**DEREK POV**
I attend training as usual.
Routine is armor. It always has been. When everything else threatens to crack open, you put on repetition like a second skin and let it carry you through. Show up. Give orders. Correct mistakes. Pretend the structure is intact because you are standing inside it.
So I arrive at the training field at dawn like nothing has changed.
Mist hangs low over the grass, clinging to boots and bare ankles. The field smells of damp earth, metal, and wolves not quite settled into themselves yet. Warriors are already assembled, stretching, testing grips, rolling shoulders loose. They straighten when they sense me, not snapping to attention, but aligning in that instinctive way packs do around their Alpha.
It is quieter than normal.
Not silent. Just stripped
