I didn't expect to hear about Shadowridge's unraveling from Amanda's kitchen window.
But gossip travels fast between neighboring packs, especially when it involves an Alpha who's visibly falling apart. Amanda's cousin—a warrior who trained with Shadowridge's patrol team last summer—stopped by on his way to the eastern border. He sat at the table with his coffee and talked like he was delivering weather reports, but I heard every word.
Mateo was pacing the pack house at three in the morning. Again. For the third night running.
Caden found him in the main hall with his shirt half-buttoned and his eyes red, muttering about supply routes and archived contracts no one could locate. The Eastern Hollowfield negotiations—the ones I'd spent two months preparing terms for, the ones that were supposed to close this week—collapsed because nobody knew where the files were. I knew where they were. Top drawer of the Luna suite desk, labeled in my handwriting, organized by date and territory.
But I wasn't there anymore.
Amanda's cousin took another sip of coffee and said, almost casually, that Mateo's wolf snapped at Caden during a routine briefing yesterday. Not a warning growl. A full snap, teeth bared, the kind of break in control that makes a Beta take two steps back and reassess whether his Alpha is stable.
I sat very still and said nothing.
Amanda, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed, said what I couldn't. "Good. Let him fall apart."
Her cousin left twenty minutes later. Amanda locked the door behind him, turned to me, and raised one eyebrow.
"You're not going to say it, so I will," she said. "He's collapsing without you. And he doesn't even know it yet."
I looked down at my journal. I'd been cataloging wolfsbane antidotes for the last two hours, cross-referencing historical records with modern healing texts. My handwriting was steady. My hands were not.
"He made his choice," I said quietly.
Amanda's expression softened, just slightly. "Yeah. He did."
---
The second report came two days later, this time from a Hollowcreek elder who'd attended a cross-pack summit dinner at Shadowridge. She was old enough to speak bluntly and didn't bother softening the details.
Romina had been asked to host the communal dinner for the senior warriors—a traditional Luna responsibility, one I'd handled dozens of times. She arrived forty minutes late wearing a dress better suited for a gala than a working dinner. She didn't review the seating arrangements. She didn't coordinate with the kitchen. She stood at the head of the table and delivered a tearful, rambling speech about her miraculous survival and her undying devotion to Mateo.
The elder paused in her retelling, took a sip of tea, and said, "Several of the older warriors exchanged glances. The kind of glances that say more than words."
I knew those warriors. I'd served beside them for three years. They didn't suffer fools, and they didn't forgive incompetence.
The elder set down her cup. "Dorian—the former Alpha—he set down his fork halfway through her speech and never picked it up again. Just sat there with his jaw tight and his eyes on his plate. Eleanor touched his hand once. He didn't respond. They left early."
I felt something twist in my chest. Dorian and Eleanor had loved me. I knew that. They'd told me, quietly and often, in the small ways that mattered—Eleanor's herb bundles, Dorian's nod of approval when I mediated a territory dispute, the way they both called me 'daughter' when no one else was listening.
They would have fought for me if they'd known what was coming. But Mateo moved too fast, and by the time they understood, I was already gone.
"They're ashamed of him," Amanda said flatly. She'd been listening from the doorway. "As they should be."
The elder nodded slowly, finished her tea, and left.
I went back to my journal and wrote: *Pack is fracturing. Romina cannot hold it. Mateo will not see it until it's too late.*
---
Barnaby arrived on the fourth day.
I was sitting on Amanda's porch with my journal open, reviewing my wolfsbane timeline for the third time, when I heard the crunch of boots on gravel. I looked up and saw a young pack member—barely twenty, with nervous eyes and a Shadowridge patrol jacket—leading Barnaby on a chain.
My heart stopped.
Barnaby saw me and lunged. The chain snapped taut. The young man stumbled, caught himself, and let go. Barnaby bolted across the yard and crashed into me hard enough to knock me back against the porch railing. He was shaking. His ribs were too prominent under his fur. He pressed his muzzle into my neck and made a sound I'd never heard from him before—a low, broken whine that felt like an accusation and a plea at the same time.
I wrapped my arms around him and held on.
The young pack member stood at the edge of the yard, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He wouldn't meet my eyes.
"Alpha Mateo sent him," he said quietly. "No message. Just—he said to bring the dog to you."
I looked up. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "No note?"
He shook his head. "No, ma'am."
Amanda appeared in the doorway behind me. She looked at the young man, then at Barnaby, then at me. Her jaw tightened.
"Tell your Alpha," she said, her voice cold and clear, "that sending the dog is the most honest thing he's done in weeks."
The young man flinched. He nodded once, turned, and left.
I buried my face in Barnaby's fur. He smelled like the pack house—wood smoke and pine and something faintly metallic that might have been Romina's perfume. I breathed through it. I held him tighter.
Amanda crouched beside me and rested one hand on my shoulder. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.
After a long time, I stood. Barnaby pressed against my leg and didn't move. I looked down at him, then at Amanda.
"I need to get back to work," I said.
Amanda nodded. "Yeah. You do."
I went inside. Barnaby followed. I sat down at the table, opened my journal, and kept writing.
