Alpha Soier clenched his hands in barely contained rage, though the smile on his face never wavered as he watched the royal entourage vanish beyond the borders of his land. A week. That was all the time those princes had stayed—just seven days—and yet in that short span, they had turned his entire pack upside down.
His son, once bold and brash, had been reduced to a stuttering wreck, a shadow of himself, while his daughter… his daughter was now being taken away under the polite but unmistakable label of "guest."
Everyone knew better. There was no courtesy in this invitation. It was nothing short of a hostage situation wrapped in the fine silk of royal diplomacy.
