KAEL SHADOWBORN
I call a meeting for sunrise because I want it done before the pack's even fully awake. Half of them show up in yesterday's clothes, hair a mess, rubbing sleep out of their eyes, and I don't care. This isn't the kind of announcement you soften with breakfast first. Some things you just say and let people deal with it.
Aria stands beside me on the platform, chin up, not flinching under three hundred pairs of eyes all locked on her at once. Good. She shouldn't flinch, not anymore. Not after everything she's already survived just to be standing here.
"Aria Winters is my mate," I say, my voice booming without me even trying, the way it always does when I mean every word of something. "This isn't a discussion. It's a fact. If anyone has a problem with it, you don't take it to
