like broken glass.
Those were the nights I held him until the shaking stopped, whispering reassurances I wasn't sure either of us believed.
Jonah tried to help, cracking jokes during training sessions and staging elaborate pratfalls designed to coax laughter from someone who seemed to have forgotten how. But the lines around Nate's eyes only deepened, and silence became his default state.
The boy who used to fill empty moments with easy conversation now hoarded words like they were precious resources that couldn't be wasted on frivolity. It scared me more than any physical threat ever could.
“Livestock slaughtered at the Morrison farm,”Luke reported during the morning briefing, voice grim with implications.“Twelve sheep, gutted clean but not eaten. Arranged in neat rows like someone was making a point.”
“Claw marks?” Dad asked, though we all knew the answer.
“Too deliberate to be natural predation. This was a message.”
I led a team out to investigate, boots squelching through mud that had been churned by hooves and panic. The scene was worse than Luke's report had suggested. Sheep lay scattered across the pasture like broken toys, throats opened in precise cuts that spoke of intelligence behind the killing.
But it was the oak tree at the field's edge that made my wolf snarl with fury.
Words carved deep into the bark, letters gouged by claws sharp enough to split wood like paper: “Heirs fall.”
“Calder,” Alaric spat, nose wrinkling at the scent of rogue that still lingered in the air. “Bastard's not even trying to hide his involvement anymore.”
“He doesn't need to,” I replied, studying the message that felt like a direct challenge. “This isn't about stealth. It's about fear.”
We returned to the pack house to find Dad addressing an emergency council meeting, his voice carrying across the main room with Alpha authority that brooked no argument.
“Calder is baiting us,” he said, eyes finding mine as I entered. “He wants fear to spread through our territory, wants us to question whether we're strong enough to protect what's ours.”
“And it's working,” Alaric muttered, just loud enough for the entire room to hear. “Heir or not, Evan's distracted by his human. Maybe if he focused on pack business instead of playing house?—”
I was moving before conscious thought could interfere, wolf surging toward the surface in a wave of protective fury. But Nate's hand closed around my arm, grip strong enough to anchor me to humanity.
“He's not wrong,” Nate said quietly, words carrying across the suddenly silent room. “I am a distraction. But not the kind he thinks.”
All eyes turned to him, pack members studying the human who'd dared to speak up in a meeting of wolves. But Nate didn't flinch under their attention, didn't back down or apologize for taking up space in their world.
“Calder's not just trying to scare the pack,” he continued, voice gaining strength with each word. “He's targeting Evan specifically. The heir. Everything he's done, from the attack on the clearing to killing my mother to this message, it's all designed to get under Evan's skin.”
The room fell silent as wolves processed this insight, some nodding slowly as pieces clicked into place. Because Nate was right. Calder wasn't waging war against the pack as a whole. He was waging war against me, trying to break my spirit by destroying everything I cared about.
And he'd already succeeded once.
“So what do we do?” Sienna asked, voice cutting through the heavy quiet.
“We don't give him what he wants,” Dad said, but his tone suggested he was still working through the implications. “We don't let fear dictate our actions.”
“We prepare,” Nate added, silver-tipped arrows catching lamplight where they protruded from his quiver. “We train harder, fight smarter, and make sure the next time he comes for us, he doesn't walk away.”
The meeting dispersed after that, pack members filing out. But I lingered, watching Nate pack his bow with the careful attention of someone who'd learned to treat weapons like sacred objects.
“You realize what you just did?” I asked.
“Told the truth?” He slung the quiver across his shoulder, movements practiced now. “Pointed out what everyone else was too polite to say?”
“You stood up to a room full of werewolves and made them listen.” Pride swelled in my chest, warm and fierce and tinged with terror. “You made them see you as an equal instead of a liability.”
His smile was sharp around the edges, carrying none of the easy warmth I remembered from before. “Good. Because if Calder wants to play games, he's about to learn that humans can be just as vicious as wolves when you threaten their families.”
