(Zayden)
The morning after the feast, the packhouse stinks of stale wine and smoke.
Servants move through the great hall with buckets, scrubbing the floors. They keep their heads down when I walk by. That’s new. Before, they used to meet my eyes. Before Isla ran.
Serena is still asleep in my bed. She sprawled across the sheets like she owns them. Like she owns me.
I don’t wake her.
I dress in the dark. Black shirt. Black pants. No formal Alpha coat today. There’s no council meeting. No northern alphas at the border yet. There’s just the space between the announcement and the ceremony. Two weeks of waiting.
Two weeks of my pack pretending everything is fixed.
I go to my office. The door is shut. The crest my father carved is above it — wolf, teeth bared. Strength above al
