“The twenty days give her time to build a coalition. She’ll interview every wolf in the compound. The ones who are nervous, she’ll turn cautious. The ones who are cautious, she’ll turn opposed. By the time the review period ends, she’ll have enough support to push for a confidence vote.”
“And if the confidence vote succeeds, I lose my council standing. Frostbourne’s protected status becomes vulnerable. Bern moves in with whatever external authority he’s been building.”
“That’s the play.”
“Then we have twenty days to make the play irrelevant.”
Jonas studies me. “How?”
“By making Brenna so essential to this pack’s security that removing her becomes unthinkable.”
He considers this. Nods slowly. “She’s already making headway in the training yard. Petra’s people respect her. If we can get her integrated into the patrol rotation, the defensive planning—”
“Do it. And Jonas… the vehicles on the logging roads. What’s the latest?”
His shoulders tighten. “One of the scouts tracked them again last night. Three SUVs, unmarked, north approach. Different clearing this time. They’re rotating positions, marking the territory from multiple angles.”
“Different clearing, same distance.”
“They’re not just checking rotations. I think they’re building a complete operational picture: patrol shifts, blind spots, approach corridors.”
The same blind spots Brenna identified on her walk. The ones Edda accused her of monitoring for someone else. The irony would be funny if it weren’t dangerous.
I rub the back of my neck. “I need some time to think this through,” I tell him before turning and walking away.
I spend the afternoon on the things that make a pack work. Supply review with the store manager: winter stores are solid, but medical supplies need restocking, and the generator that powers the east cabins is overdue for maintenance. Boundary patrol with the scouts, checking markers, reading scent lines. The neighboring pack has stayed within their bounds, but there’s fresh elk sign along the creek that will draw their hunters close, and close is where disputes start.
Then the Hale family. Tom and Sarah, mid-forties, good wolves. Their daughter Mira is fourteen and just faced her first shift. I was supposed to be here for it. The alpha’s presence steadies a young wolf through the change, anchors them to the pack bond during the most disorienting experience of their lives. My absence meant Mira’s shift happened without her alpha.
The guilt of that sits heavily when Tom grips my hand and says, “She managed. Jonas was good. But she asked for you.”
“I’m here now,” I say. “I’ll work with her tomorrow.”
“She’s heard about Brenna,” Sarah says carefully. “The magic. She’s curious.”
“Is that a problem?”
“For us? No.” Sarah looks at Tom. Something passes between them—the wordless communication of a couple who’ve been together long enough to share opinions without speaking. “For some of the other families, maybe. They’re worried about their kids being around the boy. The magic.”
“Cameron isn’t dangerous.”
“We know that. But fear doesn’t listen to facts, Alpha. You know that.”
I do. I know it better now than I did a week ago.
Brenna finds me at the training ground late in the day. She’s been working with Cameron and the young wolves—Lena, Mark, Kai—and there’s a looseness in her shoulders that I haven’t seen before. Not relaxation. The easing that comes from doing something that matters in a place that’s been making her feel invisible.
“Cameron showed them his magic,” she says.
“How’d that go?”
“Lena asked if he could set her ex-boyfriend’s truck on fire. Mark wants to know if the magic is genetic. And Kai told Cameron he was the coolest person he’d ever met, which Cameron pretended to be embarrassed by and was clearly thrilled about.”
The image makes me smile. My son, finding his place. Not through force or politics but through the simple fact of being seventeen and interesting.
“Edda demanded a review period,” I tell Brenna. “Twenty days.”
She absorbs this without visible reaction. She’s developed the ability to take bad news without flinching. “How much damage can she do in twenty days?”
