Chapter 3 – The Wolves Who Decide
1452 Words
By morning, the packhouse feels wrong.
It’s subtle at first. A pause in conversation when I enter the hall. A mother’s hand tightening on her child’s shoulder when he starts to run toward me, pulling him back with a too-bright smile.
“Say good morning to Lysandra,” she murmurs.
He mumbles it, eyes on the floor.
I smile anyway, even as my stomach knots, and keep walking.
The kitchen is a blur of motion—pots clanging, steam rising from enormous pots of porridge. Nyla is perched on a stool by the window, legs swinging, a sketchbook balanced on her knees. When she looks up and sees me, her eyes dart instinctively to my hands.
I tuck them behind my back before she can see how they shake.
“Hey,” I say softly. “New masterpiece?”
She nods, but she doesn’t bound over like she used to, to shove the drawing in my face. She stays right where she is, pencil clenched too tight.
“Looks good from here,” I lie, because I can’t make myself close the distance either.
Meren presses a bowl into my hands. “Eat,” they order. “You’re ghost-pale.”
“I’m fine,” I start.
They arch a brow. “You’re shaking.”
I glare at the betraying tremor. “Low sugar,” I mutter, and force down a spoonful. It tastes like ash.
I can feel it even without reaching for the bond: Roenan is awake, moving, his energy coiled tight like a spring. He’s in the south wing, where the elders keep their offices and their history. Where they decide what the pack is allowed to be.
I scrape the bottom of the bowl just to have something to do with my hands.
“You won’t be allowed in the council room,” Meren says quietly, as if reading my mind.
“I know,” I say. I hate how small my voice sounds.
They hesitate, then add, “It doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to know what they’re talking about.”
I look up sharply. Meren’s face is calm, but there’s a flicker of defiance in their eyes I haven’t seen before.
“What are they saying?” I ask.
“They’re saying what they always say when something doesn’t fit neatly into their rules,” Meren answers. “That it’s a threat. That it must be contained or removed.”
“Me,” I say flatly.
Meren doesn’t contradict me.
“Eat,” they repeat instead. “Then walk. Don’t sit here and let their silence eat you alive.”
I do as I’m told because it’s easier than arguing. The porridge sits like a stone in my stomach.
Outside, the sky is a flat, bruised gray, clouds hanging low over the city. The training grounds are empty; Roenan called a pause on drills after yesterday’s incident. The world feels like it’s holding its breath.
I pace the edge of the courtyard, fingers skimming the fence rail. My wolf stalks under my skin, restless, pacing with me. She doesn’t like this waiting. She wants to move, to act, to fix.
Too bad neither of us knows how.
Half an hour passes. An hour. The bond thrums like a plucked wire, distant and knotted. I taste snippets of voices not meant for me—Vessira’s cool disapproval, Garrik’s rough urgency, a murmur of older throats.
At some point, Selvi appears beside me with a cloak.
“You’re shivering,” she says, draping it over my shoulders.
“I’m fine.”
She snorts. “That’s pack code for ‘I’m not fine, but I don’t want to talk about it.’”
“Impressive translation,” I say dryly.
“I had a good teacher.” She nudges my arm. “Sit. You’re wearing a groove in the dirt.”
We sit on the low stone wall, boots brushing mud. From here, we can see the tall windows of the council room. The curtains are drawn. The shapes behind them move like ghosts.
“What would you do?” I ask suddenly. “If you were them.”
Selvi’s brow furrows. “I’m not an elder.”
“You’re pack,” I say. “You saw what I did. You love Corren. If you were responsible for everyone’s safety…”
She hugs her knees. “I’d be terrified,” she admits. “For them. For you. For Roen.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She picks at a chip in the stone. “I’d… move you away from the pups. Give you space. Guards, maybe. People who know what to do if you start to lose time.” She glances at me. “I wouldn’t cut you out. Not unless you asked.”
The knot in my throat swells. “What if the elders don’t see other options?”
“Then it’s good Roen is in that room instead of me,” she says simply.
As if summoned by his name, the bond jolts. A door slams somewhere inside, and a wash of emotion bleeds through—anger, sharp and bright, and under it, grief.
The council session is over.
I’m on my feet before I know I’ve moved. Selvi follows without a word as I stride toward the south wing, cloak flaring behind me. Wolves step aside in the halls, some out of habit, some because they can taste the storm under my skin.
When I reach the council room, the heavy doors are already open. Vessira stands just inside, speaking to another elder, her silver hair pinned in its usual severe knot. She looks up as I approach.
“Lysandra,” she says. “You should be resting.”
“So should half the pack after yesterday,” I reply. “But here we are.”
Her lips thin. “This is not the time—”
“Where is he?” I cut in, ignoring the warning in her tone.
“Speaking with Garrik,” she says. “You will have your turn.”
My wolf bristles. “My turn to what? Be told what’s been decided about me?”
Vessira’s gaze cools a degree. “Your condition is not just about you, child. You are luna. Your instability ripples.”
“I’m aware,” I say tightly. “That’s why I want to hear from my alpha, not through walls.”
“Sometimes an alpha must be shielded from the emotions of those he must make decisions about,” she replies. “He cannot think clearly if—”
I laugh, harsh and humorless. “You mean, if I cry. If I beg.”
Her jaw clenches. “If you sway him away from what is necessary.”
“What’s necessary?” My voice shakes. “Ripping out our bond and dropping me at the border? Putting me down like a rabid stray?”
A quiet falls in the corridor. Somewhere behind Vessira, a chair scrapes. I know Roenan can hear me. I want him to. I’m so tired of whispers.
Vessira’s eyes flick past me, then back. “No one is talking about—”
“Don’t lie to me,” I snap. “You were the first to say it after the attack. I heard you. ‘Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for the pack is to let the broken go.’”
The word hangs there, sour and thick. Broken.
She doesn’t flinch. “I stand by the principle.”
Footsteps sound behind her. Roenan appears in the doorway, shoulders squared, face drawn tight. Garrik looms at his side, mouth a grim line.
“Lys,” Roen says. Just my name, but it’s a crack through the tension.
I search his face for the answer before he can speak. He looks exhausted. There’s a shadow in his eyes I haven’t seen since the night I almost didn’t make it back from that alley.
“We’re not doing this in the hall,” he says, voice hoarse.
“Then where?” My hand curls in the cloak. “Where do you tell your mate how much of her is too dangerous to keep?”
Something shudders behind his ribs. For a moment, I think he’ll snap, shout, push everyone away.
Instead he closes his eyes, just for a heartbeat, and when he opens them they’re all alpha-steel and hurt man.
“Come with me,” he says quietly. “Please.”
The please terrifies me more than a command ever could.
I follow him down the corridor toward his office, knowing that every step is taking us closer to a line we might not be able to step back from.
- Writer
