“What’s your point?” Dylan’s tone is gruff, but not unkind.
“I know how Rafe thinks. I knew his father and the way Cheslem leadership operates at its core. They’re not random in their cruelty. Everything they do serves a purpose, even when it looks like senseless violence from the outside.”
“And what purpose did attacking Skylar serve?” I ask.
Caleb makes eye contact with me as he answers, “Rafe wants you afraid. He wants you looking over your shoulder every second, wondering when the next strike will come and who it will target. A frightened wolf makes mistakes. An exhausted wolf loses focus and misses things he should have caught. Rafe will keep the pressure on, hitting you from unexpected angles, until you crack under the weight of trying to protect everyone at once.”
“I don’t crack.”
“Everyone cracks eventually. The question is what breaks first—you or the people around you who get caught in the crossfire.”
The words land in the pit of my stomach and settle there like a goddamn stone. Caleb isn’t wrong. I’ve seen operatives with decades of experience fall apart when the stakes got personal. When the enemy started targeting their families, their friends, everything they cared about outside the mission. The job becomes impossible to separate from the emotion, and emotion makes you sloppy. It makes you predictable.
Rafe knows exactly what he’s doing. And I walked right into his trap by coming home.
“What do you recommend?” Nic asks Caleb.
“Don’t give him what he wants. Don’t let Bryan isolate himself or try to handle this alone like some kind of lone wolf martyr. Rafe expects you to push him away, to treat him like a liability rather than an asset, because of the danger he’s brought to your door. If you do that, you’re playing right into his hands. Keep him close. Keep his mate closer. Make it clear that Silvercreek protects its own, no matter what they’ve done or where they’ve been or how long they stayed away. Rafe is counting on division and distrust. Don’t give it to him.”
The room falls quiet as Caleb’s words sink in. I can feel the pack’s mood turning, reassessing me in the context of this new information. Some of the hostility bleeds away to be replaced by something more pragmatic. They might not like me or trust me yet, but they understand that I’m not the enemy here. Not the real one, anyway.
“All right,” Nic responds. “Here’s what we’re going to do. James, you have operational control of border security. Restructure the patrols however you see fit. Dylan and Connor coordinate protection details for anyone Rafe might target, starting with the medical center. Luna and Ruby, start working on those wards right away. Caleb, I want you to consult with Bryan on Cheslem tactics and likely attack vectors. Between his field experience and your inside knowledge, you should be able to predict Rafe’s next move. Everyone else, stay vigilant. Report anything suspicious, no matter how small it seems.”
The meeting breaks up as wolves begin filing out. Some of them stop to ask James questions about patrol schedules and assignment rotations. Others cluster around Luna and Ruby,offering to help gather materials for the ward work. A few send curious looks in my direction, but nobody actually approaches me.
I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t approach me either.
Skylar is one of the last to leave. She pauses at the door with her hand on the frame, and I think for a moment that she might come over. That she might say something to acknowledge what we just learned, what we’re facing together, whether she wants to or not. But Ruby touches her arm and murmurs something I can’t hear, and then they’re gone.
Thomas does approach once the room has mostly cleared. “That went better than expected.”
“Define better.”
“Nobody called for your head on a pike. In Silvercreek terms, that’s practically a warm welcome.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face before vanishing again. “The pack will come around. They just need time to see that you’re here to help, not to cause more problems.”
“Time is the one thing we might not have.”
“Then we make the most of what we’ve got.” Thomas studies me with the same assessing look he’s been giving me since I returned. “Caleb’s right, you know. About not isolating yourself. About staying close to the pack and letting them help shoulder this burden.”
“I heard him.”
“Hearing and listening are different things, Bryan. You always had a habit of thinking you had to carry everything alone, that asking for help was some kind of weakness. It’s one of the reasons you left in the first place, isn’t it? You couldn’t stand the thought of putting anyone else at risk.”
I don’t have a response to that. Thomas is probably right, but admitting it would mean examining choices I’ve spent ten years justifying to myself. I’m not ready for that kind of reckoning. Not yet.
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” Thomas says as he claps a hand on my shoulder. “The pack needs you focused and thinking clearly. So does Skylar, whether she wants to admit it or not.”
He walks away then, leaving me alone in the empty conference room with nothing but my thoughts and the distant pull of a mate who wishes I’d never come home.
Chapter 10 - Skylar
The clinic doors slam open hard enough to rattle the windows.
I’m halfway through updating patient charts when Dylan bursts in with a bloodied wolf draped over his shoulder. Sera follows close behind with her face pale and her hand flattened on a wadded cloth against the man’s side. Blood has soaked through the fabric and is running down her wrist in thin red streams.
Dylan’s voice carries across the empty waiting room as he shouts, “Skylar! We need you now.”
I’m already moving. My body switches into autopilot before my brain fully catches up. “Exam room two. Fern, I need you!”
