Chapter 14

Chapter 14 – Whispers in the Council

The council chamber smelled of smoke and cedar, the long table scarred by years of claws and tempers. Torches guttered in iron sconces, throwing the elders’ faces into shifting relief: ridges of age, hard mouths, eyes that had learned to read a season’s worth of betrayals in a single glance. Outside, the packhouse settled into the slow, restless breathing of a community that had weathered storms and still worried at every unfamiliar sound.

Rowan sat at the far end of the table, arms folded, jaw set like granite. He watched the Alpha’s empty chair as if Kael’s absence were an insult spat in the middle of the floor. Kael had not come. Not tonight. That fact, simple and blunt, rankled him more than the burns on his ribs from the last skirmish or the damp that clung to the stones. In Rowan’s opinion, leadership meant being present when the pack needed you. Leaving questions unanswered was a kind of negligence.

“She is not one of us,” Elder Moric said, his voice a rumble that filled the chamber. The old warrior’s beard shivered as he leaned forward, knuckles white where they gripped the grain of the table. “Yet he lets her walk our halls as if she belongs.”

A ripple of agreement passed around the room, small and cautious like a pack testing a scent. Some of the elders—those whose faces were mapped with deeper lines and sharper scars—kept their mouths shut. They had seen too much to speak hastily. Others nodded, their eyes shadowed with the memory of the rogue attack and the warriors they had lost.

“She has already begun to poison him,” murmured Elder Tarn, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “Since her arrival, Kael is distracted. We lost warriors in that breach—our Alpha nearly died—and still he keeps the girl at his side.”

Rowan’s irritation flamed into something hotter. He had no taste for careful wording. “You are all too cautious. She is not simply a distraction—she is a danger.” He leaned forward, letting his voice carry into the silence. “I’ve watched her when she thinks no one is looking. There are things in the way she moves, the way she listens, that do not belong to a human raised among our people. Something festers in her. Something she hides.”

Elder Nira’s eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, narrowed. She had been Kael’s mentor once, had taught him patience and how to weigh a man’s words against his deeds. “You think she works with Lucien?” she asked, not unkindly. It was a dangerous thing to name for certain, to set a scent on the wind where it had only been a whisper.

“I do not know if she is willing,” Rowan said. “But Lucien’s interest is no accident. He circles her like a wolf circles prey that belongs to him. He would not waste his attention unless there was something to be taken.” He let the accusation hang between them, tasting its weight. “And Kael is too blind to see it.”

A low murmur rose and fell. Some elders’ faces hardened; others looked away. They had plenty of reason to be wary. For generations the pack had guarded its lineages like sacred oaths—blood carried memory, and memory could be weaponized. A foreign blood, unknown and potent, could be a doorway to ruin. A single wrong favor, a single misstep, and the pack could find itself unmade from within.

Elder Moric’s fist slammed onto the table. The sound was a drumbeat that stilled the room. “Then what do you propose, Rowan?” His question was not harsh; it was the practical demand of an elder who had seen rumors start fires.

Rowan’s eyes glittered in the torchlight. “We watch her. Every step.” He named it plainly, as though it were the simplest of tactics. “We set guardians in the places she frequents. We post scouts where the archives meet the corridors. We listen for the small things—words half-spoken, visitors at odd hours, scents that do not belong.” He made a slow sweep with his hand, as if painting the plan into the air. “When she slips, we act. Quietly. For the good of the pack.”

An exchange of looks moved across the table. Surveillance of a pack member was not a measure they took lightly. It was a breach of trust, and Kael’s name hung in the balance; to spy on someone under the Alpha’s protection bordered on treason. Yet the memory of the rogue attack hardened their resolve. Better to be wrong and have peace than to have been right and have blood on their hands.

Elder Lysa, who had spent her life at the borders planting listening posts and reading the signs of wandering packs, spoke next, voice low and gravelly. “We’ll use what we have. Trusted watchers—those whose loyalty to the pack is beyond question. Not open confrontation. Not yet. We gather proof. If there is treason, it must be undeniable.” She paused. “Rowan, you will oversee this.”

Rowan’s chest swelled. The elders’ assent was the small victory he had wanted; it was also the first splintering of Kael’s authority he’d dared to imagine. He kept his face calm. “I will choose the watchers carefully,” he said. “They will report to me only. No rumors, no whispers. Just facts.”

Elder Nira’s mouth thinned. “And if you find nothing?”

Rowan answered without hesitation. “Then nothing becomes known. The pack will be safe, and we will have done our duty. But if I am right—” He let the silence speak the rest. If he was right, they needed to be ready to move fast enough to cut the rot at its root.

They argued the particulars—who was loyal enough, which routes to watch, how to avoid tipping Kael’s hand. Names were passed in murmurs: Joren, who kept to the perimeter and had eyes like a fox; Mira, who dealt with the healing and heard everything in the infirmary; Talan, a tracker who moved like a shadow. Those chosen would be whispered to, not called to the table. They would watch without appearing to watch. They would gather small threads until a pattern emerged.

As plans were sketched and nods traded, Rowan allowed something he rarely permitted himself: the taste of triumph. Kael’s absence gnawed at him still, but now there was a path forward. The Alpha could not be everywhere at once. And while Kael stewed in whatever business had pulled him away—reconciling with allies, mending wounds, or perhaps letting his heart rule where his pack needed iron—Rowan would lay the first stones of what might become his reckoning.

When the elders’ meeting finally broke, they left in pairs, lingering to trade thoughts in the corridor’s dim light. The torches guttered lower, and with each elder that stepped into the hall, the chamber seemed to close a little tighter around Rowan and his new plan.

He remained a moment longer, hands flat on the scarred table. The wood had seen more betrayals than he'd had years. It had held the weight of decisions that cost lives. He drew in a long, steadying breath and let the torchlight paint his face in amber and shadow.

She will hang herself with her own secrets, he thought, the sentence a quiet benediction. And when she does—when the blood on her hands is visible to even the most blind—Rowan told himself he would be ready. For the pack. For order. For the Alpha who sat empty in his chair.

Outside, the packhouse breathed on, unaware that the first careful threads of treachery had been laid across its heart.