Chapter 6
Elias
The Watch briefing room was buzzing with activity. There was a table in the middle of the room with a worn paper map of England and Ireland. Half the chairs had been dragged into a rough circle, the rest abandoned in crooked rows like the last people in them had stood up and never come back.
They probably hadn’t.
The survivors of the Watch were there… what was left of them anyway.
Men and women pulled from the wreckage of the Isle of Man, patched together with hastily applied bandages and waning adrenaline.
Some stared at the map like it might explain how everything had gone so wrong. Others refused to look at it at all.
It was up to me to bring everyone left together.
The Elder Lycan had been killed and the rest of the lycans were gone. They’d retreated back to wherever they’d come from. Likely Ireland, but that was just a guess.
The British soldiers who had fought alongside the Watch had left too. They’d pulled out under cover of night, ships slipping away from the Isle’s coast before anyone could stop them. No farewell. No explanation. They’d just left.
Which left the rest of us.
Griff, Nox, Eamon, and Bishop all stood by the exit of the room, ready to handle things if shit went sideways.
“Let’s begin,” I said.
The words carried and the room quieted down almost immediately.
A man near the front shifted in his chair.
Captain Halden. He was gray at the temples, his left arm was in a sling, and his face was stitched up where a lycan had tried to take out his throat.
He’d been Watch leadership long before I joined up myself.
He stared at me like he was still deciding whether he was seeing a traitor or a miracle.
“You standing commander now?” Halden asked.
“I am,” I replied.
A harsh laugh came from someone behind him.
It was Commander Dane. He’d woken up sometime after the battle had ended and was none too pleased that I had taken command from him and led the Watch to victory without him.
“We’re just gonna let him stand there and pretend he’s commander now because he saved us from a pack of lycans?” Dane blurted out, his self-righteous anger clearly apparent.
Nox’s attention narrowed in on him. Bishop didn’t move at all, which somehow felt more threatening than any growl. Griff’s mouth tightened. Eamon just stood there and observed the room.
I didn’t rise to Dane’s bait.
“Call it what you want,” I said evenly. “But I’m the reason anyone in this room is still breathing.”
That earned a few murmurs, some resentful, some grudgingly grateful.
Dane leaned forward, eyes full of fury. “You’re also a wolf,” he spat, saying it like it was a dirty word.
The word landed in the middle of the room like a thrown knife.
For a moment, I let the silence hang. Let them sit with it. Then I took a deep breath and looked around the room.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m a wolf. If anyone has a problem with that, you can leave. Go to London or Ireland. I don’t care. Just go.”
A few hands drifted unconsciously toward sidearms on their hips. Another few stood and left. No one made any moves to stop them.
Halden raised his good hand. “Enough.” His gaze stayed on me as the room quieted again. “We did win the battle under your direction and we’re all grateful for that. The question we all have for you, Commander, is what do you intend to do now.”
I stepped closer to the center table, palms resting on its scarred surface.
“Now?” I echoed softly. “Now we work with the wolves.”
A woman near the back scoffed. Her name was Lieutenant Craven. She was young with angular features and eyes too bright with rage.
“So, what, we all hold hands with shifters and sing ‘Kumbaya’?” she snapped.
Bishop’s mouth twitched faintly, like he found that image amusing.
Griff didn’t.
I answered before either of them could. “No. We rebuild. We build something better,” I continued, voice calm. “We build a society that doesn’t start from fear. One that doesn’t throw people away because they were bitten. One that doesn’t make monsters by treating them like monsters.”
Dane barked a humorless laugh. “You’re talking about a fucking utopia.”
“Call it whatever you like,” I said. “But keep in mind, you’ve worked with me for years and had no idea I was a wolf.”
Eamon leaned forward slightly. His voice was calm, measured, the tone of a man used to consoling frightened people who didn’t know they were about to bleed out.
“The truth is this,” he spoke up. “The doctrine you’ve all been fed, that all wolves go feral, that all wolves must be eliminated… It’s just wrong.”
Several Watch members glanced at him, surprised to hear a civilian—worse, a former London physician—speaking like he belonged at the table.
Eamon didn’t flinch.
“This sort of lie keeps London’s population obedient,” he went on. “And it gives them a permanent enemy to point at whenever the citizens get restless.”
Craven’s eyes narrowed. “And you know this how?”
Eamon held her stare. “Because I used to live in London. Because I treated the people the city dragged in and called ‘contaminated.’ Because I watched children disappear and never come back.”
Halden looked down at his lap. “London is the problem then,” he murmured, as if saying it out loud hurt.
“Yes,” I said. “London is the problem.”
Halden slammed his palm on the table. “So, we take the fight to them.”
Nox laughed once, the sound quiet, dry, and utterly unimpressed.
Halden’s head jerked toward him. “What’s funny?”
Nox’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You.”
Halden flushed. “Excuse me?”
“You think you can march an army into London?” Nox asked mildly. “With what? Half a base, a handful of bullets, and righteous anger?”
“Better than lying down,” Halden snapped.
Griff’s voice cut in, rough as stone. “No one here is lying down.”
Dane cut in. “What are you doing then? Making speeches about co-existence and trying to turn us against our allies?”
Bishop finally spoke, his voice quiet. “London has guns. London has ships. London has the numbers.”
“It would be the right thing to do,” Halden spat.
“You have a broken arm,” Bishop stated simply.
Halden’s face darkened. “Careful, wolf.”
Bishop’s expression didn’t change. “I am being careful. That’s why I’m still alive.”
A few Watch members shifted uncomfortably. Some bristled. Others looked… thoughtful.
I exhaled slowly. “We can’t attack London directly.”
Halden’s nostrils flared. “So, we do nothing.”
“No,” I said, and let steel enter my voice. “We do what London has always feared.” I leaned over the map on the table and pressed my finger down directly on the city. “We take them down from the inside.”
The room went very still.
A woman with cropped hair and a medic’s badge spoke up quietly. Clara Hines. Her hands were stained with ink and iodine.
“What does ‘from the inside’ look like?” she asked.
“We use our networks, resources from both the Accord and the Watch,” Eamon said instantly. “Safehouses. Smuggling routes. We work our way in like an infection, slowly killing the city from the inside out.”
Nox’s voice was a lazy drawl. “And blackmail. Don’t forget about blackmail.”
Griff shot him a look. “We’re not building a better society by becoming London.”
Nox shrugged. “We’re not building anything if we’re dead.”
Dane stood abruptly, chair scraping harshly across the floor. “This is insane,” he snapped. “This is treason. This is—this is wolf propaganda.” His gaze swung to the others. “Anyone who stays here is betraying humanity.”
Several Watch members shifted, uneasy.
Two rose with him. One was a young man with a bandaged jaw. His name was Callan. The other was a woman, Mira, with a shaved head and hard eyes.
Halden’s voice was tired. “Dane, sit down.”
Dane’s face twisted. “No. I won’t sit down and listen to a wolf tell me how to live. I’m leaving.”
Callan and Mira moved toward the door along with him.
“Fine. Go then,” Nox said softly.
Dane paused, hand on the handle. “What?”
Nox tilted his head, the shadows making him look even more dangerous. “Go. If you can’t stomach the truth, leave. But don’t come back.”
Dane’s face went pale with rage. “You’ll regret this.”
Griff’s voice was low. “We already do.”
Dane slammed the door behind him, the sound echoing down the corridor.
The room sat in stunned silence for a few seconds after.
Some of the remaining Watch members looked sick. Others looked relieved. A few looked like they’d been waiting for someone else to make the choice first.
Clara, the medic, lifted her chin. “I’m staying.”
A young corporal beside her nodded. “Me too.”
I spoke softly then, not as an alpha, not as a wolf, just as a man who’d spent his life hiding in their ranks and was done pretending.
“You’re not being asked to love wolves,” I said. “You’re being asked to see reality. London’s taught you to hate because hate is easy to control. I’m asking you to help us fight back against them,” I said. “Help us prove to the world that wolves aren’t the enemy.”