Chapter 43-Room to Grow

Zion’s POV

  Orian spread three maps across my desk before the morning council had cleared the room. Red circles enclosed established packs, blue lines followed roads and rivers, and black squares marked settlements that might be rebuilt. The unclaimed spaces looked generous until we measured what a new pack would need.

  Sam’s sealed departure notice rested beneath the corner of the western map. His team had finally left Edric’s territory, although weather and the longer route kept him from promising an arrival date. Knowing he was moving south eased one concern without changing the work waiting in front of me.

  “The western tract is large enough, but the nearest healer is almost a day away during winter,” Orian explained.

  “The eastern tract is closer to the Academy and two trade roads,” I replied while studying its boundary.

  “It is also close enough that you could stand on the castle roof and supervise breakfast,” Orian warned.

  I looked at Orian until he stopped smiling. The eastern tract lay beyond our patrol routes, but our watchtower could reach it by mindlink. I had been thinking of that as a benefit. His expression made me wonder how Odett would see it.

  Ryker shifted beneath my skin with quiet agreement. He wanted Odett protected, surrounded, and close enough for us to answer before any danger reached her. Wolves rarely saw a problem with keeping family within calling distance.

  “She said she wanted a new pack, not another section of ours,” Orian reminded me with measured patience.

  “I know what she said,” I answered more sharply than I intended.

  The words brought Selena’s message back into the room. Odett had not accepted a crown, claimed a territory, or asked us to build anything. She had admitted that becoming an Alpha still felt right, and I had promised that the path belonged to her.

  I had promised Odett the choice was hers. Now maps of wells, roads, and defensible ground covered my desk without her knowing they existed. I called it preparation, though I had already begun rejecting land on her behalf.

  Orian pulled a separate folder from beneath the land surveys. Reports had arrived from seven packs over the previous month, each written through ordinary diplomatic channels rather than Sam’s investigation. None described an attack.

  The first concerned a sixteen-year-old wolf whose healing changed after a dormant witch line awakened. The second described two adult siblings with vampire ancestry their family had concealed for decades. Other reports named children showing abilities that did not match the species recorded at birth.

  “How many are confirmed?” I asked.

  “Seven confirmed individuals across seven packs, with two more awaiting evaluation,” Orian answered carefully. “Four are minors, three are adults, and two reports are still waiting for a qualified healer.”

  “Are any of them in immediate danger?” I questioned with rising tension.

  “Not according to the reports,” Orian explained evenly. “Two packs requested medical guidance, one asked about Academy placement, and the others want to understand which laws apply.”

  I pictured the sixteen-year-old wolf named in the first report. A new power had surfaced, and the adults around her wanted to know which law applied. Rain knew what it felt like to have people argue over what she was while she waited to hear whether she belonged.

  Odett knew it too. Being powerful had never kept others from discussing her blood as if she were absent. A hybrid pack might offer a place where no one had to divide themselves to be welcomed, but I could not assume every hybrid wanted to leave home.

  A child with witch and wolf blood might need a healer in the pack that already loved her. An adult learning of vampire ancestry might need legal protection and no new address. If I built a settlement first, I might start treating relocation as the answer to every question.

  I wrote support without relocation at the top of Orian’s response list. It was less satisfying than choosing land; I could not point to acres or walls. It was also what the families had asked us for.

  “Do the families want relocation?” I asked.

  “None have requested it,” Orian clarified firmly. “They are asking for support where they already live.”

  None of those people had asked to join Odett’s future pack. They had asked for help where they lived. I would not turn their need into a recruitment list.

  I moved the reports away from the land maps. The physical distance between the two piles mattered. One documented people who needed guidance now, while the other imagined a choice Odett might make later.

  “Send healers and legal advisers where they were requested,” I ordered. “Make sure they know they can have our support without moving or joining another pack.”

  “Already drafted,” Orian replied.

  “You could have led with that,” I complained dryly.

  “Then I would have missed watching you prepare to adopt nine people before lunch,” he answered.

  I threw a pencil at him, and he caught it without looking. The motion belonged to years before either of us carried titles heavy enough to make throwing office supplies undignified. For a moment, he was only my best friend being irritating on purpose.

  We returned to the maps after reviewing the immediate responses. Any land Odett chose would need clean water, space for housing, protected training grounds, access to trade, and enough distance from another territory to grow without constant disputes. A hybrid pack might also need healers from more than one species and wards designed to recognize different kinds of magic.

  “The southern river tract has an abandoned village, two intact wells, and enough forest for expansion,” Orian observed thoughtfully.

  “The floodplain cuts through the eastern half,” I replied while tracing the old water marks.

  “It flooded once in thirty years,” he argued.

  “Once is enough if we build homes in the wrong place,” I countered firmly.

  The northern orchard tract had roads and farmland, but the neighboring Alpha disputed our patrols whenever a marker shifted. The western land gave a new pack privacy while putting established services too far away. Each option solved one problem and exposed another.

  We ordered environmental inspections for land already controlled by the crown. I refused to approach private owners because inquiries from the king could turn a conversation into pressure before anyone admitted feeling it. Orian agreed that no purchase should occur until Odett understood the options.

  At least, I thought he agreed. The expression he gave me suggested he had heard a condition I had not actually spoken aloud.

  “What?” I asked with immediate suspicion.