Peace didn't last long. It never did in a pack like ours.
Not real peace-just silence pretending to be it.
The morning after Draven stood in the council hall and called me his mate, the whispers started again. Only this time, they weren't about shame. They were about fear.
Rafe was locked in the cells. The elders had nodded. The pack had gone quiet. But silence in a wolf's throat isn't peace. It's the breath before the bite.
I felt it when I walked to the training yard. Eyes followed me. Not the curious, hungry kind from before. The wary kind. Like I was something that might turn on them.
Kaia met me at the gates. Her expression was grim.
"They're calling you a leash," she said without preamble. "Saying Draven's soft now. That he won't make the hard calls with you at his side."
M
