Chapter 231
Understanding.
“This is bigger than Night Walker,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Bigger than Morgan,” I added.
“Yes.”
I exhaled slowly, feeling the breath scrape through my chest. “You’re asking me to stand in the middle of something that could tear the pack world apart.”
The Alpha met my gaze, unwavering. “We’re asking you to help guide it so it doesn’t.”
For the first time since the war began, I felt genuinely terrified.
Not of death.
Of failure.
“I don’t know if I can carry that,” I said honestly. “I’m still learning how to carry myself.”
Ben moved then, stepping up beside me without hesitation, his presence solid and grounding.
“You won’t carry it alone,” he said. His voice was steady. Certain. “And you won’t carry it because you were chosen. You’ll carry it because you choose to.”
The Alpha studied him for a long moment, then nodded once. “That matters more than you know.”
After they left, the station felt emptier than before, as if the air itself were holding its breath. The dripping water sounded louder. The wind through the grass felt sharper.
I did not speak until we were back on the road, the landscape sliding past the windows in muted colors.
“They want me to lead reform,” I said finally. “Across multiple packs.”
Ben glanced at me, eyes flicking from the road to my reflection in the glass. “Do you want to.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I want the abuse to stop. I want wolves to be safe. But wanting an outcome isn’t the same as wanting the role.”
“That’s leadership,” he said gently. “Not craving the position. Caring about the consequences.”
Morgan was waiting when we returned, seated at the long table that had become the center of everything. Maps were spread before her, weighted down by stones. She listened without interrupting, her expression thoughtful, unreadable in the way it always was when she was thinking several moves ahead.
When I finished, she leaned back slightly.
“You’re afraid,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Good,” Morgan replied. “That means you understand the cost.”
She met my eyes directly. “Leadership is not destiny, Savannah. It’s not blood. It’s not prophecy. It’s a choice you make over and over again, especially on days you wish someone else would.”
“I don’t want to replace you,” I said quietly.
Morgan smiled, small and genuine. “I don’t want to be irreplaceable.”
Silence settled between us, not uncomfortable. Reflective. The kind of quiet that
meant something had already been decided.
“I won’t be an Alpha over them,” I said slowly. “Not like that.”
Morgan nodded. “You don’t have to be.”
“I’ll mediate,” I continued. “Help dismantle what’s broken. Help packs rebuild without stepping on each other Provisional Conditional f turns into something it shouldn’t, I step away.”
Morgan’s approval was immediate, firm. “That’s the right answer.”
Word spread quickly again.
Not declarations. Not oaths.
Movement.
She wolves began arriving quietly, guided by Sally and others like her. Stories were recorded carefully.
Patterns documented Abuseet
named without spectacle without bloodshed. Consequences followed, not swift, not simple, but real. Cóntent
The era of silent abuse did not end overnight.
But it fractured.
Silvermen was transferred under heavy guard two days later, moved through routes only Morgan and
Ezra knew, to a prisonbuilt nomet
punish but to contain. Hidden,
Isolated. Forgotten by the world he had tried to burn. sŵnovels
I did not watch him go.
I didn’t need to.
The world shifted around me whether I moved or not.
Packs reached out. Some cautiously. Some desperately. Some with hope that bordered on hunger.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, I realized something fundamental had changed.
I was no longer being protected.
Not by Morgan.
Not by Ben.
Not by Night Walker.
I was protecting.
And for the first time in my life, the weight of that did not crush me.
It steadied me.
The path forward was uncertain.
But it was mine to walk.
THE END