Chapter Ninety-one

Chapter Ninety-one
Chapter 91

Lia’s POV

The council did not wait long after my departure to bare their teeth.
I knew it the moment the summons reached me, no seal, no formality, just a clipped message delivered by a boy too frightened to meet my eyes. The Alpha’s condition, they said, required “immediate structural discussion.” I almost laughed. They couldn’t even pretend anymore.
The chamber felt different when I returned. Not colder, sharper. The kind of tension that hummed beneath the skin, vibrating through stone and bone alike. The elders were already seated, their heads bent together in low, urgent murmurs that stopped the instant I crossed the threshold.

They hadn’t expected me to come back.

One of them spoke first, voice measured but tight. “The pack could not afford uncertainty,” he said. An Alpha who could not stand before his people could not rule alone. Stability demands preparation.”
Another followed quickly, eager, his tone smoother. “The people needed a figure they could see, someone strong enough to lead hunts, preside over disputes, and command in battle if Edgar’s strength failed entirely.”

They spoke as though Edgar were already gone.

My fingers curled at my sides. I stayed silent, letting them talk, letting them reveal themselves.

The word came at last, dropped carefully into the center of the table like a blade laid flat. Co-Alpha.

The chamber stirred. Some nodded. Others hesitated, glancing toward the doors as though expecting Edgar to burst in and tear them apart for even considering it. But he didn’t come. And they knew it.

A co-Alpha would be chosen, they said. Someone to share the burden. Someone to act where Edgar could not. Someone acceptable to the pack.

Names began to surface, one by one, each spoken with calculated calm. Warriors with blood on their hands and ambition in their eyes. Elders’ sons. Loyalists who had waited years for a crack in the throne.

Every name felt like a theft.

I stepped forward before I realized I was moving.

The sound of my boots against the stone cut through the murmurs like a strike. Heads turned. Brows furrowed. Surprise flickered, then irritation.

One elder frowned openly. This session was not meant for me, he said. This was a leadership business.

I smiled then, slow and cold. “Leadership, I reminded him, was exactly why I was here.”

They tried to redirect the conversation, to talk around me instead of to me. I let them. I watched the way their gazes slid away, the way they avoided saying Edgar’s name directly, the way they spoke of the pack as though it were a thing to be owned.

When they paused at last, I spoke.

“If there was to be a co-Alpha, I said, then the choice was obvious.”

A ripple of confusion ran through them. Someone scoffed softly. Another leaned back, already shaking his head.

I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to.

“I would be the co-Alpha.”

The words landed heavy. For a heartbeat, no one laughed. Then the sound came, short, sharp, disbelieving.
A woman. An outsider. A mate. Pregnant, no less.
I let them say it all.
That I lacked the bloodline. That I had no training. That I was ruled by emotion, by attachment, by fear. That this was a council of elders and warriors, not a stage for sentiment.

When they finished, I met their eyes one by one.

“You speak of bloodlines,” I said, “but forget that Edgar’s blood runs in our child. You speak of strength as though it lives only in muscle and claws, yet you sit here plotting while your Alpha still breathes. You speak of tradition, but tradition did not save this pack when it was starving. Edgar did.”

A murmur rippled through them, less certain now.
I reminded them that no one knew Edgar’s will better than I did. That no one stood closer to him in this moment of weakness. That a co-Alpha was not meant to replace, but to protect, to preserve, to hold the line until the storm passed.
And if they feared my lack of claws, then they had already forgotten the meaning of power.
Power was not always loud. It did not always bleed.
Sometimes it endured.
An elder snapped that I was asking for too much. That I was overreaching. That the pack would never follow me.
I stepped closer to the table, palms flat against the stone, and leaned in.
“Then you underestimate your people,” I told him. “They have watched me stand beside Edgar while you hid behind votes and wine. They have watched me refuse to break when poison, betrayal, and fear circled our home. They have watched me walk into this chamber and speak truths none of you dared to voice.”

That was when Brie spoke.

She had been quiet far too long.
She said my courage was admirable, but reckless. That placing so much power in the hands of a mate blurred lines that should never be crossed. That emotion clouded judgment. That I would turn every decision into a personal war.
I met her gaze and held it.
“You fear me because you cannot control me, I said. And you cannot control Edgar through me. That is the truth you choke on.’

Her lips thinned, but she did not deny it.

I straightened, drawing a breath that felt like fire in my chest.
This was not a request, I told them. It was a declaration. They could argue titles, delay ceremonies, invent obstacles, but the pack would see me at Edgar’s side. They would hear my voice when he failed. They would know who stood between them and chaos.

And if they chose someone else, if they tried to crown a shadow in Edgar’s stead, then they would do so knowing they had declared themselves against the Alpha’s mate, against his heir, and against the will of the goddess who had not yet finished with him.

As I turned to leave, I added one last thing, letting it echo.
Every hour you delay, the pack watches. And they are already choosing.

I did not wait to see their faces as I left.