Chapter 229
“For enjoying the quiet,” he said. “For waking up without expecting an attack. For laughing last night and not hating myself for it.”
“That doesn’t make you disloyal,” I said immediately.
“It feels like it does,” he admitted.
I met his eyes. “Peace isn’t betrayal. It’s what your parents wanted. It’s what they died believing was possible.”
That landed. I saw it in the way his shoulders loosened just slightly, in the way he exhaled as if he had been holding his breath for years.
Morgan spent most days in the council chambers now, temporary as they were. Canvas walls reinforced with wood, tables scarred by old arguments and new decisions. She was rebuilding something that had rotted long before Silvermen ever touched it.
Not patching.
Rebuilding.
She insisted on transparency where secrecy had once ruled. Rotating authority so no one voice could calcify into unchecked power. Clear consequences for violations that had once been excused in the name of stability. Witnesses present for decisions that used to happen behind closed doors.
Some Alphas resisted, bristling at the loss of quiet influence.
Most did not.
They had seen where secrecy led. They had buried the results.
Ezra warned us again during a late evening meeting, his voice tired but steady.
“This is not a war you win by crushing an enemy,” he said. “It’s a war you survive by outlasting chaos.”
I understood that better than most.
It hit me one night as I walked the perimeter alone, the moon high and pale, listening to the layered sounds of wolves and humans settling into uneasy rest. The low murmur of conversation. The distant footsteps of patrols. The soft sounds of children sleeping too close to danger to be fully at ease.
I was standing in two worlds.
Hunter strategy and wolf instinct were not opposites. They were complements. One taught caution, patience, and preparation. The other taught courage, presence, and the ability to act decisively when the moment came. Where one hesitated, the other moved. Where one risked stagnation, the other risked recklessness.
And I knew how to hold both.
Sally had found her own rhythm within days.
She moved quietly through camps and safe houses, never announcing herself, never demanding attention. She gathered names, stories, patterns. She listened more than she spoke. She found she wolves who had learned to keep their pain hidden behind obedience. Who had been told suffering was the cost of belonging, that endurance was the same as loyalty.
She offered them exits.
Not dramatic rescues.
Plans. Routes. Protection. Time.
One night she sat with me near the fire, hands wrapped around a mug she barely drank from, eyes reflecting flame.
“I used to think surviving was enough,” she said. “That if I stayed alive, I was winning.”
“And now,” I said.
“Now I think survival comes with
responsibility,” she replied. “If I don’t
use what I know, then I’m still letting him win.” FindNovel.net
I nodded. “You’re changing things.”
“So are you,” she said, a small smile touching her mouth.
The realization settled slowly but firmly.
My past was not something to outgrow or bury.
It was a weapon.
Everything I had survived. Every tactic learned under fear. Every instinct sharpened by loss. Every moment spent adapting instead of breaking it all had a place now Not as trauma to be erased, but as knowledge to be used.
Morgan admitted it one evening, when the camp had gone quiet and the moon sat high, and watchful, casting silver light over tents and sentries alike.
“You may surpass me,” she said.
I looked at her sharply. “That’s not something you’re supposed to say.”
She smiled faintly. “It’s something leaders need to accept. Power that refuses to be passed on rots.”
I did not respond. Not because I disagreed, but because the weight of it deserved silence.
The message arrived just before dawn.
No crest. No known pack signature. No familiar scent attached to it.
Just a request.
They want Savannah specifically.
I stared at the screen, a familiar tension settling into my chest. Not fear.
Anticipation.
Somewhere out there, another Alpha was watching the shift in power, watching the
old structures crack, and deciding how to respond.
This war would not be fast.
It would not be clean.
And it was no longer coming to us.
It was already here.