The summit moved like a storm barely held in check.
Dozens of packs. Dozens of agendas. Elders who hadn’t spoken in decades. Young Alphas with something to prove. Scouts trailing gossip. Allies weighing old grudges against new hope.
Words filled the halls—loud, careful, strategic.
And at the center of it all—
Xiuhcoatl.
Not because he claimed it. But because the room bent around him anyway.
Even in white linen and sandals, with no blade at his side, he carried a kind of stillness that made noise falter when he walked in.
Wolves moved out of his path without thinking. Not out of etiquette. Out of memory.
He had become something else. But memory had a long shadow.
He met with every Alpha that came. He listened. Not just to terms and treaties—but to tone, to posture, to the questions
