*Chapter 18: The New Pack*
The first week after the tribunal felt like holding your breath underwater and finally surfacing.
Nothing had exploded. No rogue attacks in the night. No more supply trucks going missing. Damon was in the holding cells, silent, and for the first time in months the territory was quiet in the good way.
Quiet meant work.
I spent it in the clinic, on my feet from dawn to dusk. The feast had done what I hoped—people who’d been too scared to come before were showing up now. We treated 47 people in four days. Most of it was preventable stuff: infections from bad cuts, kids with fevers that turned into pneumonia, old injuries that never healed right because no one could afford to take a week off to rest.
Marta looked like she hadn’t slept in a decade, but she grinne
