The thing about Marcus Vane is that he's not stupid either.
This is the problem. The pack has spent four years letting me underestimate him because he presents himself as simple — the broad-shouldered ranked wolf who leads with his chest and his bloodline and the particular volume of his voice in rooms where volume matters. It works. People see what he shows them. They see the front row, the training records, the Vane family crest on his collar at formal events, and they stop looking.
I stopped stopping at fourteen. Old habit. Same one that makes me quiet in corridors.
I know three things about Marcus Vane that most people don't.
One. He tests in the top four of every tactical assessment in our year and has been deliberately underperforming since third year, when he realized that being
