“I do.”
“You bind yourself to her fate.”
“Yes.”
The murmurs rise again, less shocked now, more unsettled.
Gideon watches me without blinking. His posture remains relaxed, but his eyes sharpen. “You shield a liability,” he says quietly. “She is neither pack nor blood.”
“She is under my authority.”
Ronan looks to Brynn. “If she violates secrecy?”
“Then the protection dissolves,” I answer before Brynn can. “And I will handle it.”
The silence stretches.
Brynn studies me long enough that the firelight shifts twice between us. She searches for doubt and finds none.
“I will not oppose the invocation,” she says at last.
Several elders stiffen. Lydia opens her mouth to argue, then stops at the lift of Brynn’s staff. Gideon remains still.
I turn my attention to him. “Objection?”
He tilts his head slightly. “You’ve made your decision.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
A faint smile touches his mouth, thin and controlled. “No objection.”
The absence lands heavier than resistance would have. The circle begins to loosen. Elders shift away from the central stone in twos and threes, conversation breaking into quieter currents.
Gideon turns first.
He doesn’t protest. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t push for immediate challenge. He simply inclines his head slightly and steps back toward the tree line.
He disappears into shadow without another word.
Ciaran moves closer to my side once the others begin dispersing. “That was too easy.”
“Yes,” I agree. My eyes follow Gideon as he disappears. I know he has loyalists in the pack that he whispers to and who sneak around for him. His silence is unexpected and bothersome.
And I don’t trust it.
7
CASSIDY
By the time the horizon begins to lighten, I’m sitting on the tailgate with antiseptic soaking into my shoulder and a field med kit spread across the truck bed.
The claw marks are clean and evenly spaced, four parallel tears that cut through fabric and skin without hesitation. Whoever—or whatever—did this didn’t swipe blindly. The strike was precise and deliberate.
I pour saline over the wound and let it run.
It burns hard enough to make my eyes water, but the bleeding slows. I reach for the suture kit and thread the needle with steady hands.
“I’ve had worse,” I tell the empty clearing, more out of habit than reassurance.
