The moonlight pooled in my hands. Warm and present and absolutely certain that I wasn't done yet. It pulsed in time with my heartbeat, silver-green threads winding through my veins,fighting the corruption from the inside while Gideon fought it from without.
I closed my eyes and focused on breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
22
EVERYTHING FALLS
DANIEL
Mountain roads wound through territory that should have been alive with forest sounds and animal movement. Birds calling. Deer crossing. Small creatures rustling through underbrush, unaware of the predator passing in a rusted pickup truck.
But there was nothing.
Just silence that pressed against my eardrums like physical weight. The trees stood too straight, too still, like soldiers waiting for orders that would never come. The road was too well-maintained for something that supposedly only saw pack traffic. Even the air tasted wrong. Clean in a way that natural air never was, like someone had filtered out everything interesting and left only sterile oxygen behind.
My wolf paced under my skin, restless in ways I couldn't articulate. Everything here said “sanctuary.” Said “neutral ground.” Said “safe space for pack politics.”
But my instincts screamedtrap.
The Council Hall came into view as I rounded the last curve. A sprawling lodge built from stone and timber that looked like it had grown from the mountain itself. Imposing. Ancient. Three hundred years of pack history carved into every beam and cornerstone.
I'd been here a hundred times over the past two decades. First as a young Alpha, newly crowned after my father's death, desperate to prove I could carry the weight he'd left behind. Then as Head Alpha, the position I'd never wanted but had been born to fill, making decisions that affected every wolf from the Arctic Circle to the Rio Grande.
Forty-seven packs. Nearly three thousand wolves. All of them looking to me for answers I didn't have.
Today, the Hall felt different. Smaller, somehow. Diminished in ways that had nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with the absence pressing against its walls.
I parked in the circular drive, gathered the documentation Gideon had compiled, and tried to ignore the way my hands wanted to shake.
The parking area was nearly empty.
Where there should have been a dozen vehicles. Council members, support staff, guards. The business of governing a continent's worth of supernatural politics. I counted three cars. Three, for what was supposed to be the highest authority in our world.
Something was very, very wrong.
The front doors opened before I reached them, and a woman stepped out. Elena Valdez. Council seat since before I was born. Survived territorial wars and political coups and challenges that should have killed her three times over. She'd been there when my father died, had been the one to place the Head Alpha's mark on my shoulder while my hands still shook with grief.
But she looked old now. Tired in ways that went deeper than sleepless nights. Like something had reached inside her and hollowed out whatever kept her standing.
“Daniel.” Her voice was controlled. Careful. “We weren't expecting you.”
“I sent word not that long ago.” I climbed the steps, made myself not react to the way she'd positioned herself in the doorway. Blocking entrance. “About the dark magic attacks on my territory. The corruption in the wards. The witch who's been?—”
“Yes. We received your message.” She didn't move. “Perhaps we should talk out here. The Hall is... undergoing renovations.”
Lie.
I could smell it on her. Could see it in the way her eyes tracked past me to the empty parking area like she was checking for witnesses. In the way her hands stayed clasped in front of her, white-knuckled, holding something back.
“Elena.” I let the Head Alpha authority bleed into my voice. The tone that said I wasn't asking. “What happened?”
She was quiet for a long moment. Wind moved through the too-still trees, carrying scents of pine and old stone and underneath it all, something darker. Something that smelled like grief and blood and the kind of fear that came from watching friends die.
“They're dead, Daniel.” Her voice cracked on the words. “Half the Council. Slaughtered three weeks ago in coordinated attacks across four territories.”
Ice ran down my spine.
