INICIAR SESIÓNNia said Grey pups need a Grey shower."What does that even mean?" Vex asked, holding a pile of blankets he stole from somewhere."It means we don't do pink and blue," Nia said, thumping her staff. "We do white, black, grey, and gold. Balance."PackHouse had never been decorated before. War doesn't need decorations.Now it had everything.Maya strung white lights across the kitchen. Luna and Aria painted a banner that said WELCOME TINY JUDGES in crooked black letters. Number 2 made a cake that was grey on the outside and white and black swirled inside when you cut it. He cried when it worked.And in the middle of the living room, the blanket nest was bigger than ever. Elara and Hope had been working on it for a week, making it pup-safe. Extra soft. No hard toys.I sat in it, week 16 now, showing just enough that Kai kept staring at it like it might disappear if he blinked."Stop staring," I whispered to him."Can't," he whispered back, hand on it, gold mark warm. "There are two in the
One month after war.PackHouse had a garden now.Not Nia's herb garden. A real one. With carrots. Because Hope said she wanted to grow the soup herself and not just cut it.Elara and Hope worked it every morning, white marks with grey edges glinting in the sun. Two Whites who were not just Whites anymore. Caelum called them Grey-Whites and then laughed for an hour when Elara said that sounded like a kind of mushroom.I was in the garden too, but not working.Sitting. Because Nia said sitting is working when you are growing a pack inside your pack.Kai knelt in the dirt in front of me, his hands big on my knees, gold eyes not Alpha now, just... dad."Anything?" he whispered, for the third time that morning."Kai, it's week 10, you won't feel—"And then it happened.Not a kick. A flutter. Like a tiny grey wing inside me. Like Lira's heart when I first split it.My grey mark flared. Not bright. Warm.Kai's eyes went wide. Gold light from his mark mixing with my grey, right over my stomac
The war was over for 3 days and PackHouse didn't know how to be quiet.No alarms. No silver chains. No grey beams.Just... dishes. Too many dishes.Maya was in the kitchen trying to teach Hope how to make soup, and Hope kept putting the carrots in whole because she never learned how to cut."Like this, little White," Maya said gently, showing her.Hope's white mark with the tiny grey edge pulsed when she held the knife right. "Like this?""Perfect. Pack chef now."In the living room, Elara had built a nest. Not a wolf nest. A blanket nest. With all 30 little ones from the root cellar plus Pip plus Sparrow all inside it. She was in the middle reading from Nia's old book, the one about Lira, but changing the ending."And then Lira didn't become the sky because she was sad," Elara read, serious. "She became the sky because she wanted to watch all her sisters at once. And now she has two new sisters, so she is extra happy."Hope, from the kitchen, shouted, "THREE SISTERS!"Elara giggled.
We didn't have 24 hours.We had 6.The Maw didn't wait. The sky over Blackridge went grey again at noon. Not beam-grey. Hungry-grey. Like the clouds were teeth.Hope started bleeding from her white mark. Just a little. Elara screamed and grabbed her wrist — her own white mark started bleeding too."They're linked," Nia shouted, pressing her staff to both girls. White light, but it bounced off. "Altar 3 is pulling them! It's calling the pure Whites to be eaten!"Caelum shifted to white wolf, roaring at the sky. "He is eating the moonlight! If he eats a White, he becomes what Lira was before she became sky!"Kai looked at me. Gold eyes, calm, Alpha calm."Plan?" he said."Same as 64," I said. My grey mark, which had been swirling all morning, finally went still again. Because I knew. "We don't go to Altar 3. We make Altar 3 come to us.""What?" Vex, from the truck, holding Kovac's chains."The Maw wants Whites. He wants moonlight. So we give him moonlight he can't eat. We give him Grey.
We didn't burn Altar 2.We buried it.Fifty wolves, pushing snow and ice with their noses, their paws, until the pit was just a hill again. Caelum stood in his white wolf form on top of it, his new white mark blazing, and howled. Not a pack howl. A mourning howl. For all the Number 12s before Hope that didn't make it.Hope didn't let go of my hand the whole time. 11 years old, white hair like Elara's, but her white mark was on her wrist, not her neck. Small. Like a bracelet. She kept touching it, like she couldn't believe it was clean again."Is it going to crack again?" she whispered to me as we walked back to Vex's truck. Vex had tied Kovac up with his own silver chains and thrown him in the truck bed like a sack of potatoes. "My mark?""No," I said, and squeezed her hand. My grey mark was quiet, tired, but warm where she held me. "Not while I'm here. White stays white when pack protects it. That's the rule now. I made it a rule."Kai walked on her other side, huge black wolf, letti
We ran for 4 hours.Fifty wolves, two marked ones on four legs — me grey, Caelum white — and one human in a truck trying to keep up because Vex refused to shift."My knees! My beautiful knees!" he kept shouting over the CB radio Maya taped to his dashboard.North. Always north. The air got colder, the trees thinner, until there were no trees at all. Just snow, ice, and rock that looked like teeth.The map said Altar 2 was in the cave where Viktor found Caelum. Nia had been there 20 years ago. She said it was a burial cave. White walls, white floor, white so pure it hurt to look at.Now it glowed grey on the horizon. Like our old crater, but bigger."Kovac beat us to activating it," Caelum said in my head. His white wolf was huge, scarred, but fast. White fur turning grey at the tips from running so hard. "I can feel it. Altar 2 is awake. It's calling Whites.""Elara?" I gasped, still clinging to Kai's black fur. Kai was breathing hard but steady under me. Alpha stamina."Elara is safe







