Fated by the Moon

4

Jordan Stevens’s den smells of pine pitch, old leather, and the faint ozone of anticipation. Bryan sits opposite him at the battered oak desk, arms folded, eyes scanning the topographic maps littered with pushpins and knife-slashed territory lines. The overhead light hums, flickering just enough to set Jordan’s teeth on edge. Or maybe it’s the headache, building pressure behind his eyes with the slow, persistent certainty of an encroaching tide.

He covers it well. Years of being Alpha taught him that. He’s made a point to always look stronger, broader, louder than the men he commands—even now, when his hair has gone to steel and the fire in his joints is less rage and more decay.

“Look here,” Bryan says, tracing a thick finger down the ridgeline that marks the southern border. “Kael’s got his fighters doubling patrols. Says he’s worried about poachers, but I think he just wants to throw weight.”

Jordan grunts. “He’s posturing. Trying to look ready for the next challenge.”

Bryan lets his hand linger on the map. “He’s got the young bloods whipped up. They’ll follow him if it comes to a vote.”

“They’ll follow whoever wins,” Jordan says, the words heavier than intended.

Silence. Bryan shifts in his seat, bones creaking in time with the old desk. “We could call in favors from the city packs. Or from Trevor’s line. If you want a show of force.”

Jordan shakes his head. “We’re not there yet. Not unless Kael pushes us.”

“He’s already pushing,” Bryan says. “Took your niece’s room. Kicked her out the same day she left for university. No warning, no grace.”

Jordan’s jaw goes rigid. He presses the heel of his palm to his brow, hiding the flicker of pain. “She’s better off away from this mess. From him.”

Bryan doesn’t reply, but the judgment is clear in his eyes. Loyalty sometimes means telling the Alpha what he refuses to see.

Jordan pushes back from the desk, chair groaning, and stands. It’s an act, pure theater, but it works. Bryan straightens, falls in behind him as Jordan paces the room.

The den is lined with bookshelves—most packed with histories of wolf packs and the esoteric treatises of shifter law, but some bearing the relics of Jordan’s own legacy. A gnarled piece of driftwood from his first solo run as Alpha. The battered pelt of the mountain lion that nearly ended him and Jacqueline in the early days. A photo of Ember at age ten, cheeks round and eyes fire-bright, sandwiched between two laughing women: his mate and her sister, both long dead now.

He stops in front of the window, the late light filtering through the frost and setting the dust motes aglow. “How many support him?” he asks, voice pitched low.

Bryan doesn’t hesitate. “Half the young ones. Most of the old guard are with you, for now. But if you don’t pick a successor—”

“I know.” Jordan looks out at the barren yard, the lopsided stack of firewood, the ancient pine that’s survived every storm for a hundred years. “It should be me, but I’m dying, Bryan. Slowly or not, everyone can smell it.”

He turns, sees the wince Bryan tries to hide.

“I’m not a fool. Kael isn’t ready, and neither is anyone else. I tried to train them for peace, not for civil war.”

“Maybe they need war,” Bryan says, voice so soft it’s almost apology.

Jordan remembers the first kill he ever sanctioned, the crack of bone and the way the earth tasted iron-rich for weeks afterward. There is no clean handoff, not in this world.

He picks up the picture of Ember. The glass is gone, the edge of the print curling. “She was supposed to fix all this,” he says, so quietly that Bryan can barely hear. “A bridge, not a wedge.”

Bryan steps forward, awkward for such a massive man, and places a hand on Jordan’s shoulder. “She’ll find her place. So will you.”

Jordan laughs, bitter and short. “If the place left for me is a grave, so be it. But I won’t let Kael bury this pack with me.”

Bryan nods. “What do you want me to do?”

“Watch him. Closely. If he goes for Ember, or for anyone loyal to her, I want to know. Fast.”

“Consider it done.”

Jordan sets the picture down, looks Bryan in the eye. “Promise me you’ll keep her safe. If it comes to it.”

Bryan’s answer is instant. “With my life.”

There is nothing else to say. Bryan lumbers out, leaving Jordan alone with the maps, the books, and the thick, creeping dread that comes with knowing your time is almost up.

He sinks into the old chair, the one Jacqueline picked out decades ago, and closes his eyes. He lets himself feel tired, just for a minute. The world can wait.

It always does, until it doesn’t.