I dialed Caleb. The call went to voicemail.
I left a short message: I found something. Someone’s been in my apartment. Come now.
His reply was immediate in intent, if not in sound: secure evidence. Protect. Don’t go anywhere. He would be there. He would gather. He would not—he said without saying it—let them take Leo.
I tucked the leather scrap back into my bag like it might hide. It didn’t make me safer.
Outside, a low sound threaded through the night, a two-note call like wolves agreeing on a plan. I walked to the door and locked it twice.
I checked my bag again because I wanted to be sure.
Tucked between my old grocery list and Leo’s permission slip was another scrap. Smaller. Cleaner. A bite-shape stamped into the leather.
The symbol matched the one on the emissary’s envelope, the bench, and the scrap that had been in my pocket weeks ago.
Somebody had been inside my home while I slept.
They had left me a message.
5
CALEB STONE
The barn smells like summer and hay and the sweat of honest work—an odor that settles under your skin. Leo laughs as he splashes again, the sound ricocheting off the rafters and easing the tightness in my jaw. Mia hums under her breath—she always hums when she's relaxed—and that little melody has become the most dangerous thing I've heard in months.
We move in a rhythm that's become ours. I throw bales; she ties boots. I fix a fence post; she folds laundry on the tailgate while Leo finds dirt where dirt shouldn't be. Weeknights at the ranch are small, perfect things: pancakes on Sundays, scraped knees on Tuesdays, bedtime stories under a lamp that makes her freckles glow like embers. It's domestic. It's ordinary. It's fragile as glass.
Fated mate. Shifter nanny. Alpha.
Those labels don't weigh here. What matters is the grin on Leo's face when I show him how to braid reinforcements and Mia's shoulder finding my forearm as she watches. Still, the way my chest tightens when she looks at me—like I could be everything she needs if she'd let me—is old and dangerous.
So when a truck bell clicks on the porch at dusk, I feel the shift like a pressure behind my ribs.
The council summons looks like business: plain paper, an elder's mark stamped in black. But a stamp is bone—weight that doesn't register in courts. It carries precedents and penalties, the kind of law that can take what you thought was yours and call it theirs. We sit at the table when I read it. Mia folds permission slips and attorney notes; Leo stuffs a stuffed moose into his backpack, oblivious. She looks at me as if asking for a translation I can't give. I fold the summons and slip it into my coat.
"You have to go," she says. Practicality lines her voice—the same pragmatic armor that got Leo through his first court fights. "If you don't?—"
"If I don't, they'll take it as a weakness." My hand rests casual on the back of her chair—leather and denim, the soft stubborn curve of her spine. She doesn't pull away. She never does when I hold steady.
The pack's rules are older than my grandfather's stories. There is a formal way to initiate claim: a challenge, evidence, the council's verdict. Defy the council and you can lose rank, land, even your right to speak for the pack. Accept it and your life can change without your partner's consent. That last part hollows me out at night.
The rival alpha is a presence. He circles what he wants. The sealed note the last emissary brought is a bruise under my skin. It's time to either let it be or to fight.
We drive to the compound together. Leo sleeps against the seat, milk crust at his lip. Mia watches him in the rearview like he is the only anchor she has. I'm counting breaths between my words, practicing a speech I might never need—or might die for.
The council chamber smells of iron and sage. Torches throw light in slow, religious arcs. Pack members file in: steady ones, the old ones whose bones remember treaties. The rival alpha's flank of men is a shade too loud. He wears new leather and asmile like a razor. He sits like a king who's never learned the weight of a crown.
When the elders call the meeting to order, the hum in the room tightens. Ritual makes men speak words they'll regret. I think of the nights Mia signed court forms, the way she counted pennies for a lawyer, the promises she's kept. I think of Leo and the way he clings to my finger. My voice is a tool. I have to use it right.
They bring the motion forward like a field hand hauling a gate: the rival alpha files a formal notice of interest. It's procedural, neat, the opening salvo. He slaps down a token—an embossed piece of leather with a curled mark—and the room leans in. He frames my connection to Mia as a threat and implies precedent: where pack interest and mating markers are present, the pack's say can trump a person’s choice. He couches it in protection. The words are teeth.
My name is on other lists. I can already hear the gossip: Caleb Stone, man who breaks treaties, who puts family before pack.
I stand because you stand when the thing you love is threatened. Not for glory. Because if you don't, someone else will decide what your life is worth.
"Elders," I say, stepping to the center with my hands empty. One of the council rules is you don't bring weapons to words. "Mia Torres is not property."
Murmurs. A cough. The rival alpha's smile tightens.
