Chapter 6 The Aftermath

By the time Jason made it back to the heart of the pack lands, the town itself had been transformed into a field hospital.

The streets were lined with makeshift cots, some real, some no more than folded blankets laid gently over patches of grass or dirt. Healers moved between them like dancers in a practiced rhythm, hands stained red, eyes sharp with focus. Supplies were scattered but organized: bowls of clean water, strips of cloth, salves, antiseptics.

The scent of blood and sweat hung thick in the air, but so too did something else: hope.

Wolves who had stood naked before the coming storm were now wrapped in fresh clothes handed out by volunteers. Warriors, bruised and battered, were helped onto benches, bandages winding around ribs, arms in slings, faces stitched with rough but careful hands.

Jason walked among them, his steps heavy not with pain, but with the weight of what they had survived. Of what they had lost.

And as he scanned the sea of weary faces, his eyes landed on a familiar shape.

Nathan.

His Beta was leaning back against the wall of a shop, eyes half closed, covered in bruises and mud. But it was Mia’s arms around him that caught Jason’s throat like a hook.

She sat on the bench beside him, one hand stroking his short brown hair, the other wrapped protectively across his chest. Her cheek rested against the top of his head. Nathan’s face, always hard, always in control, had softened into something raw, exposed only to her.

Jason stopped walking.

That strange ache in the hollow space behind his ribs, he never spoke of, twisted. His heartbeat was heavy with something both warm and cutting all at once.

One day, he thought. One day I’ll have that too.

As if summoned by his pain, the quiet shuffle of boots broke his thoughts. The Elders approached from the steps of the Pack House, five of them still standing, their eyes sharp, lined with the wisdom of lifetimes spent leading wolves through darkness.

“Alpha,” the eldest said, inclining his head. “A battle well fought.”

Another elder Liam, sharp with gray hair and sharper with judgment added, “More than that. You held them together. You led us when we doubted. And for that, we are grateful.”

Jason nodded once, grateful for the words, but his eyes never left the battered and bloodied streets beyond them.

“There’s still more to be done,” he said quietly.

Across the square, a few able-bodied wolves were lingering near the supply wagons, men too old, too injured, or too afraid to have joined the fight that morning.

Jason called them over with a flick of his fingers.

“Gather every able hand. The fallen are still out there. I want every one of ours brought home. And the rogues…”

He hesitated, then looked at the elders, then back to the men before him.

“Give them a proper burial, too.”

One of the younger wolves frowned, confused. “Alpha, they were rogues.”

“They were wolves once,” Jason said, voice low but unshaking. “Good or bad, somewhere along the way, they lost their path. That judgment belongs to the Moon Goddess, not to us.”

Silence followed. But no one argued.

Jason’s gaze swept the square again. He saw new bandages, fresh tears. He saw strength in the exhaustion of his people.

“Let’s get to work,” he murmured.

And with that, the Alpha turned back to his people not as a ruler demanding respect, but as a man carrying the weight of every life, lost or saved, as his responsibility alone.

Tomorrow, they would bury their dead.

Tomorrow, they would mourn.

But tonight… tonight, they survived.

The next few days blurred into one long, slow ache of rebuilding.

Funerals began at dawn the morning after the battle. Wolves lined the open fields in long, somber rows, thousands of them standing in human form as family members stepped forward to speak the names of their dead.

Only nineteen from the Moon Swept Pack had fallen.

Nineteen.

It was a number that hung in the air like a prayer, repeated in whispers from elders to pups, carried like a badge of honor across the town. Against an enemy five hundred strong… they had only lost nineteen.

But the enemy?

Three hundred and fifty one bodies were laid in the ground. The final count was confirmed by the retrieval teams Jason had sent out. The rest of the rogues, injured, broken, or simply terrified, had fled into the wilderness.

The pack built two burial grounds, one for their own, decorated with flowers and family tokens, polished stones marking names and memories. And further, near the edge of the pack lands, another marked not with beauty, but with respect nonetheless.

Jason stood over that second graveyard longer than most. His hands were clenched into fists, nails biting into his palms.

“They lost their way,” he murmured once, just loud enough for Nathan to hear beside him. “But they were wolves once.”

Nathan didn’t argue. He just nodded, eyes on the horizon.

A Moment of Reckoning

That evening, the Pack gathered once more in the great clearing at the heart of the town. Fires burned high, not for war this time but for warmth, remembrance, and renewal.

The Elders stood before the gathered wolves, their faces lined with exhaustion but lifted with something deeper: pride.

It was Elder Liam who stepped forward, speaking loud enough that even the smallest pups heard it clearly:

“We doubted.”

The words hung heavy in the warm, smoky air.

“We questioned whether an Alpha without his Luna could stand strong enough to carry us into the next age. And we were wrong.”

All eyes turned to Jason, standing barefoot on the earth, wearing no armor, no symbols of rank, just himself.

Elder Marnie, the oldest of them all, lifted her chin. “We followed your father. We followed your grandfather. Now we follow you, Jason of the Moon Swept Pack. Alpha by right. Alpha by strength. Alpha by wisdom. Luna or no Luna, you are our Alpha.”

The words spread like wildfire through the crowd, a ripple of acceptance, of loyalty. Wolves began to kneel, one after another, hands pressed to the dirt, heads bowed.

Even the smallest children followed suit, copying their parents.

Nathan stepped forward and placed his hand firmly on Jason’s shoulder.

“You earned this.”

For the first time since the battle began, Jason let himself breathe fully. The ache in his ribs flared, but it was almost welcome pain was proof of survival.

Above them, the full moon rose, silver and cold, illuminating the proud lines of wolves gathered in silent promise.

And stories began to spread, already reaching other packs through runners and distant kin:

The Moon Swept Pack still stood.

Not just stood, they dominated. The warrior pack of the south, the clever wolves of old, are still alive and led by a young Alpha without his Luna but with a strength few could deny.

This wasn’t the end.

It was the beginning of Jason’s true legend.