Alpha Lir POV
The packhouse conservatory is suffocatingly warm, smelling of damp earth and expensive Southern flowers. At the far end of the misty glass room, the High Alpha sits in a velvet armchair.
He looks ancient, his silver hair cropped close, his face covered in old scars. But the aura coming off his frail body is still heavy and oppressive. Two of his personal guards stand behind him like statues, hands resting on their swords.
As I step onto the stone path, the old man doesn't even look up from his book.
"Took you long before you could come and see me, Lir," he says, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "And yet you smell like blood."
I don't bow to acknowledge his rank. I stop five paces away, my posture completely rigid, staring down at the man who has spent decades bleeding the
