Chapter 25

Wren

The rogue reports came up almost by accident, buried in the middle of Ashborne's border dispute presentation — a passing mention of increased incursions along three separate territorial lines, all bearing a mark none of the assembled delegates could immediately identify, though Wren's stomach had gone cold the instant the herald described it.

A crescent moon, inverted, burned into leather.

Ashenmoor.

"Nightshade's had six documented incursions bearing that mark in the past two years alone," Wren said, standing to address the hall before she'd fully decided to, aware of every eye in the room shifting toward her — including, unmistakably, Kade's. "We believed it to be a revived symbol from a pack destroyed forty years ago. Ashenmoor. If it's appearing on Ashborne and Ironfang's borders now as well, this isn't isolated incidents. This is coordinated, and it's spreading."

A ripple went through the assembled Alphas — Ashborne's representative, an older woman Wren didn't recognize, exchanging a sharp look with the delegate beside her; Rurik, across the circle, giving the smallest confirming nod, already three steps ahead in his own head the way he generally was; the fifth power's delegate leaning forward for the first time all afternoon, suddenly considerably more interested in a conversation he'd clearly been planning to sit out.

"Blackthorn's had incursions too," Kade said, and it was the first time Wren had heard his voice directly in five years, and it did something complicated and unwelcome to her chest that she refused, absolutely, to examine in front of three hundred witnesses. "Three this season. We hadn't connected them to a specific origin. If Nightshade's tracked this back to Ashenmoor specifically, that's more than we've managed."

"Ashenmoor was wiped out forty years ago," Ashborne's delegate said, frowning. "Thoroughly, from what the old records say. What exactly are we suggesting — that somebody's reviving a dead pack's symbol for sport?"

"We're suggesting," Rurik said, standing now himself, "that somebody's organizing rogue incursions across at least three territories using a deliberately chosen historical marker, which means it's either meant as a message, or a recruitment tool for wolves who remember what Ashenmoor used to represent. Neither one is good news, and neither one is something any single pack should be trying to handle alone."

The debate that followed took the better part of two hours — five packs' worth of pride and territorial caution slowing down what should have been an obvious decision, old rivalries and half-forgotten grudges surfacing in the particular way they always did whenever packs were asked to actually cooperate instead of simply coexisting. The fifth power's delegate argued, predictably, for staying uninvolved unless incursions crossed directly into their own territory. Ashborne pushed for a unified command structure under their own leadership, given they'd hosted and called the summit. It ended, eventually, exactly the way Wren had begun to suspect it would the moment she'd stood up to speak: a joint task force, drawing intelligence and resources from every affected pack, with Blackthorn and Nightshade named as co-leads, given that between them they held the largest borders and the most complete intelligence gathered so far — a decision that landed in the hall with a weight Wren suspected only she and Kade fully understood the true size of.

She didn't look at Kade when the decision was announced. She didn't need to. She could feel the weight of his attention regardless, steady and unmistakable, and she understood, with the particular clarity of someone whose entire adult life had been built on learning to read a room, that this was not a coincidence anyone in that hall had engineered. It was simply, maddeningly, the truth of the situation — their two packs held the relevant ground, whether either of them wanted to share it or not.

The summit broke for the evening shortly after, delegates dispersing to their respective quarters within the old hall's grounds, torches being lit along the corridors as the light outside began to fail, and Wren had barely made it three steps from the ceremonial circle before Kade fell into step beside her — close enough to speak privately, far enough to maintain the appearance of simple summit business to anyone watching.

"We should coordinate before tomorrow's session," he said. Formal. Controlled. Exactly the tone she'd have used herself, if their positions were reversed. "Compare intelligence. Figure out how the task force actually functions before we're standing in front of five packs pretending we've already worked out logistics we haven't."

"Fine." She kept walking, kept her own voice level, refusing to give him anything more than the situation required. "My second will bring our findings to your quarters within the hour."

"I'd rather hear it from you directly." He said it evenly, but something underneath it — old, familiar, unmistakable even after five years — pulled at her despite every instinct telling her not to let it. "If we're going to lead this together, Wren, I think we're going to need to actually talk to each other at some point. Might as well start now, while it's still just intelligence-sharing and not something harder."

She stopped walking. Made herself turn and look at him directly, fully, for the first time since crossing that hall floor — and found him watching her with an expression that had nothing careful left in it at all, five years of composure apparently exhausted somewhere between the summit floor and this quiet corridor.

"There's a difference," she said finally, quiet, "between talking to you about rogue incursions, and talking to you about anything else. I'm willing to do the first. I want to be very clear that the second isn't on the table. Not now. Maybe not ever."

Something crossed his face — not quite pain, not quite acceptance, something caught uncomfortably between both. "Understood."

"Good." She held his gaze a moment longer, testing her own resolve as much as his, and found it held. "My quarters. One hour. Bring whatever intelligence Blackthorn's gathered, and we'll see how much ground we actually have to cover before this task force has to answer to five packs tomorrow morning."

She turned and walked away before he could respond, before her own composure could find any more cracks to test, and it wasn't until she'd rounded the corridor's corner, fully out of his sight, that she allowed herself to stop, brace a hand against the old stone wall, and breathe like a woman who'd just survived something considerably more dangerous than a summit negotiation.

Sable found her there a few minutes later, having apparently guessed exactly where the conversation would leave her standing. "That bad?"

"That complicated." Wren pushed off the wall, forcing her spine straight again, forcing her breathing back into something steady. "We're co-leading a task force together. Starting tonight."

Sable's eyebrows climbed. "Together. As in, in a room, alone, comparing notes, together."

"It's intelligence-sharing, Sable."

"Sure it is." But there was no real bite in it, just quiet concern underneath the teasing, the same quiet concern that had gotten her out of bed and packed a bag five years ago without being asked. "You want me there? I can sit in the corner and glare at him the whole time if it'd help."

Wren managed something close to a real laugh, the tension in her chest easing fractionally at the offer. "Tempting. But no. I need to do this one myself."

"Okay." Sable studied her a moment longer, then reached out and squeezed her arm, the same gesture she'd used a hundred times over five years, steady and grounding and entirely without judgment. "One hour. If you're not back by then, I'm coming to find you, task force or no task force."

"Understood."

One hour. She had one hour to remember how to be in a room with Kade Voss and feel nothing but professional obligation.

She was fairly certain, standing there with her pulse still unsteady, that she was going to fail spectacularly at that particular assignment.