Duggar
I sat in the council chamber of Midnight Howl, the firelight painting shadows across the stone walls. My men were gathered, eyes fixed on me, waiting for my word as if silence itself was too heavy to bear. Their loyalty was ironclad. I had earned it not by kindness, but by the scars they carried from battles we had survived together.
On the long oak table, maps of the territories stretched out. Rivers, borders, hunting grounds, and there, in the center, what Josiah dared to call the Crimson Pack. I refused to use that name. To me, it would always be Silent Blues. That was the name my father gave it, the name written into our blood. Josiah’s hands had stolen it, but mine would take it back.
“Report,” I said, my voice low, but it carried through the chamber with the weight of an or
