Chapter 23: A House Divided
Kade POV
Everything felt wrong. Even the packhouse, which had once felt safe, no longer felt that way. I felt it the moment I stepped into the main hall. It was like the walls had remembered a different Alpha and were practicing how to forget me. Voices dipped, then rose again in a pattern I didn’t recognize. Heads turned not to the door, not to me, but toward the far end of the room where Delia stood with a ledger and a pencil tucked behind her ear, smiling like order itself had chosen her mouth.
“Training will move to the west field,” she told a knot of young wolves. “The ground is firmer there. Fewer ankle sprains. Pair in threes. Rotate every ten,” they nodded like she had handed out bread. I waited for someone to look at me. But no one did.
“What happened to the south field?” I asked loudly. Delia glanced at me, but her smile didn’t falter.
“It’s flooded. I made the decision,” she said. Anger flooded throughout my entire body.
“I told you not to make any decisions without me,”
“Then you should have been here,” she shot make. I walked past her and the ledger, past the elders’ door and the long table scarred by generations of fists. The big windows threw pale winter light across the floorboards. Wolves filled the benches faster than I could blink. But when they sat, they angled themselves toward Delia, not me. Their bodies said who they thought would speak first. I did anyway.
“Let’s begin,” I said. “Patrol reports. River path first,” Silas stood.
“We had fresh prints by the low stones. Two sets. Light. Not ours,”
“Rogues?” I asked curiously, but he shook his head.
“It didn’t smell like rogues,”
“Then what?” I asked, but Silas glanced at Delia without meaning to. When he looked back, he kept his eyes on my shoulder instead of my face.
“Old. Like the scent had been asleep,” he said. Murmurs shifted through the hall. I lifted a hand, and the sound fell into itself.
“Double the river patrols at dusk,” I said. “Keep pairs tight. No one goes alone,” before anyone could acknowledge the order, Delia rested her palm on the ledger.
“We are already stretched thin,” she said.
“And the reason we are stretched thin is because you moved training and pulled from evening watch to make your market adjustments,” I said. Her eyes went sweet and cool.
“I did that because the market was a mess. We can’t have stalls blocking the emergency path,”
“Marnie’s stall has been in that spot for twenty years,”
“And she will be fine three feet to the left,” Delia said lightly. “We can’t run a pack on nostalgia,” a few wolves smiled into their hands. I picked one out, Jalen, young and hungry for whoever sounded most certain. My jaw tightened.
“Enough,” I said. “River patrols at dusk. East fence at dawn. South fence—”
“North,” Delia said, without looking up. “We have three families wintering in those cottages now. They need the extra watch,” I turned my head slowly.
“I didn’t ask for your input,”
“You didn’t have to,” she replied. “It’s my job to see where you won’t,” the words landed like a pebble in a bowl. Small. Loud. And of course, the wolves leaned in. I could have ignored it. I should have. Instead, the part of me that still bled every time someone said Luna shoved to the front.
“We are not moving the south fence watch,” I said. “We are not leaving that stretch blind because you want to show the cottages you can smile while you rearrange their firewood,” Delia’s smile didn’t move.
“South fence watch will rotate north, effective tonight,” she stated. A current passed through the room. Agreement. Relief. I stared at the elders along the wall, Rowan stone-still, Jones impassive, Thelma with her eyes somewhere I couldn’t see. None of them spoke. None of them stopped her.
“Sit down,” I told Delia.
“I’m standing,” she said.
“This is my meeting,”
“It’s our pack,” she countered, and the way she said our rewrote the furniture between us. “And they have been waiting for someone to make decisions that make sense,” I didn’t feel the first thread snap, but I heard the second one go. It sounded like a laugh choked back too late.
“You want to lead the watch yourself?” I asked softly. “You want to walk the line where something is moving under the trees and watch it move closer while you tell boys like Jalen how brave they look?” Delia’s lashes lowered, a slow blink that pretended patience.
“I want a pack that trusts its leadership. All of it,”
“Then stop cutting my orders in half in front of them.” I turned to the bench. “South stays south. North gets a third watch pulled from the center lanes. Market stalls go back to last month’s map until patrols stabilize. Marnie keeps her corner,” Delia shut the ledger. The pencil made a crisp sound against wood.
“As Luna,” she said, “I just announced the new patrol structure and the new map. If the Alpha has amendments, the Luna will hear them privately and decide which to support publicly,” she had clearly been practicing that sentence. The elders didn’t blink. Rowan’s throat shifted once. Jones’s fingers tapped the bench in a rhythm I wanted to snap. Thelma looked at me, and I couldn’t read her. The hall waited. My wolf paced. Kay didn’t care about ledgers or benches. Kay wanted the old order where my voice meant move.
“Fine,” I said, too evenly. “Privately,” everyone in the hall exhaled and then inhaled again when Delia kept going.
“Before we move on,” she said. “Rations. We are cutting sweet grain by a quarter for the next two weeks. Hunters will mark all game trails on the map in the lodge. And the curfew stands,” heads turned again. I hadn’t set a curfew. Delia had, two nights ago, when I was in the forest looking for Sasha, like a man trying to unbreak a glass.
“Who gave you the authority to set a curfew?” I asked.
“You did,” she said. Her tone was gentle. A teacher with a good student. “When you chose me,” the room tilted a degree to the left. Old wolves kept their faces still. Young ones didn’t bother. I could have blown the meeting up. Shouted. Slammed. Threw the ledger into the fire and watched paper curl. But the fastest way to look weak is to show everyone how hard you are trying not to. I swallowed it. The whole thing. Like a stone, I had to pretend it was bread.
“Notes,” I said to Rowan. “Make sure the changes are recorded,” Rowan hesitated a heartbeat that was too long.
“Of course, Alpha,”