There’s total silence. Edda’s face is white with fury. Controlled, righteous fury. She believes what she’s saying. That’s what makes her dangerous. Bern’s manipulations work because they find people with genuine convictions and weaponize them.
“The mate mark is sealed,” Rook says from beside me. Calm. Factual. Giving the room the technical reality. “This isn’t a proposal or a negotiation. The connection is complete. Brenna Corvus is Merric’s mate by fate, by bond, and by choice.”
“And the boy?” Edda’s eyes have found Cameron, sitting at the table like a statue, tracking every speaker. “Who is he?”
“Cameron Corvus,” Brenna says, speaking for the first time. Her voice is level, measured, carrying to every corner. The voice of a woman who’s addressed councils and combat teams and doesn’t flinch from a room full of hostile wolves. “My son. Merric’s son.”
The second shockwave. I feel it move through the room. The intake of breath, the exchanged glances, the rapid recalculation happening behind fifty pairs of eyes. Merric Rourke has a son. A magic-blooded son. A seventeen-year-old nobody knew about. Torsten’s arms uncross. Carlton sits down hard, as if his knees forgot how to hold him.
Edda sits down too. Not because she’s yielding. Because the magnitude of what she’s processing requires a chair.
“I know this is a lot,” I say. “It’s a lot for me too. I’ve had time to adjust, and I’m still adjusting. But I’m not asking for a debate. Brenna is my mate. Cameron is my son. They are part of this pack now, and they will be treated as such. Anyone who has concerns can bring them to me directly. Anyone who has threats can bring them to me, too.” I let the silence hold for a beat. “I’ll handle those differently.”
The room digests this. I can feel the currents: the loyalists settling into acceptance, the middle ground wavering, the traditionalists hardening. This isn’t over. Tonight was the announcement. The real fight starts tomorrow, in the hallways and the training yards and the hidden conversations where opinions harden into positions and positions harden into factions.
The gathering breaks up slowly. Wolves approach, some to clasp my hand with warmth that makes my throat tight, some to nod at Brenna with stiff courtesy, some to gawk at Cameron with curiosity that sits on the border between interest and assessment. Petra—young, dark-haired, one of my best fighters—grips Brenna’s hand with both of hers and says, “Welcome,”and means it with her whole body. Karl Harwick, the council seat Jonas trusts, shakes my hand and murmurs, “Brave move, Alpha. Hope you’re ready for the weather.”
“Always liked a storm, Karl.”
“This one’s going to have fangs.”
Edda leaves without speaking to us. Her three wolves follow. The message is clear enough.
Chapter 25
Merric
Jonas walks us to the alpha quarters—a separate cabin behind the lodge, built for privacy. It’s set back from the main compound by fifty yards of cleared ground, backed against a stand of white pines that make the air smell sharp and clean. Inside, it’s as I left it—spare, functional, the furniture built by the same wolves who built the lodge. Except for a vase of mountain wildflowers on the kitchen table that somebody put there while I was gone. Yellow and white. The gesture is small and anonymous, and it loosens something in my chest.
Cameron takes the spare room without comment. He pauses in the doorway, looks back at Brenna and me standing together in the kitchen, and for a moment his face is unreadable.
Then he says, “Edda’s three wolves. The one on her left was scared. The other two were angry. There’s a difference.”
He closes his door. I frown at it for a moment. Seventeen, and he’s already sorting fear from conviction the way Brenna sortsintelligence. Is this another branch of his powers? I’m starting to believe we’ve only scratched the surface of what he’s capable of.
Brenna stands at the window, looking out at the compound. The lodge lights are warm through the pines. Wolves move between buildings, their breath visible in the mountain air. Somewhere, a door closes. A dog barks. The ordinary sounds of pack life.
“It’s different from what I expected,” she says.
“How?”
“Bigger. More established. More…” She searches for the word. “Rooted. This pack has been here for generations. You can feel it in the ground.”
She’s right. Frostbourne isn’t a ranch with thirty refugees. It’s a functioning pack with countless wolves, a political seat, infrastructure, history. Three generations of alphas built this valley into something that endures. What I did tonight—announcing her, claiming Cameron—sends waves through a structure that took a hundred years to build.
“Edda’s going to move against you,” Brenna says. She turns from the window.
“I know.”
“She’ll have Bern’s backing. Maybe not openly. But the communication channels are there.”
“I know that too.”
“And those vehicles Jonas mentioned. Night runs on logging roads leading to your compound.” She crosses her arms. “Someone’s preparing something, Merric. The timing of Bern’s visit, the intelligence he gathered at the ranch, and now surveillance on Frostbourne… That’s not three separate events. That’s a campaign.”
“We’ll handle it.”
“You keep saying that.”
