Two Packs
The sealed mate bond changed the political temperature between the territories within days of the full-moon ceremony.
Word traveled the way pack news always did—fast, imperfect, and impossible to contain once the first patrols exchanged scents across the boundary. By the morning after Lila and Ronan returned from the private clearing, Silver Ridge knew the claim was complete. By the afternoon, border reports confirmed that Blackwood had heard. There was no formal announcement from either Alpha at first. There did not need to be. The scent of a fully sealed bond was its own declaration, and the marks they now carried on their necks were visible enough that denial would have been pointless and undignified.
What followed was not crisis. It was negotiation.
Marcus Blackwood sent
