The Alpha of The Forgotten

The Pack Watches

By the time Jazmine returned to the main house, word had already spread.

Of course it had.

Nothing moved through pack territory without someone seeing it, sensing it, smelling it. And Kai Blackbird did not know how to arrive quietly. Even if he had, his presence was the kind that disturbed the air long after he left it.

Jazmine pushed through the front doors without slowing, her expression unreadable, her spine straight, her control stitched tight over every reaction trying to rise beneath her skin.

It was almost enough.

Almost.

The great room of the Alpha house was warm with firelight and low conversation, but the moment she entered, the voices died. Heads turned. Shoulders stiffened. Eyes dropped too late to pretend they had not been watching the entrance.

Her pack knew something was wrong.

They just did not yet know what.

Jazmine kept walking, boots striking the dark wood floor in measured rhythm. “If anyone has something to say,” she said without looking at them, “say it.”

Silence.

Predictable.

Cowards in groups were still cowards.

She made it three more steps before Niko rose from one of the chairs by the hearth. Tall, broad, and quiet in the way only dangerous men ever really were, he crossed his arms and watched her carefully. He had been her second-in-command for six years and one of the few people in the world who knew when to push and when not to.

This, unfortunately, was one of the times he would push.

“That was Kai Blackbird,” he said.

Jazmine stopped near the staircase but did not turn. “You have eyes. Congratulations.”

A few nervous glances passed through the room.

Niko did not flinch. “The Alpha of the Midnight Pack crossing this close to our borders without warning is not small.”

“No,” Jazmine said. “It isn’t.”

“Then tell me why he was here.”

That made her turn.

Slowly.

The room seemed to tighten around her as she let her gaze move from face to face—pack members she had fought for, bled for, protected. Some looked worried. Some looked curious. A few looked suspicious.

That annoyed her more than it should have.

“I don’t answer to rumor,” she said. “And I don’t report my movements like a child with a curfew.”

Niko’s jaw shifted. “I didn’t ask about your movements. I asked about his.”

A challenge.

A careful one, but a challenge all the same.

Jazmine stepped closer, the temperature in the room dropping with each measured stride. “Then let me be clearer,” she said. “Kai Blackbird came to speak to me. He left. End of discussion.”

“For you, maybe.”

The voice came from the far side of the room.

Bryson Carson.

He leaned against one of the support beams as if he had every right to interrupt. Tall, blond, and broad in the polished way some men mistook for charm, Bryson wore confidence like a tailored suit. Too smooth. Too deliberate. Too comfortable with not hearing no.

Jazmine’s irritation sharpened the moment she saw him.

Bryson straightened and took a few easy steps forward. “With respect, Alpha, the Midnight Pack doesn’t make moves without reason.”

Her eyes went cold. “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t ask for your analysis.”

He smiled.

She wanted to remove it from his face.

“I’m only saying the pack deserves to know if there’s a threat.”

Jazmine held his gaze. “Kai is not a threat.”

The room went still.

Because that answer had come too fast.

She heard it the same moment they did.

Saw the flicker in Niko’s eyes. The slight tilt of Bryson’s head. The sharpened attention from everyone pretending not to listen.

Jazmine corrected nothing. She would not scramble to explain herself in her own house.

Instead she folded her arms. “He came alone. He left alone. There was no aggression. No challenge. No demand.”

Bryson’s expression shifted, subtle but ugly. “And you trust him?”

There it was.

Not concern.

Not strategy.

Jealousy.

Jazmine’s voice turned flat. “That’s not your business.”

His jaw tightened. “It becomes my business if his presence puts this pack at risk.”

“The only risk I see right now,” she said, “is you forgetting your place.”

That landed.

Bryson’s nostrils flared, but he lowered his head just enough to resemble respect. “I know my place.”

No, Jazmine thought. You know how to pretend.

Niko stepped between the moment before it could turn into something messier. “Enough.”

The authority in his voice steadied the room, though not by much. He looked at Jazmine, not soft, not challenging. Just direct.

“The Council meeting happened today.”

Jazmine said nothing.

He took that as confirmation. “And hours later, Kai Blackbird appears.”

The bond tightened low in her chest at the sound of his name, and she hated it so intensely she almost welcomed the anger rising over it.

“You’re building meaning where there may be none,” she said.

Niko held her gaze. “Is that what you believe?”

For half a second, silence stretched between them.

That was the problem with people who knew you. They could hear the answer in what you did not say.

Jazmine looked away first, stalking toward the bar at the far wall. She poured herself a drink she did not need and let the burn sit untouched in the glass.

“No one is to speak of this outside the pack,” she said. “Not to allies. Not to rivals. Not to the Council.”

Bryson frowned. “That’s not going to stop speculation.”

“No,” she said coolly, “but it will stop disloyalty.”

Another silence.

Then Niko asked the real question.

“Is he coming back?”

Jazmine’s hand tightened around the glass.

Once.

Only once.

But Niko saw it.

So did Bryson.

And that alone made her want to put her fist through something.

“Yes,” she said at last.

The room stirred.

Bryson took one step forward. “Then I should be with you next time.”

Jazmine turned her head slowly. “You should be silent next time.”

His mouth hardened. “You keep dismissing me like I haven’t spent years proving where my loyalty is.”

“No,” she said. “I dismiss you because you keep confusing loyalty with entitlement.”

That one struck deep.

Good.

Bryson’s eyes flashed, his wolf surfacing just enough to roughen the edges of his control. “You think I don’t see it?”

The room froze.

Jazmine set the glass down with deliberate care. “See what?”

“The change,” he said. “You came in smelling like him.”

A growl rolled through the room before she even realized it came from her.

Low.

Lethal.

Instant.

Every wolf in the house dropped their gaze.

Every wolf except Bryson.

Mistake.

Jazmine crossed the room so fast the air snapped in her wake. She stopped inches from him, power pressing hard enough to buckle weaker knees. Bryson held his ground, but only barely. She could hear the hitch in his breathing. Could smell the sharp edge of adrenaline cutting through his arrogance.

“You will never,” she said softly, “speak to me that way again.”

Bryson swallowed.

Still he tried. “I’m only telling the truth.”

“No,” Jazmine said. “You’re testing me.”

Her eyes lifted, catching every face in the room now.

“Let this be the last time any of you mistake my silence for permission.”

No one moved.

No one breathed too loudly.

She stepped back from Bryson, but only because she chose to.

Niko broke the tension first. “Everyone out.”

No one argued. Within seconds the room emptied in a rush of bowed heads, careful steps, and relief. Bryson lingered longest, his pride bleeding from him in slow, furious waves, but even he knew better than to stay.

At the doorway, he paused. “He’ll hurt you.”

Jazmine did not look at him. “Leave.”

The door shut behind him.

Finally.

The great room settled into a quieter kind of tension, one held only by two people now.

Niko waited until the silence had weight before he spoke. “You should’ve let me throw him out months ago.”

Jazmine exhaled. “Bryson is useful.”

Niko arched a brow. “He’s obsessed.”

“He’s manageable.”

“For now.”

She said nothing to that, which was answer enough.

Niko moved closer to the hearth, lowering his voice. “Tell me what I actually need to worry about.”

Jazmine looked into the fire.

Not because she was uncertain.

Because she was too certain.

“The Council wants me mated,” she said.

Niko was quiet for a beat. “And Kai?”

Her pulse betrayed her before her face could.

Niko cursed under his breath. “Jaz.”

“Don’t.”

His expression turned grim. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She closed her eyes briefly, furious at herself, at Kai, at the bond, at the way her own body had recognized him before her mind could build defenses.

“I don’t believe in mates,” she said, more to herself than to him.

Niko’s answer came low and careful. “Belief has never stopped truth.”

Her eyes snapped to his.

He held her stare without backing down.

Then, from somewhere deep inside pack territory, a wolf howled.

Long.

Sharp.

Warning.

Jazmine’s head turned toward the sound immediately.

Niko was already moving. “That came from the east line.”

Her instincts surged all at once. “Get the patrol.”

He was halfway to the door when he stopped. “If this is the Midnight Pack—”

“It’s not,” Jazmine said, certainty hardening her tone.

Niko glanced back. “How do you know?”

Because if it were Kai, she would feel it.

The answer burned on her tongue. She swallowed it whole.

“Because Kai doesn’t hide,” she said.

Then she stepped into the night, power rising under her skin, one brutal thought echoing with every beat of her heart:

If Kai Blackbird was the complication, then whatever waited at the east line was the beginning of the real problem.