The Pack's Unease Part 1

Kieran -

The sound of claws on stone echoed across the training yard as two of my younger wolves circled each other, muscles coiled for the next strike. Sweat beaded on their foreheads despite the autumn chill, and their breathing came in short bursts that misted in the cold air. They were pushing themselves harder than usual—a sign of restlessness that had been building in the pack for days.

Since she arrived.

I stood at the edge of the yard, arms crossed, watching the sparring match with the kind of focused attention that twenty-seven years of leadership had taught me to maintain. But my mind was elsewhere, cataloguing tensions I could feel building like pressure before a storm.

Marcus—barely twenty and still prone to letting emotion override strategy—feinted left before driving his shoulder into his opponent's ribs. The impact sent both wolves tumbling across the stone, and I caught the scent of blood where someone's claws had found purchase.

"Enough," I called, stepping forward before the match could escalate beyond training into something more serious. "That's sufficient for today."

Both young men rolled apart, panting, their human forms streaked with dirt and minor cuts. But it was the way they looked at me—wary, resentful, like children caught misbehaving—that told me the real source of their agitation.

They're spoiling for a fight, I realized. And since they can't fight what's really bothering them, they're taking it out on each other.

"Clean yourselves up," I ordered, my voice carrying the kind of authority that brooked no argument. "Report to Lucas for patrol assignments."

Marcus wiped blood from his lip with the back of his hand, his gaze fixed somewhere over my left shoulder. "Yes, Alpha."

Alpha. The title that should have carried respect, submission, unquestioning loyalty. Instead, it sounded grudging, forced—compliance given because it was required, not because it was felt.

They're questioning my leadership.

The realization hit like a physical blow, though I was careful not to let it show. In forty years of ruling this pack, I'd never faced serious challenges to my authority. Oh, there had been the occasional young wolf who needed to be reminded of his place, the rare moment of tension when resources were scarce or territory was threatened. But nothing like this.

Nothing like the careful distance I'd been sensing from my own people for the past three days.

Three days since Catherine arrived.

As the sparring partners gathered their gear and headed toward the castle, I caught fragments of conversation that made my wolf bristle with protective fury.

"...don't understand why she has to be here..."

"...humans always bring trouble..."

"...should have sent her back where she came from..."

Sent her back. The words hit me like claws raking across exposed skin. The thought of Catherine leaving—of loading her into a carriage and watching her disappear down that forest path—made something primal and possessive surge in my chest.

No. The wolf's response was immediate, absolute. She stays. She's ours.

But the man in me understood the pack's concerns, even as I rejected them. Humans did bring complications. They asked questions that couldn't be answered, made observations that revealed too much, operated by moral codes that rarely aligned with supernatural necessities.

And Catherine is more observant than most.

I'd seen it in the way she'd studied the castle during her tour, the careful attention she'd paid to details that less intelligent guests might have overlooked. Louis and William had reported her interest in the secured corridors, her questions about the estate's history, the way she'd catalogued information with the precision of someone who planned to use it.

She's going to be trouble, my rational mind acknowledged. For the pack, for the secrecy we depend on, for the carefully maintained balance that keeps us all safe.

But trouble felt like an inadequate word for what Catherine Montgomery represented. Because whatever complications her presence might create, the alternative—a future without her—was unthinkable.

"The lads are restless."

Finn's voice cut through my brooding, and I turned to find my oldest packmate approaching across the training yard. At sixty-three, he was one of the few wolves who'd served my father before me, who remembered the estate during more stable times.

"They have reason to be," I said carefully. "Change is always difficult."

Change. Such a mild word for the upheaval Catherine's arrival had created. Not just in the castle's routines, but in the fundamental dynamic of a pack that had grown accustomed to isolation.

Finn's weathered face creased into what might have been sympathy or concern. "They're worried about exposure. About what happens when she starts asking questions we can't answer."

Questions like why the servants all have eyes that flash gold in certain light. Why there are claw marks on doors that should be beyond the reach of any natural animal. Why the lord of the castle disappears for three days every month and returns with blood under his fingernails.

"She won't," I said, though my confidence felt fragile. "She'll be managed."

Managed. Another euphemism for control, containment, the careful manipulation of someone who didn't understand the true nature of what surrounded her.