Chapter 138 Bonus Scene 4

Chapter 138 Bonus Scene 4

Quiet Training Observation

Several months after the packs became one, I found myself standing on the low rise that overlooked the main training field more often than I cared to admit.

From here I could see everything without being part of it. The combined warriors moved in larger, more dangerous formations than either pack had managed alone. Zeke and Cadmar’s voices carried as they corrected stances and called for sharper transitions. Helmer watched from the side with his arms crossed, occasionally stepping in to adjust a younger wolf’s shoulder or footwork. And in the middle of it all, Ekon trained like he had something to prove to the ground itself.

He was taller now. Broader in the shoulders. The soft edges of the boy I had once hugged at the bottom of the estate stairs were disappearing under muscle and focus. When he shifted, his wolf was already large for his age—dark-furred, aggressive, quick to snap at any opening. When he stayed human, his eyes carried a watchfulness that made older warriors give him space without being told.

I should have felt only pride.

Instead, something colder sat under it.

I remembered my own rise with uncomfortable clarity. The years of taking weaker packs, of proving that a female Alpha could hold territory through force and strategy instead of bloodline alone. I remembered the first time I killed an Alpha who underestimated me, the way the power had settled into my bones afterward like it had always belonged there. I remembered how easily the hunger for more had grown once I tasted it.

Ekon moved through a sparring match with one of Valdus’s older warriors and took him down harder than necessary. The other male hit the dirt with a grunt. Ekon stood over him a second too long before stepping back. No one corrected him.

My arms tightened across my chest.

He was learning control, yes. But he was also learning how far he could push before anyone pushed back. That was the part that kept me out here in the late afternoons, watching instead of intervening.

Footsteps approached from behind, quiet but deliberate. I didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Valdus’s scent reached me a moment before his presence did—forest, steel, and the low undercurrent of Alpha that never fully slept.

He stopped beside me, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched, and looked out at the same field.

“He’s improved,” Valdus said.

“He has.”

We watched in silence as Ekon moved to the next drill. His movements were clean, efficient, almost elegant in their violence. When the command came to shift, he did so without hesitation, and the dark wolf that rose in his place immediately tested the space around him, head low, eyes bright.

“He’s going to be strong,” I said.

Valdus made a low sound of agreement. “Stronger than most at that age. Stronger than I was in some ways.”

I glanced at him. His expression was unreadable, eyes tracking Ekon’s every shift of weight.

“Does that worry you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

The honesty was quiet and absolute.

I looked back at the field. “I used to think strength was the answer to everything. That if I was powerful enough, fast enough, ruthless enough, nothing could take what I had built. It worked. For a while. Until it didn’t.”

Valdus’s voice stayed low. “He’s watching everyone. Measuring them. The same way I used to measure my father. The same way I measured every wolf who might one day stand in my way.”

A small chill moved down my spine. “You think he’ll challenge you.”

“I think one day he’ll want to know if he can.” Valdus shifted his weight. “And I don’t know yet whether he’ll wait for permission or simply decide the time has come.”

Ekon shifted back to human form and accepted a water skin from one of the younger warriors. He drank without looking at the other male, then handed it back with a short nod that was almost dismissive. The interaction was small. Easy to miss. But I saw the way the younger warrior’s shoulders tightened before he walked away.

“He’s becoming something,” I said.

Valdus finished the thought for me. “Something neither of us fully controls.”

The words settled heavily between us.

I had brought Ekon here believing I could shape him into a bridge between the two packs, a future that would carry both of our legacies forward. I had imagined guiding him, correcting him, standing beside him when the time came. I had not fully imagined the possibility that he might grow beyond the version of himself I thought I was raising.

“I see myself in him,” I admitted. “The hunger. The need to prove the world wrong. And I see you in him too—the cold calculation when he decides someone is in his way.”

Valdus’s jaw flexed. “That’s what frightens me most. Not that he might become me. That he might become the worst parts of both of us and have no one strong enough to stop him.”

On the field, Zeke called an end to the session. Warriors began to disperse in loose groups, some laughing, some already discussing the next day’s drills. Ekon stayed behind a moment longer, rolling his shoulders, eyes scanning the tree line as if already looking for the next threat. Only when the field was nearly empty did he turn and start toward the estate.

He looked up and saw us.

For a second his steps slowed. His gaze moved from my face to Valdus’s and back again. Whatever he found there made his expression shutter. He gave a short, respectful nod—the kind an heir might give his Alphas—and continued past without stopping.

I watched until he disappeared into the trees that led toward the house.

Valdus spoke first. “He’s going to make his own path. Whether we like the direction or not.”

“I know.”

“And when that day comes, we may not get a say in it.”

I nodded once, the motion small. “I know that too.”

We stood there a while longer as the training field emptied completely and the light began to soften into early evening. The combined pack was stronger than either of us had ever led alone. The territory was secure. The future, on paper, looked stable.

But standing on that rise with Valdus beside me, watching the boy we had chosen walk away with his shoulders already set like someone who expected the world to challenge him, I felt the quiet, uneasy truth settle deeper.

Ekon was no longer only what we were making him.

He was becoming something of his own.

And neither of us could say yet whether that something would protect the pack we had built… or eventually try to take it.