Chapter 78 Chapter 0078
•NADIA•
I had spent the entire morning deciding what to wear. And preparing myself for the speech I would say when the pack finally declares me their Alpha.
My father was waiting at the bottom of the pack house steps when I came down.
"The pack members have already gathered in the courtyard," he informed me. "They are waiting for you."
"Good." I pulled on my gloves. "Thank you, father. We have waited for this day for years, and finally, today, we will get back what they took from us."
My father nodded and smiled at me.
I lifted my head and shoulders as I led the way to the courtyard. My father followed behind me.
I almost gagged when I saw Jane's and Liam's bodies still in the courtyard. Poor souls were left there all night.
I quickly instructed the scouts nearby to take their bodies away. I didn't care what they were going to do with them, but they had served their purpose.
Yhr elders nodded at me when they saw me, and I nodded back. They were on my side and that was all I needed.
The people always supported everything that the elders supported. And if they found out that the elders were doubting Mason's leadership, they would also question it.
I cleared my throat and leaned forward to the center of the courtyard.
"I know many of you are struggling," I began. "I know the past several days have been painful and confusing. You deserve honesty about what is happening to this pack and why. So that is what I am going to give you."
I had their attention entirely.
"Our Alpha is gone," I continued. "Not dead. But absent. And not for the first time." I paused. "Mason Thorne has left this pack without its leader during a period of active threat and internal instability, and the people who have been holding things together in his absence have been doing so without his guidance, without his presence, and without any certainty of when he intends to return."
A murmur moved through the crowd.
"But that is not the most important thing I want to say to you today," I continued. "What I want to talk about is older than Mason's absence. What I want to talk about is the foundation of who leads this pack and why."
I turned slightly toward my father, who stepped forward.
"Many of you know my father," I said. "Beta Noah. What fewer of you know is the history he carries. The history that this pack owes a debt to and has never fully acknowledged."
My father's jaw tightened.
"My father fought for Silvercrest," I said. "When this pack was threatened thirty-three years ago, when the borders were being tested and the surrounding packs were calculating whether we were weak enough to challenge, it was my father who held the line. It was my father's unit, his strategy, his willingness to bleed for this territory that kept Silvercrest intact. And when the fighting was done and the borders were secured and it was time to decide who would lead the pack that my father had just saved, the title went to Mason's father. Who had spent the critical weeks of that conflict managing the internal politics of the pack house while other men were dying on his behalf."
The murmuring got even louder now.
"My father never made a public grievance of it," I continued. "That is the kind of man he is. But the truth of what happened has never changed, and the pack deserves to know it."
Someone in the crowd called out. "Beta Noah should have been Alpha."
Several voices agreed immediately, overlapping and building on each other.
I let it run for a moment. Then I raised my hand and the crowd settled again.
"What I am asking you to consider today is not the past," I continued. "What I am asking you to consider is the present. This pack needs leadership right now. We need sepmeone steady, present, and committed, who has been here every day that Mason has not."
I stepped back and nodded to my father as he leaned forward.
"I've served this pack as Beta for thirty-three years," he said, his voice rough. "I have stood beside the Alpha through every decision, every crisis, and every threat that came at our borders. I know what this pack needs to function." He looked across the gathered faces. "And I am telling you as someone who has watched it from the inside that what this pack has had in the Luna's leadership over these past weeks has been more consistent, more present, and more committed to your safety than what we have received from our Alpha."
A heavier silence followed that.
He continued.
"Mason Thorne has left. He has been gone without proper communication or a clear timeline of return. He left in the middle of an internal investigation, without resolving the questions the council raised, without securing the pack's stability before he walked out. That is not the behavior of an Alpha who is thinking about his pack."
"And while he has been gone," he continued, turning toward me. "Nadia has been here. Communicating with the elders. Managing the concerns that were brought to the pack house every single day by people who needed answers and deserved to have someone present enough to give them." He looked back at the crowd. "I have watched her do it. I have seen how she handles pressure and uncertainty and the weight of a pack that is afraid. And I am telling you that what I have seen is not a Luna performing a temporary role."
He paused.
"What I have seen is an Alpha."
I swallowed, expecting resistance, but when the chanting began, I felt relieved.
"Nadia!"
"Nadia is Alpha!"
"She's been running this pack already!"
"Nadia! Nadia! Nadia!"
I had imagined this moment many times when Mason was asleep beside me.
I raised my hand again and the chanting softened but didn't stop entirely.
"I hear you," I said. "And I will not let you down."
The chanting rose again in response.
My father leaned closer and stood beside me. I smiled and waved at the crowd, finally feeling triumphant.
Mason and his son would be nothing.