Chapter Six

Tanner's POV

I scratched behind my left ear, staring fixedly at the polished mahogany grain of the dining table. The wood had a tiny knot in the center that looked vaguely like an angry bear. Focusing on the wood grain was infinitely better than looking up into the murderous eyes of my brothers, though it didn’t do much to block out the sound of their grating, incessant lecture.

"I thought it would help," I muttered, my voice echoing slightly in the vast, high-ceilinged dining hall.

"Help?!" Sky’s voice slammed through the quiet room like a thunderclap. He hit the edge of the table with his palm,not hard enough to break it, but hard enough to make the silver coffee pot rattle against the china. "Help, Tanner?! We have been crawling on our knees for six months trying to build an alliance with the Zuri clan, and you go and do this? To lions?! Do you have any idea how long pride-shifters hold a grudge?!"

"They don't just hold grudges, Sky, they preserve them like fine wine," River added smoothly from his position by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He sounded far calmer than Sky, but that was just River's way. His hands were tucked casually into his trousers, but the tension in his shoulders was locked tighter than a steel trap. "You know we already have a bad reputation as it is. We couldn't afford a single misstep, let alone a disaster."

I slumped deeper into my heavy oak chair, letting out a sharp, frustrated sigh. "They were insulting us! Their lead diplomat stood right in the center of our eastern border lodge, drank our ale, and basically told our patrol captains that the Dern Pack was being run by three headless pups playing with their father’s sword. What was I supposed to do, smile and hand him a pastry?"

"You were supposed to nod, nod and let Sky handle the negotiations like we agreed!" River snapped, turning around to face me. His hazel eyes narrowed. "Instead, you threw their prime warrior through a glass window and broke his collarbone."

"He gestured at my throat!" I growled, my wolf stirring beneath my skin, hot and defensive. "It was an implicit threat!"

"It was a pride gesture of dominance, you absolute idiot," Sky rasped, dragging a hand down his face. He looked exhausted. The dark circles under his golden-brown eyes had deepened over the last few weeks, the weight of our entire pack bearing down heavily on his shoulders.

I hated seeing him look like that, but I hated being treated like the resident screw-up even more.

Technically, I was the first-born of us triplets. By three whole minutes. In most shifter packs, that meant I should have inherited the Alpha prime title automatically,the eldest, the leader, the cornerstone. But nature had a twisted sense of humor. Where Sky had inherited our father’s cold, strategic mind and River had picked up our mother’s sharp, manipulative charm, I had inherited raw muscle, a short fuse and a habit of acting first and asking questions never.

It didn't take long after our parents died for the pack elders to informally crown Sky as the political head of the Dern Pack. I didn't mind the lack of paperwork,I hated politics anyway,but it meant I was constantly on the receiving end of their lectures. The first-born triplet, relegated to the role of the pack’s wild enforcer who couldn't be trusted in a room full of diplomats.

And right now, the entire shifter continent was watching us fail.

Nobody liked us much in the shifter world. That was the raw, ugly truth none of the pack bards ever put into songs. To the older, established packs, the three Alpha brothers of the Dern territory were looked at as a bunch of children playing with a crown they hadn't earned.

Our parents had died early,killed in a brutal border skirmish six years ago,leaving us with a fractured territory and a crown far too heavy for three teenage Alphas to carry. The surrounding wolf packs, the bear clans of the north, and the big cat prides of the southern plains were all ruled by elders who had held power for decades. They were seasoned, ruthless, and deeply cynical.

To make matters worse, our parents hadn't exactly been master diplomats during their reign. Like me, our father had believed in war over peace, blood over bargains. He had built the Dern Pack’s reputation on fear, isolation and brute force. When he died, he left us surrounded by neighbors who either hated us for past slaughters or despised us for our youth.

For the past three years, Sky had been desperately trying to reverse that legacy. He wanted peace. He wanted trade routes. He wanted an alliance with King Ralf of the Zuri clan,the most powerful lion pride on the continent,to secure our southern flank so we could focus on the rising aggressive movements coming from the Ash Pack to the north.

If King Ralf signed an alliance with us, the Ash Pack wouldn't dare strike. It would guarantee our pack’s survival for the next decade.

And I had just thrown King Ralf's nephew through a plate-glass window because he looked at me wrong.

"Ralf isn't going to pull out of the talks," I grumbled, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "Lions respect strength. If I let his nephew walk all over me in our own house, they would've thought we were weak."

"Lions respect profit and decorum," Sky corrected sharply, leaning both hands on the table and towering over me. "Ralf is an old cat. He views us as uncivilized hounds. You just proved his point. I have spent the last three hours sending hand-written formal apologies and offering concessions on the eastern timber rights just to keep his envoys from packing their bags and riding south!"

"Timber rights?" I sat up straight, my eyes widening in anger. "Sky, that’s our primary winter reserve! You're giving away our resources because some cat got a scratch on his shoulder?!"

"I am saving this pack from a two-front war!" Sky roared, his Alpha aura flaring so suddenly that the air in the room grew heavy, thick with the scent of crushed pine and dark earth.

River stepped between us, holding up his hands. His aura flared slightly to neutralize Sky’s, maintaining his role as the buffer. "Enough. Both of you. Screaming at each other isn't going to patch up the Zuri alliance, and it certainly isn't going to fix our main problem."

Sky let out a heavy breath, pulling back and smoothing down the front of his dark suit jacket. "River's right. The council is meeting at noon. We need a unified front. If the elders hear that the Zuri alliance is faltering, they’ll start pushing for immediate militarization along the Ash Pack border, and we don't have the funds for a full standing army right now."

"We're burning the candle at both ends," River said softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Chloe is upstairs pulling her hair out over these board exams, the baby hasn't stopped crying since four in the morning, Mrs. Gable is threatening to quit because the house staff is overwhelmed, and now this."

I opened my mouth to apologize,a rare, bitter pill for me to swallow,but before the words could clear my throat, a quiet sound echoed from the heavy double doors leading to the main corridor.

A knock.

It wasn't the sharp, authoritative rap of an Alpha guard, nor was it the heavy, hurried pound of Mrs. Gable. It was light. Hesitant. Almost absurdly gentle, as if whoever was standing on the other side was terrified that knocking too hard might break the wood.

Sky frowned, his dominant aura instantly pulling back into a tight, guarded coil. "Enter."

The massive oak door creaked open slowly, swinging inward just enough to let a slender figure step into the room.

The three of us stopped talking instantly.

A young man stood in the threshold, holding a silver tray loaded with fresh coffee, cream, and a stack of clean china cups. He was dressed in the simple, dark grey uniform of the estate's domestic staff, but the clothes hung loosely on his lean frame. His hair was a rich, soft shade of brown, curling slightly at the ends where it brushed against his nape. He kept his posture tight, his head lowered slightly in a posture of quiet deferential respect, but I could see his fingers gripping the edges of the silver tray so hard his knuckles had turned white.

The room fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

Sky stared at him, his brow furrowing in immediate, sharp confusion. As the Alpha prime of the estate, Sky knew every single face, guard, and servant who walked these halls. But he clearly had no idea who this boy was.

River tilted his head, his sharp hazel eyes scanning the newcomer from head to toe with immediate, predatory interest, his quiet charm instantly replaced by an intense, calculating gaze.

I sat frozen in my chair.

As the boy stepped further into the room, a faint, strange breeze drifted past him. My wolf,usually loud, angry and roaring for a fight, went entirely still. My nose twitched instinctively.

His scent was incredibly faint. Almost impossibly thin, like a whisper of dry linen washed in plain water. A Beta. A painfully quiet, fragile-looking Beta.

Yet, as he took another step forward, setting the tray down onto the side table with incredible, silent grace, my chest tightened with a sudden, unexplainable friction. There was something off. Something underneath that flat, dull scent that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

He didn't look at any of us directly. He kept his pale, elegant throat exposed, his brown eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

"Mrs. Gable sent the morning tea, my Lords," the boy said softly. His voice was smooth, carrying a strange, velvety warmth that seemed to slice clean through the heavy, hostile tension that had been choking the room only seconds before.

None of us spoke. None of us moved.

Sky, River and I just sat there, three dangerous Alphas in a room full of unresolved rage, staring intently at a complete stranger who had walked into the middle of our storm.

The boy froze under the crushing weight of our combined, silent stares, his breath catching visibly in his throat.