I did not sleep.
My body was exhausted, but my wolf stayed awake inside me, pacing and restless, every instinct sharpened to a blade point. The snow outside kept falling, thick and heavy, muffling the sounds of the packhouse until everything felt too quiet.
Too calm. Too wrong.
I sat at my desk with my mother’s journal open in front of me. The candle beside it flickered, casting trembling gold light across the pages. Every word she had written crawled beneath my skin.
“They fear the heir.”
“If they return, it will be for the child.”
“Kill the heir. The pack collapses.”
My throat tightened every time I reread it.
The rogues did not want land.
They did not want territory.
They did not want to overthrow the pack.
They wanted to erase the Alpha line completely.
Kill my father.
Kil
