ALPHA KANE

The gathering

Kane dropped Joren at the clinic door and kept walking.

"You need stitches," Joren said, following him anyway.

"I know."

"Then why are you walking away from the clinic?"

"Because if I sit down right now I won't get back up," Kane said. "Keep moving."

Joren shut up and followed.

The town had changed in the two days Kane had been gone. More tents along the east road, more fire pits, more people sitting in groups too tired to talk. Refugee numbers had doubled at least. Children were sleeping against grain store walls. A woman was boiling something over an open fire that smelled like it had been boiling for too long. Nobody looked at Kane directly, but he felt their attention tracking him as he moved through the street — the way people watched something they hadn't decided what to make of yet.

He made it to the water trough near the east field before his legs gave out a reasonable excuse to stop. He sat on the edge of it, pressed two fingers against the gash in his side, and assessed the damage honestly. Three cracked ribs, still. A cut on his forearm that had closed on its own faster than it should have. A split in his bottom lip that had stopped bleeding somewhere on the walk back.

Senna found him there before he found her.

"You're an i***t," she said, setting her satchel down beside him without slowing her stride.

"You said that already."

"I'll keep saying it until it changes your behavior." She crouched and peeled back the torn edge of his shirt without asking. Her jaw tightened at what she saw, but her hands stayed steady. "The forearm cut. Show me."

He held it out. She examined it for a long moment, then looked up at him with an expression he couldn't immediately read.

"This was deep yesterday," she said.

"It was."

"It's halfway closed."

"Bodies heal."

"Not this fast," Senna said. "Not human bodies." She held his arm a moment longer, then let go and started cleaning the side wound instead, working in silence until she finished packing it. "I'm going to start writing things down. Every injury. Every recovery time. I need you to tell me when you feel anything different during a fight. Strength, speed, senses. Anything."

"Why?"

"Because something is happening to you and I want to understand it before it either saves your life or kills you."

Kane didn't argue. He sat still while she finished the stitching, watching the street over her shoulder. Joren had stopped a few feet away, pretending not to listen while clearly listening. Two men sitting near the grain store were watching Kane outright now, no pretense about it.

"Who are they," Kane said quietly.

Senna didn't look up. "Arrived yesterday. Brothers. Holt pack, before Vask absorbed it. They've been asking around about who hit the raider camp."

"What did people tell them?"

"The truth, mostly."

Kane looked at the two men. They looked back. The older one stood up and walked over, slow enough not to seem like a threat.

"You Kane Ashford," the man said. Not a question.

"Depends on who's asking."

"Drev Mast. This is my brother Cael." He stopped a few feet out, respecting the distance. "We heard what you did at the raider camp. Went in alone. Got the boy out."

"I got lucky."

"Maybe," Drev said. "But lucky men don't track six armed wolves into a camp and walk out with the kid and no backup. We want to train. Whatever you're doing, we want in."

Kane looked at them both. Cael was younger, leaner, still had the posture of a wolf who hadn't accepted being pack-less yet. Drev was steadier, patient, the kind of man who'd already done his grieving and moved past it.

"East field," Kane said. "Before sunrise."

Drev nodded once and walked back.

By the time Senna finished and packed her kit, four more people had approached with the same request. Kane turned none of them away. He gave them all the same answer: east field, before sunrise, bring nothing you're not willing to lose.

Joren sat beside him once Senna left.

"How many do you think will actually show up," Joren said.

"Enough."

"You don't know that."

"No," Kane said. "But I know that every person sitting in this town right now is either waiting for someone to tell them what to do or waiting to die. I'd rather give them the first option."

Joren was quiet for a moment. "What are we actually building here? A resistance? A pack?"

"We're building something that can fight," Kane said. "What it turns into after that isn't something I'm planning tonight."

Joren nodded slowly like that was enough for him, which Kane appreciated because it was the most honest answer he had.

He stood up carefully, ribs protesting, and looked out at the east field — flat, wide, open ground that caught wind from the ridgeline. It would do.

Then the scent hit him.

Clean and sharp, carrying information the way it used to — wood smoke, horses, leather, sweat, and beneath all of it, pack-blood. Multiple signatures, close. Coming from the south road.

Kane turned before the horses even rounded the corner.

Nine riders came in slow, road-worn, armed and watching the town carefully. The man at the front was broad-shouldered, jaw set, a long scar running from his left temple down to his chin. He scanned the street until his eyes landed on Kane and stopped there.

He dismounted without breaking eye contact.

"Reeve Calder," the man said. "Last Alpha standing out of what's left of my pack." He stopped six feet out. "I was told you were dead."

"People keep saying that," Kane said.

"Are you rebuilding?"

"Working on it."

Reeve studied him a long moment. "Then we need to talk."