TONIGHT I AM JUST JAKE, TOMORROW I WILL BE THEIR ALPHA.

JAKE'S POV

The night was alive with whispers.

The kind that crawl under the skin and settle in your bones—the murmurs of soldiers who’ve seen too much and slept too little. The air outside the war tent carried the stench of smoke, metal, and regret. Every gust of wind rattled the tent’s frame, echoing like the heartbeat of something ancient and wrathful.

I sat alone at the center table, the map stretched wide before me, edges weighed down by daggers. Candles burned low, their wax pooling like spilled marrow. Every shadow flickered against the parchment, shifting like ghosts of the men we’d lost.

Marcus stood by the entrance, arms folded, watching me in that quiet way of his—the way a man does when he knows words won’t reach you. He’d stopped trying to convince me hours ago, but his silence was heavy enough to do the job.

“You need to rest,” he finally muttered, voice rough from smoke and fatigue.

I didn’t look up. My eyes traced the red ink circling the east ridge. “Rest is for the l