The Alpha Who Waited

Chapter 6: The Unspoken Rule

The border alarm turned out to be a false one a rogue wolf spotted at the tree line, gone before anyone got close enough to confirm it was a real threat. But it took most of the night to stand the warriors down, and by the time I finally got back to my study, dawn was already breaking again.

I hadn't slept. I told myself it was because of the alarm.

That wasn't entirely true.

Three days into the Calders' stay, I found myself assigning a "routine inspection" of their temporary housing something no new arrivals had received in the two years I'd been Alpha. Marcus gave me a long look when I issued the order, but said nothing.

I told myself it was thorough leadership. Making sure exiles were settling in properly, that the grandparents weren't overwhelmed, that everything was in order.

I knew, even as I told myself that, it wasn't true.

Rowan and Edith's house smelled like fresh bread when I arrived, warm and lived-in in a way most of the territory's older homes had stopped feeling since the war. Edith greeted me at the door, delighted and a little flustered by the honor of an Alpha's personal visit, and led me inside before I could explain I only needed a few minutes.

Wren was in the small back room off the kitchen, sorting through a box of old belongings her grandparents had kept from her mother's childhood. She looked up when I stepped into the doorway, and the same charged silence from the gate settled over both of us immediately.

"Alpha." She said it carefully, like she wasn't sure what tone to use with me yet.

"Just checking that everything's settling in properly," I said, staying in the doorway, keeping distance between us that felt necessary and impossible in equal measure.

"Everything's fine." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You didn't need to come yourself for that."

"I like to be thorough."

"With every exile family, or just mine?"

The question landed sharper than I expected, and I didn't have a clean answer ready. Edith, sensing the tension without understanding it, made an excuse about checking on something in the kitchen and left us alone in the small room.

The silence that followed stretched too long.

"You look at me strange," Wren said finally, setting down whatever she'd been holding. "Since the gate. Like I'm someone you already know."

My wolf went utterly still, listening.

"I don't know you," I said, which was technically true and felt like a lie anyway.

"Then why do you look at me like that?"

I didn't have an answer that wouldn't break every rule I'd set for myself the moment I understood how young she was. The truth would mean explaining a bond she couldn't feel yet, attaching a weight to her life she hadn't asked for and wasn't ready to carry. The lie would mean standing here, inches away from her, and pretending my entire chest wasn't screaming at me to close the distance.

"Wren" I started, with no idea what I intended to say next.

The perimeter alarm cut through the house before I could find three short blasts, the signal for an approaching outsider at the main gate, not a rogue this time.

Wren's head snapped toward the sound, some old instinct from Ashwood clearly still sharp enough to read danger in an alarm she'd only heard once before.

"That's not the same alarm from before," she said.

"No," I said, already moving, relief and dread tangled together in my chest at the interruption. "It isn't."

I left the room without answering her question, telling myself I'd come back to it later, telling myself there would be time to figure out how to explain the unexplainable.

I had no idea, walking out that door, how many more times I'd choose the alarm over the truth or how much it would eventually cost both of us.