The smell of wet ash and morning dew hung heavy over the courtyard of Bloodmoon Castle.
Scorched stone steps bore the scars of yesterday's breach, but the iron gates now stood tall and barred under the watchful eyes of Sunspire sentries. Inside the grand council hall, the atmosphere was dead silent. Over forty high-ranking pack members, trackers, and village elders sat in the elevated wooden pews, their heads lowered, their hands resting flat against their knees in total submission.
At the center of the hall, Alpha Max sat on the black granite throne.
He wore no royal mantle today—only clean battle leathers, his forearms bound in dark bracers. The raw, suffocating pressure of his Alpha aura didn't shake the room in violent bursts anymore; instead, it pressed down like a lead weight, rem
