“Silas and his followers hit us simultaneously,” she continued. “Used magic we had no defense against. By the time we understood what was happening, it was too late.”
“How many?”
“Six Council Alphas. Dead.” Elena finally stepped aside, gestured me into the Hall. “Their packs decimated. The survivors scattered across territories that can barely protect themselves.” She paused. “Come. There's someone you need to meet.”
I followed her through corridors that echoed with emptiness. Past rooms that should have been full of pack activity but stood silent and abandoned. The paintings on the walls. Portraits of Alphas going back generations. They seemed to watch me pass with accusation in their painted eyes.
Where were you?they seemed to ask.You're Head Alpha. You're supposed to protect us. Where were you when we died?
I had no answer.
Elena led me to the main conference room. The one where I'd sat through a hundred meetings, negotiated treaties, settled disputes, made decisions that shaped the future of our kind. Now it felt like a tomb.
A single man stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out at the forest beyond. Tall. Broad-shouldered. The kind of stillness that said he was either completely in control or about to shatter into a thousand pieces.
“Marcus Thorne,” Elena said quietly. “The only other Council Alpha who survived.”
The man turned.
I knew Marcus by reputation. Alpha of the Northern Ridge pack, one of the oldest territories in Canada. Respected. Feared. Known for a temper that had ended more than one challenge before it properly started.
But the man looking at me now wasn't the wolf I'd heard stories about. This was someone who'd looked at hell and decided to keep staring until it blinked first. Eyes that had seen too much. Shoulders that carried weight they weren't sure they could hold.
“Daniel Callahan.” His voice was flat. Emotionless. The kind of flat that came from feeling too much and shutting it all down to survive. “Head Alpha of every pack on this continent. Heard a lot about you.”
“Wish I could say the same.”
“No.” Marcus moved away from the window, and I saw the way his hands trembled before he shoved them in his pockets. “You don't.”
Elena closed the door behind us. The click of the latch sounded like a cell door closing.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “From the beginning.”
“The beginning.” Marcus laughed, but there was no humor in it. “The beginning was a hundred years ago, when your pack burned a witch's mother alive and created the monster that's been hunting us ever since.”
“This is his revenge. And it started with Evernight.” Elena said.
I forced myself to breathe. To stay standing. To not let them see how deep those words cut.
“You're blaming my pack for Silas.”
“We're stating facts.” Marcus's voice went hard. “The Duvall witch was driven out by Callahan wolves. Hunted. Burned. Her son watched her die, and then spent the next century learning magic that should have stayed buried in the old world. And worst of all you killed Isolde his only tether that’s keeping him sane.” He stepped closer, and I could smell the rage underneath his control. “Every Alpha who died. Every pack that fell. Every wolf who was slaughtered while Silas built his army. That blood is on your hands.”
“That's not?—”
“Isn't it?” Elena's voice cut through my protest. “The old laws existed for a reason, Daniel. The seals that bound Silas, the protections that kept him from accessing the Evernight Forest'sheart. Your pack was supposed to maintain them. Your pack was supposed to keep him contained.”
“And instead, what?” Marcus demanded. “The corruption in your wards has been spreading. Your territory is compromised from the inside. Someone's been feeding Silas information, giving him access to power he shouldn't have been able to touch. And now six Alphas are dead because your pack couldn't finish what it started a hundred years ago.”
The accusation hung in the air, thick and poisonous.
I wanted to deny it. Wanted to argue that we'd done everything we could, that the corruption had been hidden too deep to find, that no one could have predicted Silas would spend a century building toward this moment.
But I couldn't.
Because part of me wondered if they were right.
“The old laws are failing,” I said quietly. “I know. Gideon's been working to clear the corruption, but it keeps coming back. Someone's maintaining it from inside the territory.”
