Chapter 46
Ethan's POV
After she left, I thought I'd breathe easier.
I didn't.
The first week, the royal resource allocation came down. Cut by nearly a third compared to last quarter. My Beta set the report in front of me. He said it was the biggest single-quarter cut the Blackwood Pack had seen in ten years.
I told my people to find out why. The answer came back: Royal strategic resources reallocated. All Packs adjust to the new baseline.
I didn't think much of it.
The second week, the contact point for the border treaty changed handlers without warning. The new contact was openly cold. Terms we'd previously agreed on started to develop friction. Two previously stable allied Packs started watching from the sidelines. I worked through the week. The vague, hard-to-place pressure at t
