Chapter 4 Pack Pressure

When truth gnaws at tradition, the pack has to choose to follow or to survive.

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Morning broke on Lupinara, hard and tight, like dry bark cracking under foot. What was done in the caves already spread-quicker than fire. Kael's rage wasn't a storm; it was a warning. The old ways were shaking in their foundations.

I sat outside my cabin, honing a knife I hadn't touched in moons. Elipha stood in the doorway behind me, shirt stuck to him, soaked with sweat from another night of no rest. Neither of us said anything. What was there to say? Words were like feathers in a storm-useless, blown and scattered.

The sudden, deafening crash on the gate broke the silence in two. I stood as Rynn, my second-my cousin-appeared, teeth clenched.

"They've summoned you to Council," she stated, face set. "Kael demands answers. The elders demand obedience."

I settled the blade in its sheath. "And what do you demand?"

Rynn's eyes moved to Elipha, and back to me. "Honesty. Before someone does it for us."

---

The Council ring was sliced into the Lupinara rock marrow, where justice dangled over any blade. I stayed at its center, unbowed but alone. Kael stood above the Alpha's throne, faceless.

Elder Morien lifted a gnarled hand. "Coci Flameleaf, do you not admit that you allowed a stranger-one who arrived from the Flame Baths-onto sacred land without leave?"

"I do not," I replied, voice steady.

"And do you confirm he bears the Flamebound Sigil?"

"I do."

Whispers gasped like wind through dry leaves.

Slow and deliberate, Kael rose to his feet. "And you failed to report this to your Alpha. Your fiancé."

I stood my ground, meeting his gaze as a collision of stone and metal. "First and above all, I serve truth. Not pride."

He took another step forward. "You'd risk your whole world for a stranger?"

Elipha stepped forward. "I am not a stranger. I am the prophecy that you would have hidden."

Kael whipped around at him, anger twisting each muscle. "You think being burned alive at death constitutes you being one of us?"

I placed myself between him and Kael, palm against Kael's chest. "He knows things that you'll never comprehend. He does not seek power-he seeks a purpose."

Kael's face went icy. "He risks the bloodline."

"The bloodline must be shaken," Elder Mitha cut in. "Or we'll die clinging to it."

The crowd had reacted with anger.

---

Outside the Council ring, the pack walked in restlessness. The young wolves spoke of revolution, futures of freedom. The elders stood stiff with duty and law, choking on convention.

Wrenna walked in the outer air, fury boiling within her.

"She's stirring them against Kael," she spat at Morric.

"She's promising them hope," he growled.

"She's bringing them to him."

Her eyes narrowed, fixed on Elipha kneeling over a wounded cub beside the healer's hut. Mercy was a bad thing in his hands.

"She doesn't know it," Wrenna growled. "But she's making her own pack."

"She's going to get him killed."

Wrenna's grin was a flash of fang. "Not if I kill him first."

---

Later on, we sneaked into the glen of whispers-our haven. Elipha sat under the ancient tree, his eyes watchful as sunbeams filtered through its leaves.

"They'll never take me in," he whispered.

"They don't need to," I said. "Just you and I do."

"Then why do their eyes cut like a knife?"

I took his hand. "Because change hurts before it opens."

He looked at our fingers, knuckled, locked.

"I'd like to protect you, Coci. But I don't even know that I exist."

"Then we'll see. Together."

He hesitated. "Kael won't let up. He's falling apart."

I nodded, quiet and certain. "That's why we have to be prepared."

---

That evening, Kael stood alone upon the Ridge of Bloodroot. I concealed myself among the trees, covered by shadows. He looked down at the valley, the village shining like a mound of coals.

I could feel it-his sorrow, his pride, his anger. All of them twisting up into something bitter and unforgiving.

He descended to the old fire and placed his hand upon it. I watched the flames leap up and then dwindle back-warning him. Denying him.

He did not stir. He did not cry.

He snarled.

"No," he growled. "I will not give in."

And then he was gone into darkness. I could feel it like a thrum beneath my skin-Kael was no longer furious.

He was changing something else.

---

And at the healer's hut, meanwhile, Elipha gritted teeth as Elder Mitha ran fingers over the burn along the shoulder.

"It's healing," she gasped. "But not as any wound from human."

He nodded with purpose. "Because I am not so human, am I?"

She looked at him. "No. You're in-between. And those... those are the most dangerous of all."

He exhaled. "Do you really think the prophecy?"

"I think the world doesn't always make sense. But sometimes someone arrives to make it so."

"And if I don't succeed?"

"Then we burn all."

---

Later that evening, I had discovered my uncle by the fire-an elder who had said nothing at the Council.

"You said nothing," I said to him.

"I was watching."

I narrowed my eyes. "And what do you see?"

"A storm. And a choice. You can rescue Elipha, or lead the pack. You might not get to do both."

I gazed into the flames. The fire gave no answers. Only further questions.

"Then we remake the rules."

His eyes flashed into mine, soft and heavy with history. "Just don't forget: wolves remember. Even when they forgive."

But Kael's eyes were no longer human eyes.

And his claws were extended.

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