Aziel’s POV
The walls of the packhouse seemed to close in around me as I paced the length of my office. Papers scattered across the desk were a mess of numbers—projections, expenses, recovery plans—but none of it made sense to me anymore. It was all just noise.
Lailani Erskine had been here for less than a week, and already she was making my life hell. Her arrival had been a necessary evil, forced on me by the Council to pull the Ives Pack from the wreckage Arlo had left behind, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Every time she entered a room, it was like the temperature dropped. Her violet eyes would flash with a confidence that bordered on arrogance, and she always spoke to me like I was just another obstacle in her path, like I didn’t know how to run my own damn pack.
I’d been
