Rumors moved faster than any patrol.
By dawn, they were already running ahead of Luna, slipping through corridors and over sleeping forms, curling under doors and into ears.
"Did you hear?"
"They gave her a seat. Beside him."
"Not just a seat. A voice. Like an Alpha's."
"Two heads. That is bad luck."
"Or good."
"Or both."
Voices hissed and muttered and laughed as the den woke. Steam rose from cook fires. Pups tumbled in half-shifted clumsiness across the training yard. Warriors limped in from night watch, eyes gritty, tongues already wagging.
Luna heard them before she saw anyone.
Her chambers were small, carved out of a once-forgotten corner off the inner hall. The stone still smelled faintly of dust and the old herbs Elia had stored there in seasons past. A narrow window slit let in a blade of morning light, slicing across the fur pallet where Luna sat, legs crossed, hands resting palms-up on her knees.
She was not meditating.
She was listening.
The den's heartbeat thrummed through her.
Feet scuffed.
Voices rose.
Names flickered amid the hum:
"Luna."
"Orion."
"Nexus."
"Alpha."
Her jaw tightened at that last one.
Beside the pallet, the Moonstone shard Elia had given her—broken off the main pillar during the last quake—rested on a folded cloth. It glowed faintly, reacting to her mood.
"Do not sulk, little stone," Luna murmured. "You will start rumors of your own."
The shard pulsed once in what felt suspiciously like reproach.
She almost smiled.
A knock tapped at her door.
"Enter," she called.
The latch creaked.
Rhea eased in, already in light leathers, hair braided tight, eyes sharp even this early.
"You are awake," she said. "Of course you are."
Luna arched a brow.
"You expected me to be lying in, basking in the adoration of my new title?"
Rhea snorted.
"Half the den expects you to be levitating," she said dryly. "The other half expects you to have already taken Orion's stone and painted it with lightning."
"And you?" Luna asked.
Rhea leaned a shoulder against the doorway, arms crossed.
"I expect you," she said, "to be sitting exactly where you are, trying not to let either of those pictures crawl under your skin."
Luna's mouth curved.
"You know me too well," she said.
Rhea shrugged.
"Someone has to," she replied. "Or the rumors will do it for you."
Luna's smile faded.
"What are they saying?" she asked, though she already knew some of it. The den had a tone when it was chewing on something new and sharp.
Rhea grimaced.
"Depends on who you ask," she said. "The young warriors are mostly excited. Two leaders sounds like more chances not to get themselves killed. The omegas are wary, but hopeful. You were one of them. They remember."
"And the elders?" Luna asked.
Rhea's mouth twisted.
"Pretending this is what they intended all along," she said. "They are already practicing how they will explain it to the visiting Alphas without sounding like they have lost control of their own den."
Luna's stomach tightened.
Outside, a voice rose, loud and carrying:
"I am telling you, it is a trial run. They will call her Alpha by winter. Just watch."
Another answered, skeptical.
"She does not even sleep in the Alpha's den. This is politics, not coronation."
A third chimed in, breathless.
"But she held the curse. The Goddess speaks to her. Why would She not want her as Alpha?"
Rhea's expression hardened.
"There is one more thread weaving through all of it," she said quietly. "One that could strangle if we are not careful."
Luna looked up.
"What thread?" she asked.
Rhea hesitated.
"The word," she said at last, "that keeps slipping into their whispers no matter how many times Maera corrects them."
Her throat worked.
"New Alpha," she said.
The shard at Luna's side flickered.
Luna stared at it.
Then at the stone floor.
"I am not their Alpha," she said, the words as much for herself as for Rhea. "Orion is."
Rhea nodded.
"I know that," she said. "You know that. Some of them do. But many hear 'Nexus' and think 'not far from Alpha.' And wolves love a dramatic story. 'Rejected runt returns to take the stone' sounds better around a fire than 'we created a complicated, shared leadership structure because our old ways failed.'"
Luna winced.
"Stories are rarely accurate," she said.
"Stories shape choices," Rhea countered. "Especially when other packs are listening."
They fell silent as footsteps approached in the hall.
The scent hit Luna before the knock.
Warm.
Pine and steel and something distinctly, stubbornly Orion.
The knock was lighter this time.
"Luna?" Orion's voice came. "May I come in?"
Her wolf flicked its tail.
Still wary.
Less bristling.
"Enter," Luna said.
The door opened.
Orion filled the frame for a moment, larger than the small chamber, then stepped inside with a care that would have made her laugh once.
The Alpha, tentative at a threshold.
He dipped his head in greeting to Rhea.
She gave him a curt nod.
Then his gaze found Luna.
It did its usual, annoying thing to her chest.
He noticed the shard by her knee and arched a brow.
"Getting in practice?" he asked.
Luna let out a soft breath.
"If it starts glowing brighter when someone says something foolish," she said, "I will consider it a useful tool."
Rhea snorted.
"Then the whole den will see it from the training yard," she said.
Orion's mouth twitched.
The lightness did not reach his eyes.
"I just came from the lower hall," he said. "The rumors have already made three laps and a small litter."
Luna spread her hands.
"Perhaps we should start charging them for every new version," she said. "Raise funds for the repairs."
Rhea pushed off the wall.
"I will leave you two to your... leadership problem," she said. "Try not to make it worse before midday."
She paused at the door.
"And for the record," she added, looking back at Luna, "whatever they call you, you are still the girl who snuck me bread when I broke curfew. Do not let their titles eat that."
Luna's throat tightened.
"I will try," she said.
Rhea nodded once and slipped out.
The door closed.
Silence dropped, close and strange.
Orion stepped further into the room.
He stood near the narrow window, light striping his face, catching in the silver at his temples that had not been there when she left as a girl.
"They are already talking about you as if you are a storm they have to predict," he said quietly. "When you will rain. When you will thunder. When you will... strike."
Luna's jaw clenched.
"I am not weather," she said.
His gaze softened.
"I know," he said. "But you feel like it to them. Untameable. Bigger than the den. And now the council has given you a place beside me, they are trying to decide if that means you will stop here... or keep going."
He hesitated.
"Do you want to?" he asked. "Keep going. Past Nexus. To Alpha."
The word hung between them like a live wire.
Luna's heart lurched.
Images flashed in her mind's eye: herself on the Alpha stone; Orion stepping aside; the pack's bond wrenching toward her like a tide.
It made her dizzy.
It made her throat close.
And it made a small, fierce part of her lift its head in defiance.
She forced the words out through the tangle.
"I do not know," she said truthfully.
Orion nodded slowly.
"That answer will not soothe them," he said.
"It is the only honest one I have," she replied.
He gave a humorless smile.
"Honesty and councils have never mixed well," he said.
She studied him.
"You are not fighting them on this," she observed. "On sharing. On... changing the shape of your rule."
He met her gaze.
"I fought the moon once," he said. "I know how that ended. I will not fight you too. Not when the choices that got us here were mine as much as theirs."
He shifted, bracing a shoulder against the wall.
"Maera wants a script," he went on. "Something neat to present when the other Alphas arrive. 'Here is our Alpha. Here is our Nexus. This is how it works. Do not be alarmed.' But the den is already writing its own. One where you are the next Alpha in waiting. I can dampen that. Correct them. Or... I can let it run and see what it does."
Luna's stomach tightened.
"Let it run?" she repeated. "Have you lost what little sense the Goddess left you?"
He lifted his hands.
"Not without thought," he said. "Listen. If we stamp it out too hard, we tell them we are afraid. That we do not trust this new shape ourselves. That will feed a different kind of rumor. One where we sit on a shaking throne pretending it is steady."
He looked down at his hands, flexed them once.
"If we deny, deny, deny that you could ever be Alpha," he said quietly, "we also deny the possibility of something that might, one day, be right. I will not make that mistake again. I would rather face their questions with you than shut them down and build pressure in the cracks."
It was unnerving, how lightly he spoke of giving up a place he had been raised to see as his.
"Are you ready to step aside?" she asked bluntly. "Now?"
He blinked.
"No," he said. "I am not. The bond is still tied to me. The pack still feels my howl in their bones. Ripping that away now would hurt them. Hurt you. Hurt me."
He drew a breath.
"But I am ready," he added, voice steady, "for the possibility that one day, the pack itself might choose you. And when that day comes, I will not cling to the stone and make you wrest it from me."
The shard at her side brightened.
Luna stared at him.
He seemed surprised by his own words, as if he had not fully known he meant them until they left his mouth.
"Well," she said, when she could finally find speech. "That will be a very pretty moment in some future story, I am sure."
He huffed out a breath.
"If I do not embarrass myself on the way," he said.
The faintest smile tugged at her lips.
Silence swelled again.
This time, it felt... less thin.
"We cannot control what they whisper," she said after a moment. "We can decide how we answer. Or if we do."
He inclined his head.
"What would you have us do?" he asked.
She looked back toward the door, toward the hall where the rumors hummed.
"If we rush to deny it," she said slowly, "we make it a forbidden idea. Forbidden things only glow brighter in dark corners. If we pretend not to hear it, we give it our silence to fill with whatever fears they like."
She exhaled.
"So we do the one thing they will not expect," she decided. "We speak it aloud. Ourselves. Not as promise. Not as threat. As possibility. Distant. Conditional. The same way we talk about the next season's hunt. Not guaranteed. Prepared for."
His brows lifted.
"You want to talk about you taking my title in front of the pack," he said.
"Not as if it is decided," she clarified. "As if it is *theirs* to decide. One day. Not now."
"Put the choice in their paws," he murmured.
"Yes," she said. "If they are already asking, let us answer with, 'If we ever come to such a day, you will be the ones howling it. Not rumors. Not the Goddess. Not my wounded ego. You. Until then, we have enough to do that does not involve fighting ghosts on a stone.'"
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
"That," he said, "I can live with."
A knock cut through their conversation.
More urgent, this time.
Rhea's voice, muffled through the door.
"Luna. Orion. Maera wants us in the main hall. Now. We have early visitors."
Luna's stomach dropped.
"The other Alphas?" she called.
Rhea's reply was grim.
"Messengers," she said. "From three of them. They came together."
Orion cursed under his breath.
"Together?" he repeated.
"That never bodes well," Luna said.
Rhea did not disagree.
"Thought you might want to hear how *they* say your names," she added.
Luna stood.
She reached for the Moonstone shard, pressed her palm against its cool face.
"Stay," she told it softly.
It dimmed, as if sulking.
"I will be back," she added.
It brightened a fraction.
She slipped it back onto the cloth and followed Orion and Rhea out into the corridor.
The den's main hall was already crowded when they arrived.
Three strangers stood in the clear space before the council benches.
Three different packs, three different scents.
One was tall and rangy, with sandy fur and scarred hands, wearing the colors of the Frostpine Pack to the north. Another was shorter, broad-shouldered, with a dark braid tied tight at the nape of her neck and the mountain-green bands of the Stonefall Pack.
The third made Luna's hackles lift.
He wore no pack colors.
Only a narrow strip of silver around his upper arm.
Dawncliff.
The roaming pack.
The one that had always kept a careful distance from settled dens.
Now they sent a messenger.
Not three separate knockings at their border, but a small, unified front.
Luna and Orion stepped into the hall together.
Heads turned.
Whispers shifted.
There was a tangible, almost audible intake of breath as wolves took in the sight: the Alpha and the woman rumors were already calling "New Alpha" walking side by side.
Maera sat straight-backed on the center bench, eyes tight.
She flicked a glance at Luna.
Luna inclined her head a fraction.
We speak it, her look said.
Not hide.
Maera's mouth tightened.
But she nodded.
The Frostpine messenger stepped forward.
He bowed, eyes never leaving Luna.
"Greetings, Moonshadow," he said. "I am Hale of Frostpine, voice of my Alpha. We come to seek truth from stories carried on the wind."
His gaze slid to Orion, then back to Luna.
"We have heard," he said, "that your den has taken a goddess into its councils. That you have made a storm your co-leader. That you plan, some say, to set her on your Alpha stone."
Murmurs flared.
Eyes flicked between Luna and Orion.
Luna's pulse hammered.
She glanced at Orion.
He gave the barest nod.
Invitation.
Trust.
She stepped forward.
Wind curled around her ankles, lifting the ends of her hair, carrying her scent out to all corners of the room.
"This den," she said clearly, "has done many foolish things. Ignoring storms has always been one of them. We are attempting to be less foolish."
A few nervous chuckles answered.
Hale's mouth twitched.
"So it is true?" he asked. "You sit in counsel as if you were Alpha?"
"I sit as Nexus," she said. "A new word for an old problem. Power that does not fit neatly into your bloodlines. I do not hold the pack's bond. Orion does. I do not claim his title. Yet some of my decisions will save or end as many lives as his. We chose to put that where everyone could see it, instead of pretending otherwise."
The Stonefall messenger, the woman in green, narrowed her eyes.
"And this... Nexus," she said. "Is it a stepping stone to Alpha? Or a leash you have named pretty?"
Luna looked at her.
At all of them.
"At present," she said, "it is a way for this pack not to tear itself to pieces over who gets to call the lightning. In the future... if the pack howls for something else, we will hear it."
A shock ripple ran through the room.
She did not look away.
"That is all?" the Dawncliff messenger asked, voice oily-smooth. "You will let them decide if you take his stone, little storm?"
His use of "little" made Luna's wolf bare its teeth.
She kept her own lips neutral.
"I have taken enough from them without consent already," she said. "Dragged curses into myself. Forced them to see truths they did not want. I will not take their choice of Alpha. Not again. If that day comes, it will not be because I reached for it in the dark. It will be because they placed it in my hands, knowing what I am."
She did not say that a part of her still quailed at the thought.
She did not have to.
The quiver in the air said it for her.
Orion stepped forward then, standing close enough that his arm brushed hers.
"I am Alpha of Moonshadow," he said. "By blood. By bond. By choice. I am not giving that up because a rumor tells me to. But I am also not clinging to it so hard that I choke the life out of this den in the process."
He met the messengers' eyes in turn.
"This is what is true," he said. "We have a new structure. A new voice. A new shape to our leadership. We are not hiding it. We are not ashamed of it. We will see if it holds. We will see if it serves. If it fails, we will change again."
The room buzzed.
Some wolves looked relieved.
Some unsettled.
Some... excited.
The messengers exchanged glances.
"You are either very wise," Hale of Frostpine said, "or very foolish."
"Likely both," Orion said.
Luna almost smiled.
The Dawncliff envoy inclined his head.
"Our Alphas will want to see this for themselves," he said. "A pack that shares its head with a storm is... an interesting thing."
His gaze lingered on Luna.
"And storms have a way of spilling," he added.
Luna held his look.
"Then they should hurry," she said. "Our walls have already seen one fall. They may learn something from the cracks."
A few wolves sucked in breath at her boldness.
The envoys bowed and took their leave, their questions not fully answered, their curiosity sharpened.
As the hall slowly emptied, the buzz of whispers redoubled.
"A Nexus who might be Alpha."
"Two leaders."
"Would you follow her, if it came to it?"
"Would you not?"
Luna drew a breath.
Rhea sidled up beside her.
"Well," Rhea said softly. "You have just poured oil on both sides of the fire."
Luna glanced at her.
"Better than pretending there is no fire at all," she said.
Rhea's grin was quick and sharp.
"That," she agreed, "has never worked well for us."
Later, when the messengers had gone and the council had exhausted itself with half-panicked speculation about what the visiting Alphas would say, Luna found a moment alone again by the Moonstone pillar.
She laid her palm against it.
The stone hummed under her touch, a slow, deep vibration.
"They will not stop," she said to the crystal. "Wondering. Pushing. Asking when, not if."
The Goddess' presence slid close.
*Rumors are like rivers,* She murmured. *They carve stone if you let them run long enough. But you have planted yourself in their path now. They will have to flow around you. That changes what they become.*
Luna closed her eyes.
"I am not ready," she whispered. "To be their Alpha. Not yet. Maybe not for a long time. Maybe never. And yet... the word keeps trying to crawl onto my shoulders."
*You are allowed,* the Goddess said gently, *to put it down when it does. To say, "Not now." Power forced is poison. Power accepted too soon is, too. You and this pack are both still growing into this shared shape.*
Luna breathed.
She could do that.
Say not now.
Say we are not there.
And trust that if one day they were, she would feel it not as a rumor pressing from outside, but as something rising from within.
Until then, she had work.
Walls to mend.
Pups to protect.
Elders to prod.
A mate to keep at arm's length and slowly, carefully, maybe, pull closer.
A den that needed her as she was now, not as some title they were already dreaming onto her.
"A new Alpha?" she murmured, the question mark lingering in her tone.
"Not yet," she answered herself.
The pack might be divided over what she was becoming.
She was, too.
But for now, that division did not weaken her.
It kept her honest.
Kept her from rushing into a crown she had not yet earned.
She left the pillar and stepped back into the den's humming heart, letting the rumors wash around her.
Let them wonder.
Let them weigh.
When the time came to answer that question fully, it would not be in whispers.
It would be in a howl.
Theirs.
And hers.
Together.