Fated by the Rival Alpha

Chapter 3 — Day One of Thirty

The first patrol left at dawn.

I was up before the sun. Old habit. Alphas do not sleep in, not when there is territory to cover and a pack watching to see how you move. I dressed, strapped on my patrol gear, and walked out to the meeting point at the eastern border where both teams were already gathering.

Silver Fang on one side. Blood Moon on the other.

And Magnus in the middle, talking to one of his senior warriors like he had been awake for hours.

He probably had.

I walked to my side without looking at him and ran a quick check on my team. Six warriors. Cole at the front. Everyone sharp, everyone ready. Good. I needed this to look clean. Professional. Like two packs cooperating because it was the smart thing to do, not because elders had forced our hands.

"Alpha Kade." Magnus walked over when my check was done. He stopped a few feet away. The right distance. Not too close. Not far enough to look like avoidance.

"Alpha Magnus." I matched his tone. Flat and formal.

"Suggested route." He held out a folded map. I took it. Our fingers did not touch. I noticed that I noticed that, which annoyed me.

I opened the map. He had already marked the patrol line in red. Eastern ridge, down through the valley, north along the creek to the old boundary stone, then back. Clean route. Efficient. I would have drawn it almost the same way.

"Works for me," I said.

We moved out.

The first hour was quiet. Both teams walked the ridge in loose formation, Silver Fang slightly ahead, Blood Moon just behind. The morning was cold and the trees were heavy with last night's dew. Every footstep sounded too loud in the stillness.

My wolf was alert but not tense. That was the part that bothered me. He should have been tense. We were walking unfamiliar territory with a rival pack at our backs. He should have been watching every shadow and reading every scent for threat.

Instead he kept drifting toward Magnus.

Not in a threatening way. Not even in a conscious way. Just a low pull. Like a compass needle that did not care what direction you wanted to go.

I redirected my attention to the tree line and kept walking.

Cole fell into step beside me after the second mile. He did not say anything for a while. That was one of the things I valued about Cole. He understood the difference between company and conversation.

"Blood Moon runs tight," he said finally. Low enough that only I could hear.

"I noticed."

"Their formation has not broken once. Magnus keeps the left flank two steps back to cover the blind spot on the ridge. Smart."

I had noticed that too. "What is your point?"

Cole shrugged. "No point. Just observing."

I looked at him sideways. "You are doing the thing where you say something without saying it."

"I do not know what you mean."

"Cole."

He almost smiled. "He runs a good pack. That is all. Makes the next thirty days slightly less painful than I expected."

I said nothing. He was not wrong, and I did not want to agree out loud.

We stopped at midpoint near the old boundary stone to rest and eat. Both teams sat on opposite sides of the stone the way the old packs used to sit at border meetings. Not hostile. Just measured. Two groups of wolves who were not enemies anymore but were not quite ready to call each other friends.

Magnus sat on the flat top of the stone itself. Not with his team, not with mine. Just above both, looking out at the valley below. I sat on a fallen log nearby and ate without looking at him.

He spoke without turning around. "Your beta watches you like something might attack you at any second."

"He is thorough."

"It reads as anxious."

I looked up. "Cole is the least anxious wolf I know."

"Then he is anxious specifically about this situation." Magnus finally turned to look at me. "Your pack is not as settled about the treaty as you presented last night."

He was not wrong about that either. I chewed slowly and said nothing.

"Mine are not either," he said. Like he was offering something. Like he wanted me to know it was not just my problem.

I looked at him properly for the first time since we had left at dawn. He looked tired around the edges. The kind of tired that came from carrying something heavy without letting anyone see it. I recognized it because I had worn it plenty of times myself.

"How long have you wanted the treaty?" I asked.

He was quiet for a moment. "Three years."

Three years was when we had fought at the border. The last real clash between our packs. Seven wounded on my side. Five on his. One death that neither of us talked about.

"You never showed it," I said.

"Neither did you." He looked back at the valley. "That is the job."

I looked at the valley too. The morning mist was burning off and the tree line below was going green in the early light. It was quiet country. Good land. Land that had been soaked in pack blood for longer than either of us had been alive.

I understood then, sitting on that log with the boundary stone between us and thirty years of feud at our backs, that Magnus had probably been tired of it as long as I had. Maybe longer.

I did not know what to do with that.

The second half of the patrol was easier than the first. Not friendly. But easier. The warriors on both sides started moving in closer formation without anyone ordering it. Small things. A Blood Moon warrior held back a branch for the Silver Fang wolf behind him. One of my team pointed out a soft patch of ground to avoid before a Blood Moon wolf stepped into it.

Small things. But wolves notice small things.

By the time we reached the return point at the eastern border, the two teams were walking almost side by side.

Magnus fell back as we approached the split point where both teams would peel off to their own camps. He walked beside me without speaking for a stretch. My wolf noticed immediately and went still in that alert, interested way that I was beginning to deeply resent.

"Day one," Magnus said.

"Twenty-nine more," I replied.

"Think you can manage?"

I looked at him. "I have managed worse than you."

"That is not the compliment you think it is."

"It was not meant to be."

He almost smiled again. I was starting to notice that he did that a lot. Almost smiled. Like he kept pulling it back at the last second.

"Same time tomorrow," he said. Then he turned and walked toward his camp without waiting for a response.

I watched him go for exactly one second before I caught myself and looked away.

Cole appeared at my shoulder. "Day one done."

"Day one done," I agreed.

"Only twenty-nine more."

"Cole."

"I am just saying."

I walked toward camp and tried to convince myself that the next twenty-nine days would get easier.

My wolf did not believe me for a second.