Chapter 8 #2
“I’m not accusing the council itself,” she says, reading the room’s reaction.
“I don’t have proof of that. What I have is a pattern: information that only someone with access to inter-pack communications could have obtained, distributed through channels that are designed to look like routine pack intelligence sharing.
Someone is hiding inside the system. Using the legitimate communication infrastructure to move stolen intelligence to hostile actors. ”
“Someone on the council,” Willow says. Not a question.
“Someone with access to council-level communications,” Brenna corrects. “That could be a council member. An aide. A pack alpha who sits in the outer circle of council business. I don’t know yet.”
She’s being careful. Precise. Laying out what she knows without reaching beyond the evidence.
It’s the right approach, and it tells me something important: whatever Brenna’s become, she hasn’t lost her discipline.
She could name suspects, throw accusations, whip this room into a fury. She’s choosing not to.
I think about the outrage I’ve faced from the wolves who’ve been reaching out to me since we got here. The bristling demands that I’ve studiously ignored.
The council is pissed. But does it go beyond that?
I don’t say anything. Not yet. I don’t have proof of anything. Just a feeling that’s been growing since I read those messages, and feelings aren’t evidence.
“What do you need from us?” Greta asks. Direct as always.
Brenna looks at the old woman, and for the first time since she walked into this room, something softens in her face. Not much. A fraction. Enough that I see the woman underneath the operative.
“I need time. A few days to consolidate the intelligence I’ve gathered and share it with people who can act on it.
I need your scout,” still not looking at me, “to help me map the active surveillance positions so we can establish a proper early warning system. And I need everyone in this room to understand that the attack today was not the last one. It was a probe. They’re testing the ranch’s defenses.
When they come back, it’ll be with more wolves and a real plan. ”
“And the families?” Arlen asks. “The ones still scattered?”
Brenna swallows hard. “I relocated three groups. Two are safe—hidden, off-grid, in places even the network hasn’t got to. The third…” She pauses. “I lost contact with the third group four months ago. A family in eastern Texas. I’ve been trying to re-establish communication.”
The silence that follows is the kind that has weight.
“We’ll find them,” Willow says. Quiet. Fierce.
Brenna looks at her niece. Nods once.
The briefing breaks apart after that. Wolves disperse in clusters, talking low, processing.
Cameron stays on the stairs, watching his mother with that intense, unblinking focus.
Willow pulls Brenna aside, and they have a conversation I can’t hear; short, sharp, both of them leaning in with the intensity of family members who are three sentences away from either embracing or throwing punches.
I stay by the door. Rook materializes at my shoulder.
“Council-level leak,” he says. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking a lot of things.”
“That there’s a mole? Or worse, a traitor at the top?” He focuses on me.
“That’s one of the things I’m thinking.”
“Want me to pull the communication logs from Frostbourne? See who contacted who after we left?”
“Yeah. Quietly.”
Rook nods and slips out. That’s why he’s my second. I don’t have to draw him a map.
The room empties. Greta goes to the kitchen. Cameron finally stands and follows his mother and Willow into the back of the house. He hasn’t let his mother out of his sight since her return.
I’m the last one in the room. Sitting in a borrowed chair in a house that isn’t mine, listening to the floorboards creak overhead where a woman I once loved is putting her family back together.
My back throbs. My leg aches. I’m wearing a filthy shirt, and I smell like blood and antiseptic and the brand of exhaustion that comes from having the ground shift under your feet and not knowing where it’s going to settle.
She’s alive. She’s been running a one-woman intelligence operation across four states. She knows about a leak, a surveillance network, the systematic targeting of her people. She came back, not because of me, but because the situation demanded it.
And she looked through me like I was furniture.
Don’t be a dick, Rourke. Why would she come back for you?
I sit in the empty room for a long time. The house settles around me. Through the window, I can see Dane’s silhouette by the barn guarding the prisoners. The evening star is out.
And I think about the wasted years. Years of carrying the weight of a woman I knew I’d failed, telling myself if I’d been braver, if I’d fought harder, if I’d turned my back on the council and their fucking ideals…
She’s alive. And she doesn’t need my remorse. Doesn’t want it. Looked at me like a complication to be managed rather than a man she once had feelings for.
Maybe that’s what I am. Maybe that’s what I earned.
I shake my head, dismissing the unwanted emotions that walk beside all of these notions. Then I get up, because there’s work to do, and sitting here feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to keep anyone alive.
I walk out the door. And put thoughts of Brenna Corvus behind me. Where they belong.