Three weeks should not have felt both endless and too short at the same time.
After the elders dismissed the final complaint, the territory exhaled. Not completely. Not permanently. But enough that the constant sensation of walking through a field of half-set traps began to ease. The stares at school softened into something closer to ordinary curiosity. The ranking families who had pushed for delay went quiet again, their private dissatisfaction reduced to cold politeness when paths crossed. Even the air in the Alpha house changed. The tension that had lived in the walls for weeks loosened its grip.
For the first time since the bond had snapped into place, the future felt like something we were moving toward instead of something we were constantly defending.
I filled the days with prepa
