Chapter 116 LINES ALREADY DRAWN
AMBER’S POV
I knew this meeting would go wrong the moment voices started rising before anyone finished a full sentence.
We were still at the boundary, the same stretch of land that had seen too much blood already. Derek stood a few steps from me, close enough that both packs could see we were united on this point, even if nothing else. I could feel eyes burning into my back from my own people. Suspicion. Anger. Hurt that had never healed.
“This is not surrender,” I said, raising my voice. “It’s a strategy.”
Someone laughed bitterly behind me. “That’s easy for you to say.”
I turned slightly, enough to see the faces of my warriors. People I had grown up with, people who had buried their mates, their siblings, their children. I understood why they were angry. I carried the same anger in my chest every day.
Derek spoke up beside me. “No one is saying what happened doesn’t matter. It does but continuing like this will wipe us out.”
That was the wrong thing to say, and I knew it.
“You don’t get to talk about loss,” one of my elders snapped, pointing at him. “Your pack started the last raid.”
“And yours answered with fire,” someone from Derek’s side yelled back.
The noise exploded just as shouting overlapped shouting. Accusations flew so fast they blurred together. Every injury was dragged back into the open, every death was named like a weapon.
“Silence!” I shouted.
For half a second, it worked.
I stepped forward, heart pounding. “Listen to me, both sides. What’s done is done, we cannot undo it but we can stop adding to it.”
A warrior pushed his way forward from my pack. “My brother died because of them, where was the strategy then?”
I swallowed. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“That doesn’t bring him back,” he said, voice shaking with rage.
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t and neither will more killing.”
Derek nodded. “This truce doesn’t erase anything, it gives us space to breathe.”
“Space?” an elder repeated. “So they can regroup?”
Derek stiffened. “That’s not…”
I cut in quickly. “Enough, this goes both ways. We all pull back and we all stay on our land.”
“And what happens when they cross again?” my beta asked sharply. “Because they will.”
I met his eyes. “Then we respond but not blindly, not like this.”
He shook his head. “You’re asking us to trust them.”
“No,” I said. “I’m asking you to trust me.”
That landed harder than I expected. The murmurs changed tone, less loud but more dangerous.
Derek turned to his pack. “I’m asking the same of mine.”
That earned him nothing but scoffs.
“You’re weak,” one of his warriors said. “That’s what this is.”
His jaw tightened. “Choosing survival isn’t weakness.”
“Tell that to the dead,” the man shot back.
The ruckus grew again, someone shoved someone else. A hand went to a blade and another answered.
“Stand down!” Derek barked.
“Hold your line!” I shouted at the same time.
For a moment, it felt like we were shouting into a storm. No one wanted to listen anymore. They wanted release, they wanted someone to blame and they wanted permission to fight.
An elder from my pack stepped forward, voice cold. “You stand there talking about smart moves, but you weren’t the one dragged from the rubble. You weren’t the one who watched your mate bleed out.”
I clenched my fists. “You think I didn’t lose anyone?”
He hesitated but didn’t back down. “Then why does it sound like you’re excusing them?”
“I’m not excusing anything,” I snapped. “I’m choosing what comes next.”
Derek looked at me, and for a brief second, I saw the same exhaustion I felt reflected in his eyes.
He raised his voice again. “If we keep going like this, there won’t be packs left to defend. Just graves.”
A shout cut him off. “Maybe that’s what it takes.”
That sent a chill through me.
“This isn’t about pride,” I said, stepping closer to the boundary line. “It’s about control and about not letting anger make every decision for us.”
“And who controls this truce?” someone demanded.
“I do,” I said. “On my side.”
“And I do,” Derek added firmly.
Laughter followed and it was not amused but mocking.
“So we just take your word for it?” a warrior asked. “After everything?”
I nodded once. “Yes.”
That answer almost tipped things over completely and I hated to think that I was losing touch of everything that was happening.
Voices rose again, louder, harsher. My beta grabbed my arm. “This is slipping.”
“I know,” I muttered.
Derek leaned closer. “We’re losing them.”
“I won’t back down,” I said.
“Neither will they,” he replied.
Another shove, just as a blade flashed free for a split second before someone knocked it aside.
“That’s it,” an elder yelled. “This meeting is pointless.”
I raised my hands. “No one is crossing this line.”
Someone spat on the ground. “You don’t get to decide that alone.”
I looked across at Derek just as he nodded slightly. Agreement, even in chaos.
“We stay on our land,” I said loudly. “They stay on theirs, no merging and no shared patrols. Just distance.”
The noise didn’t stop, but it slowed.
Derek added, “Any violation answers directly to us. No retaliation without order.”
That helped less.
“Orders didn’t save anyone before,” someone muttered.
I felt the weight of it press down on my chest. They weren’t wrong and damage had been done. Too much of it and no amount of careful planning could erase that truth.
But letting this spiral further would only add names to the list.
I straightened. “You can hate them, I do too but hate doesn’t mean we stop thinking.”
That earned me glares, some looked away. Some looked ready to explode.
An elder shook his head slowly. “This truce won’t heal anything.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “But war won’t either.”
Silence crept in again, thin and fragile.
Finally, someone shouted from the back, “This isn’t over.”
“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”
Derek and I stepped back at the same time, signaling retreat without turning our backs. Both packs followed, tense and angry, like coiled wire pulled too tight.
As we moved away from the boundary, I knew the truth none of us wanted to say out loud.
This wasn’t peace, it was a delay and delays only make the next explosion worse.
CRACKS IN TRUST