Chapter Three: Awen Moonblood
736 Words
POV Awen Moonblood
Silence is a weapon if you know how to hold it.
The hall waited on me. I felt it in the way shoulders squared, in the way elders leaned forward without meaning to. Even the braziers seemed to burn more carefully, as if sound itself required permission now.
Travis stood where he had always stood. Too close. Too certain.
Grief dulled everything. Not softened. Dulled, like a blade wrapped in cloth. My father’s absence pressed heavier than his body ever had, and it distorted the room, bent faces into shapes I barely recognized.
Including his.
“You speak as though I were not standing here,” I said at last.
My voice did not shake. That surprised them. It did not surprise me.
Travis turned fully toward me, relief flashing across his features before he masked it with authority. He needed my attention. Needed my resistance. Silence had unsettled him more than refusal ever could.
“I speak as tradition allows,” he replied. “As it demands.”
A murmur rippled outward. The pack knew the law. I knew it too.
Tradition favored him.
Male heir. Acknowledged son. Raised under my father’s roof. Blood mattered less than declaration, and my father had declared him family before the moons and before the elders.
Not Alpha.
But close enough to reach.
“You make your claim quickly,” I said. “Too quickly.”
His mouth curved, smug now. “Opportunity does not wait.”
I studied him then. Really studied him. The way he stood angled toward the elders instead of toward me. The way his eyes flicked constantly, gauging reaction, counting support. He was not looking for a bond.
He was looking for permission.
“You claim my father’s words,” I continued calmly. “Yet you offer none of his witnesses. No sealed decree. No mark of Veluna or Kaelun. Only your voice.”
The old Alpha shifted behind me. I felt him there like a wall, immovable and deliberate.
Travis’s jaw tightened. “You doubt me.”
“I measure you.”
That earned a few sharp breaths from the crowd.
“I was there,” he snapped. “I asked him. He agreed.”
“You asked a dying Alpha,” I said softly. “Did you ask a grieving one?”
That landed.
For a moment, I thought he might strike out. His hands curled, claws scraping faintly against his palms.
Then he smiled.
“Regardless,” he said, spreading his arms, “the pack requires leadership. A male hand. Continuity. You know this.”
I did.
That was the cruelest part.
My father had taught me the laws so I would never be blindsided by them. Taught me which traditions could be bent and which would snap back hard enough to take a throat.
This one cut both ways.
I felt something stir beneath my ribs. Not rage. Not grief.
Awareness.
And yet, through all of it, something was missing.
A presence I had felt once before, years ago, so strongly it had shaken the bones of a hall and branded itself into memory.
Now… nothing.
Grief was blinding me. Smothering my senses like ash over flame.
I inhaled slowly.
“This hall is not the place for claims,” I said. “The rite is barely cooled. My father’s name has not yet settled into memory.”
Travis opened his mouth to argue.
The old Alpha stepped forward again.
“Enough,” he said.
This time, the hall obeyed.
I turned slightly, meeting his gaze for the first time. His eyes were sharp, ancient, knowing in a way that made my chest tighten.
“You will not be rushed,” he said to me. Not asked. Stated. “And you will not stand alone.”
Something in his tone told me this was not kindness.
It was strategy.
I inclined my head once. Acceptance without surrender.
“Then let the pack disperse,” I said. “Let grief be honored before ambition.”
Around us, the elders nodded. Slowly. Reluctantly. But they nodded.
Travis stared at me, fury barely leashed now.
“This is not over,” he warned.
I met his gaze, calm and unflinching.
“No,” I agreed. “It has only begun.”
And somewhere, just beyond my reach, something ancient and patient waited for the moment my grief would finally lift.
- Writer
