The ninth through twelfth are from other southern alphas. Some concerned, some curious, one openly hostile. Word travels fast in wolf country. A Frostbourne alpha on Ravenclaw land isthe loudest statement I could have made short of pissing on the Elder Council’s front door.
The thirteenth is from Nathan Bern himself.
Merric. I’ve heard troubling reports about your current location. I understand the impulse toward charity, but I’d strongly encourage you to consider the optics of your position before this becomes something the council needs to address formally. Let’s talk before this escalates. You know I’ve always had Frostbourne’s best interests at heart.
Reasonable. Measured. The tone of a man who’s done you the favor of not being angry yet.
I read it twice. The phrasing is careful, the way a trap is careful.Optics of your position.Not a threat. An observation.Before this becomes something the council needs to address.Not a warning. A suggestion. And that last line—I’ve always had Frostbourne’s best interests at heart—is the gentlest possible reminder that he can make things very difficult for me if I don’t play along.
Nathan Bern didn’t get to where he is by shouting. He got there by being the most reasonable voice in the room until the room bent to him.
“Fucker,” I breathe.
The fourteenth message is from Nadia Frost, sent from Aurora:Heard you went south with the kid. Be careful. Something’s moving in the Syndicate channels—more chatter about wolf territories than we’ve seen in months. Viktor is tracking it. Stay sharp.
I pocket the phone. Climb out of the posthole. Stand there with my hands on my hips, eye the hills, and think about how many directions the trouble is coming from.
Bern is already positioning. The council will be next. And Nadia’s warning means the Syndicate has its eye on wolfcountry, which means Briar’s boot prints on the southeast ridge might not be random hikers with bad timing.
The political and the military, both closing in, and I’m standing in a field with a shovel and fourteen hours of sleep debt.
I find Rook at the bunkhouse, cleaning his boots on the porch steps. I hand him the phone. He reads through the messages, methodical as always. When he reaches Bern’s, his eyes narrow. When he reaches Nadia’s, he hands the phone back.
“Jonas needs direction,” Rook says. “The pack at home needs to hear from you. Not tomorrow. Tonight.”
“I know.”
“What do you want to tell them?”
I sit down on the steps beside him. The wood groans under my weight. Across the yard, Sienna and Greta are walking through the garden, heads together, planning. Dane’s barn project is taking shape; the frame is up, the two Ravenclaw kids sitting on the crossbeam eating sandwiches like they’ve been part of his crew for years. Cameron is sitting on a stump near the main house, peeling an apple with a knife, watching everything and everyone with eyes that seem too old for his face.
This is what it looks like when you start rebuilding something. Fragile as hell. Full of cracks. But standing.
“I’ll tell Jonas the truth,” I say. “Tell him I’m at Ravenclaw. That I’m staying as long as I need, and anyone at Frostbourne who has a problem with that can take it up with me when I get back. No one’s forced to agree. But no one gets to tell me where I put my protection.”
“And Bern?”
I think about that reasonable message. That careful phrasing. The man who brokered the ultimatum that broke my life in half, reaching out with the same measured voice he used back then.Let’s be reasonable, Merric. Let’s think about what’s best for everyone.
“Fuck him,” I say. “Let him wonder.”
Rook almost smiles. “That’ll piss him off more than anything you could say.”
“That’s the idea.”
Evening settles over the ranch. Dinner is communal, a long table set up in the yard because the kitchen can’t fit everyone. Greta’s doing, with Sienna’s supplies backing her up. The food is simple, but there’s enough of it, which, based on the faces around the table, is a novelty.
I watch the two groups—Frostbourne and Ravenclaw—sitting together but not yet mixed. My wolves at one end, theirs at the other, Cameron in the middle like a bridge that hasn’t finished being built. Willow sits with her people, back straight, eating with the focus of someone who’s trained herself to never take a full plate for granted.
The Ravenclaw teenagers have migrated toward Dane. He tolerates this with his usual granite stoicism, but at one point the red-haired kid says something, and Dane makes a sound that might, under laboratory conditions, qualify as a laugh. Several Ravenclaw wolves look over in genuine surprise. I don’t blame them. I’ve known Dane six years, and I can count his laughs on one hand.
After dinner, I walk the boundaries. Habit. Necessity. The wards Briar mentioned—old magical protections along the property boundary—tingle against my skin when I get close. I can’t see them, but my wolf senses something woven into the ground. Protective intent layered into the soil over generations. Faded now. But still there.
Cameron finds me near the south fence. He falls into step beside me, hands in his pockets, matching my stride. We walk in silence for a while. The last light is filtering from the sky, and the hills are going dark around us.
“You knew her,” he says. “My mother.”
It’s not an accusation. Just a boy circling something he needs to understand.
