Lucien’s POV

    b+20 /bFree Coins

    The council chamber of Stormridge was heavy with voices, each Alpha speaking over the other, each park lord from the East straining to make his concern the loudest. The map stretched across the oak table was littered with markers–red for the West, blue for the North and South, green for us. And every time a red marker shifted, I felt the walls of the East close in tighter.

    The Western Pack had been nothing more than a distant power when I first took my throne. They kept to their mountains, traded when it pleased them, fought when it was in their favor. But five years had changed them. They were no longer content to remain a power in istion. They had devoured the trade routes, starved the South’s markets, crippled the North’s fleets. And now, with both North and South bloodied by theirst failed war, the West turned its eyes to us. To the East.

    To Stormridge.

    “Alpha Lucien.” Caelum’s voice cut through the din, clear and steady. He had been at my right hand long enough to know when I was drifting. “You asked about their tactics. Let me show you.”

    I inclined my head, forcing myself to focus.

    He spread a series of parchment sheets across the map–sketches, notes, reports written by spies who had barely escaped with their lives. “The Western Pack fights unlike the others. Brutal efficiency. They don’t waste motion, don’t waste energy. Their warriors are trained to break lines in one decisive strike. But what truly gives them their edge…” Caelum paused, his jaw tightening. “Is her.”

    My gaze sharpened. “The White Wolf.”

    Even the words left a raw ache in my chest.

    Caelum nodded grimly. “She leads the charge. Wherever she fights, the enemy falls. Her strikes are calcted–every blow meant to kill, not maim. Entire battalions have scattered at the mere sight of her shifting on the field. She is more than a warrior, Alpha. She is a symbol.”

    The council murmured uneasily at that. I said nothing, though my pulse was no longer steady.

    White Wolf. The title tasted like ash and longing on my tongue. For years, it had been Riley’s name–her curse, her gift, her fate. A rare creature, destined for greatness, and yet what had she been given? Chains. Scorn. A prison cell. She had been cast aside by the very pack that should have worshiped her.

    And I had not saved her.

    I closed my eyes, Riley’s face shing like lightning in memory. I had thought myself strong once, thought I could shield her from the cruelty of this world. Yet she had slipped through my grasp, bled and broken beneath the very moon that should have blessed her. When she died, the curse upon me shattered, and my wolf surged free again. But it was a hollow victory, bought with the price of my mate’s life.

    Perhaps Ebonw’s ruin had been justice. The Moon Goddess’s punishment for how we treated her chosen white wolf.

    I forced the thought away, jaw tightening. This was not the time to drown in grief.

    “Go on,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended.

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    Caelum’s hand hovered over a sketch. The drawing depicted a tall, lithe figure, d in dark armor, a wolf’s head mask obscuring her face. “She never removes it in public. No one has seen her true features. Only her form in battle–swift, unyielding, almost inhuman in grace. He flipped the parchment, revealing written records. “Her history is… nk. Nothing before three years ago. No birth pack. No family. No itrace/ii. /iShe simply appeared on the battlefield, and from that moment the West began its rise”

    My eyes lingered on the final page. A name was inked at the bottom.

    Aria.

    A simple name, almost too in for the legend she was bing. Yet my gaze refused to leave it Something about the curve of the letters made my chest tighten with uneasei. /i

    I exhaled slowly, steadying myself. Perhaps it was only because she was a White Wolf. The word alone cut too deep.

    “She is said to rival even an Alpha inbat,” Caelum added. “Some call her Aedric Stormbane’s sword. Others whisper she is his mate. Whatever the truth, she is dangerous.”

    My wolf stirred inside me, restless for the first time in years. The memory of Riley’s death had left him silent, dulled, chained in grief as I had been. But at the mention of this Aria, the beast within me wed to the surface, teeth bared, eager.

    A challenge. A mirror of what had been lost.

    I flexed my hands against the table until the wood creaked. “If she truly is the core of their strength, then to understand the West we must understand her. And if she bleeds, then so does Stormbane’s ambition.”

    The council exchanged wary nces.

    Caelum lowered his voice. “What do you intend, Alpha?”

    I leaned back in my chair, gaze hard on the map. “For five years, I have stood aside, guarding only my daughter, giving the world no more of my strength. But the time for istion is over. Stormridge will join the alliance. If the Westes for us, they will find we are not prey.”

    Relief rippled through the chamber, though unease still lingered in every pair of eyes.

    Caelum bowed his head, his expression grim. “Then we must prepare for war. The first strike should be a test at their borders. Nothingrge–just enough to measure their response. And perhaps…” His eyes flicked to mine, cautious. “Perhaps enough to draw the White Wolf herself.”

    I did not answer at once. My gaze had fallen back to that single word, inked in bold strokes on the page.

    Aria.

    I whispered it under my breath, tasting it like a question.

    Something about the name gnawed at me, as though the shadows of memory were stirring, restless and unsatisfied.

    Riley, my wolf growled inside me, her name a scar.

    But Riley was gone. And Aria.. Aria was real.

    I straightened, forcing all hesitation from my voice. Then it is decided. The alliance will move. We will strike the West’s bordends and see what manner of warrior this Aria truly is*

    A murmur of assent rose through the chamber. The strategy began to take shape troop numbers, routes, supplies. But my mind was no longer in the war room.

    It lingered on the face I had never seen, on the mask that hid her. On the possibility that somewhere in this world, a White Wolf yet lived, not cursed but revered.

    But my Riley, my white wolf, was gone.