"I'll step into the ring," I say.
He stops.
"You want a formal duel, Gideon, you'll have it." I hold his gaze level and still. "Full Moon Challenge Law. Midnight. Before the pack, under the ritual stones." I keep my voice measured, because the wolves in the courtyard are listening and the way I say this matters as much as what I say. "But understand something clearly—what Ciaran has in his hand goes to Brynn regardless of what happens in that ring. The evidence doesn't disappear because you win or lose a fight."
Gideon is quiet for a moment. Something shifts in his eyes. "Full Moon Challenge Law," he repeats.
"Midnight," I confirm.
He nods once, the gesture of a man accepting terms he's already decided to manipulate. "Then we have an agreement." He turns and walks back toward his loyalists without another word.
Three younger wolves across the courtyard have been watching the whole exchange. I can read the room without effort—two of them ease slightly at the invocation of formal law, the structure of it reassuring in a way that raw confrontation wouldn't be. The third is still watching Gideon's retreating back with an expression that could go either way.
Divided. Not fractured, not yet.
"You're giving him the fight he wanted," Ciaran says quietly beside me.
"I'm giving the pack the certainty they need," I say. "Whatever happens in that ring, it ends cleanly. No ambiguity about who holds authority after tonight."
The scout report comes in twenty minutes later over the radio—three vehicles at the lower access road, two more approaching from the county highway, all of them moving with the pace of a coordinated deployment rather than opportunistic hunters.
"They're regrouping," the scout says over the channel. "Organized. They've got better equipment than the last group. Long-range rifles, night-vision rigs, at least one vehicle with a mounted spotlight."
"Hold the perimeter," I say into the radio. "No engagement. Shadow only until I give the order." I click off and look at Ciaran. "Pull two senior enforcer teams to the southern boundary. Human form, observation positions only. Nobody shifts, nobody fires first."
"And if they cross the line?" Ciaran asks.
"Then we deal with it after midnight." I meet his eyes. "The duel takes priority. A fractured pack can't handle a hunter incursion and an Alpha transition simultaneously."
Brynn finds me at the war room door as I'm reviewing the boundary positions.
She doesn't knock either, which is a habit she's apparently shared with Gideon for decades and which I've stopped remarking on. She enters, closes the door, and faces me with her staff planted and her amber eyes carrying the weight of something she's decided to say directly.
"If you lose tonight," she says, "the protection laws on your mate dissolve with the title. Immediately and without exception."
"I know."
"I want to confirm that you know." She holds my gaze. "Gideon will not extend courtesy to her. Whatever restraint he's performed for the sake of council appearances ends the moment the challenge concludes in his favor."
"I understand the stakes, Brynn."
"Good." She turns slightly, as if she might leave, then stops. "For what it's worth, the evidence Ciaran recovered is being reviewed by the full council tonight before the duel begins." She glances back at me. "I'm not in the habit of letting a traitor'saccusation go unexamined simply because he's managed to get himself a fight."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Win." She moves toward the door. "And Alden—the hunters at the boundary complicate the aftermath regardless of outcome. Whatever happens in that ring, the morning will require both of you to be functional."
She leaves without waiting for a response.
I stand at the window for a moment, looking down at the training field where wolves have already begun clearing the central ground, marking the ritual boundary with stones pulled from the outer perimeter. The duel ring taking shape in the afternoon light, deliberate and final. The pack moves around it with the efficient gravity of people who understand that what happens inside those stones in a few hours will determine everything that comes after.
I have more to fight for than I've had in years.
I intend to use it.
27
CASSIDY
