Morning came to Silverpine wrapped in iron-gray light.
Alpha Victor woke before the bell, eyes snapping open as if called by instinct alone. Stone walls loomed above him, unfamiliar and faintly irritating. The air smelled wrong—pine and foreign smoke instead of iron, ash, and blood. For a heartbeat, he lay still, listening. No alarms. No screams. No urgent calls through the link.
Just the low murmur of a compound waking.
He rose without ceremony, shrugging into his trousers and boots, movements efficient, predatory. Across the chamber, his warriors stirred in near-unison—trained, alert, already half-ready for violence. Darius sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing in particular, dark hair falling loose around his face.
“You slept.” Alpha Victor noted gruffl
