My wolf snarled.
“And what dowewant?” Killian called, stepping up on his other side.
Wolfe didn’t look away from his pack. “We want only what was always ours. Our ridges. Our dead. Our future.” His jaw clenched. “So we will prepare. Rowen and I will answer their summons—not as beggars, not as traitors dragged to heel—but as alpha and mate of this pack, a pack that refuses to die because someone in a tent stamped a scroll.”
The murmur that rolled through the crowd this time was different. Darker. Stronger. War wasn’t lurking at the door anymore; it was standing in front of us, and it was not the enemy they expected. They expected a rogue band of shifters, but what they faced was the very Council that had made their laws.
Wolfe turned his head, meeting my gaze. In his eyes, I saw everything we’d survived to get here—blood and betrayal and the first time I realized how much I loved him, long before I allowed myself to admit it.
“You with me, princess?” he asked me quietly.
It wasn’t really a question that needed an answer. Not anymore. I looked out over my pack. My land. The place the Council thought they could claim. I felt it again—the Hollow hummed under my boots, old and watching.
“I was born here,” I said to him. “I’ll bleed here before I let them take it.”
Wolfe’s lips curved, his smile fierce and proud. “Then we go to their hearing,” he said, voice dropping so only those closest heard the promise under it. “And we show them exactly what Blueridge Hollow is.”
Beneath me, the Hollow didn’t breathe again.
Itroared.
Chapter 2
Wolfe
The messenger hadn’t even clearedthe ridge before the murmurs broke.
Not fear. Not entirely.
Anger.Betrayal.
A low, rolling growl that passed through the pack. I felt every shred of it scraping along my nerves. I felt their confusion, anxiety, andalarmthrough the mindlink, their emotions clamoring to reach me. I could have blocked it off, but I didn’t because Iwantedto feel them. I needed to feel them. Their hurt was mine to heal. Their worries were mine to soothe.
I was their alpha. I wouldalwaysbe their alpha.
“I feel you.”
I looked out over them, knowing each one could hear me through the bond that marked them as my pack.
“You’re scared. You should be.”I met a few sharp looks, causing me to smile.
“You’re angry. Good.”Glares turned to nods, pleased I heard them. Pleased I was listening.
“Iwillfix this.”
My hand rose when people started to speak. “I don’t know how, but I know I will. Only together will we keep what is ours. Agreed?”
The murmurs that had only sounded moments before became growls of assertion. I nodded in satisfaction. We weren’t settled in with each other yet, but we would be.
We would be.
Rowen stayed beside me until the crowd began to split—wolves heading back to their duties, others heading to train, some moving just so they didn’t stand still long enough to be afraid. Her fingers brushed mine before she stepped away, muttering something to Brand about reinforcing the lower trail.
I watched her walk away for a breath too long.
It wasn’t possessiveness. Not this time. It was the realization that the Council hadn’t just declared war on me—they’d declared war onher. On what she is. On what the Hollow made her. I didn’t even understand what that was yet, but that…that lit something hot under my ribs.
Diesel came and stood beside me, where she’d just stood. “You need to breathe.”
