The Silver Creek pack house had never felt smaller.
I stood in the main conference room at dawn, watching Logan methodically field-strip his rifle while Jake entertained himself by juggling silver throwing knives with inhuman precision. Both men occupied space in the room like they'd been born to it—not the careful deference most wolves showed in an Alpha's presence, but the comfortable confidence of soldiers who knew their worth.
"You sure about this path?" Dad asked from behind me, his voice carrying the weight of a man who'd spent all night questioning everything he'd built. "What you're proposing... it tears down centuries of tradition."
"Tradition is a luxury for peacetime." I didn't turn from the window, watching sunrise paint our lands in deceptively peaceful colors while my enhanced senses tracked movement throughout the territory. "The enemies coming for us don't care about pack hierarchies or territorial protocols. They care about extermination."
