Chapter 4 — What the Pack Believes
1041 Words
By the time we returned to Silver Fang territory, the rumor had already beaten us home.
I did not find out all at once. It came in pieces. A warrior who would not quite meet my eyes when I passed. A group of pack women who went quiet near the kitchen block when I walked by. My head elder Mara waiting at my office door with that look she had. The one that meant she had already heard everything and was deciding how much to tell me at once.
I opened my office door and sat down. She followed me in and closed it behind her.
"Talk," I said.
"The summit warriors arrived home this morning before us," she said. "They talked. Packs talk. By noon, half of Silver Fang believed their Alpha had formed a private bond with Alpha Magnus of Blood Moon on the night of the treaty signing."
I leaned back in my chair. "And the other half?"
"The other half believe it happened during the patrol this morning and the treaty was just the beginning."
I rubbed my face with both hands. "This is not real. Nothing happened."
"I believe you," Mara said. "The pack does not need to believe you. They need to believe something. Right now the story they have is more interesting than the truth."
"Then we give them the truth."
"Alpha." She sat down across from me. "I have been a pack elder for thirty one years. I have watched three Alphas before you manage this pack. And I can tell you that when wolves decide something is true, a speech does not undo it. Actions do. And right now every action you take near Magnus is being read as confirmation."
I stared at the ceiling for a moment.
She was right. I knew she was right. The pack did not just listen to what their Alpha said. They watched what he did, how he moved, who he looked at, how his wolf responded when a certain name was mentioned. And my wolf had been anything but neutral since the moment I woke up in that guest room.
"What do my senior warriors think?" I asked.
"Divided. The older ones are uncomfortable. A few of the younger ones are not." She paused. "Renn thinks it is the best thing that could have happened for the pack's future."
Renn was twenty three and had grown up during the worst years of the border conflict. He had lost an uncle in the fighting. I supposed from where he stood, two Alphas bonding sounded like the end of something painful.
I was not going to think about that too hard.
"I will speak to the senior warriors tomorrow morning," I said. "Privately. Then we let it settle."
Mara nodded and stood. At the door she paused.
"Kade." It was rare that she used my name without the title. "Your wolf's behavior is not nothing. I am not saying what it means. I am saying do not be the last one to figure it out."
She left before I could answer.
Cole brought food to my office that evening because I had skipped the pack meal. He set it down on my desk without comment and sat in the chair across from me and ate his own portion like we were just two people having a quiet dinner.
After a while I said, "What are they saying? The warriors. Not the cleaned up version."
Cole chewed thoughtfully. "Bren thinks you finally lost your mind. Harrow thinks it is a political move and you are smarter than any of them. Young Renn has been telling anyone who will listen that the pack is about to enter a golden era."
"And you?"
He looked at me. "I think you woke up in that man's arms and your wolf did not panic. And that is the part none of your denial speeches are going to explain away."
I looked at my food.
"I am straight," I said.
Cole was quiet for a moment. "Okay."
"I have always been straight."
"Okay, Kade."
"I do not have feelings for Magnus."
Cole picked up his cup. "Are you saying that for my benefit or yours?"
I did not answer.
He did not push. That was the thing about Cole. He let things sit where they landed. He finished his meal, cleaned up the plates, and stood to leave.
At the door he stopped. "Magnus sent a message while we were on the trail. Formal. Pack to pack. Just route confirmation for tomorrow's patrol." He paused. "He signed it Alpha Magnus of Blood Moon. Very official. Very correct."
"Okay."
"He also added one line at the bottom. Outside the official text."
I looked up. "What did it say?"
Cole's expression was carefully neutral. "Tell your beta to stop worrying. Day one went fine."
The office was quiet.
"He noticed Cole was worried," I said slowly.
"Apparently." Cole opened the door. "Get some sleep, Kade. Twenty nine more days."
He left.
I sat in my office for a long time after that. The food went cold. Outside I could hear the pack settling into the evening. Fires lit. Low voices. The sounds I had grown up with. The sounds I was responsible for.
Magnus had noticed Cole was worried. He had acknowledged it in a message. Not mockingly. Not as a taunt. Just a quiet observation slipped under an official route confirmation like he did not want to make it into something but could not leave it completely unsaid.
I did not know what to do with a Magnus who noticed things like that.
The Magnus in my head for the last three years had been simple. Aggressive. Cold. An enemy with a face and a pack and a border that kept bleeding.
This one was more complicated.
I pulled out tomorrow's patrol route and focused on the map until my head stopped doing things I had not given it permission to do.
Twenty nine days.
I just had to get through twenty nine more days and then go home and let the distance do the rest.
My wolf curled up in the back of my mind and said nothing.
He did not have to.
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