All Chapters of Want By All Three Alpha Brothers : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Miranda had asked for the delay. Not to prepare arguments — to let the pack breathe. The night after a battle and a betrayal was not the right moment for formal justice. People were still counting their dead. Three wolves from the border. Two more who had not made it through the night. The pack needed to grieve before it needed to judge.Two days was not enough, but it was what they had.The council chamber was set up formally — elder seats on both sides, warriors standing at the walls, the kind of arrangement that said this is official, this counts, this is being done properly. Bernard presided. Kyson sat at the table's head in his capacity as Alpha. Hayden and Lucas flanked him. Miranda sat across from Louisa with the width of the room between them and tried to read nothing into Louisa's face, which was giving away very little.The charges were read. Conspiracy. Attempted murder of the Luna. Collaboration with an enemy pack. Internal treason. Each one landed in the room like a stone

That was the thing Miranda noticed most. Vera was not a woman who commanded rooms easily — she was quiet, precise, the kind of person who spoke when she had something worth saying and otherwise kept to herself. But when she sat down at that table and began, not one of the four of them said a word. They just listened."The Eclipse Cult has existed for longer than Raven Pack has," Vera said. "Longer than most packs on this territory. They do not announce themselves. They do not fight for land or resources. They study." She folded her hands on the table. "Specifically they study the gap between Moon cycles — the dark interval, the nights when the Goddess's influence is at its thinnest. They believe that gap holds something the Goddess has not told us about. And they are not entirely wrong.""What do they want with Moon Blessed women?" Kyson said."Information. Observation. And in some cases—" She paused. "Cooperation. Whether or not that cooperation is given willingly.""Miranda's mother

A border pack to the south requesting clarification on a grazing boundary that had apparently been disputed since before Miranda was born. Kyson handled it in two sentences. Miranda looked at the unfamiliar seal and thought about all the things she had feared it might say, and then went to bed.She slept better than she expected.The next two weeks were not quiet — nothing about running a pack in the aftermath of a battle was quiet — but they were a different kind of loud. Administrative loud. The kind that required attention and patience and the ability to sit through long conversations about supply routes and healer rotations and what to do about the gap in the northern patrol coverage now that three of those wolves were dead.It was, Miranda realized, the actual work of being a Luna.Lucas's meeting with the withdrawing pack's Alpha happened on the fourth day. She had sent him alone, which Kyson had thought was premature and Hayden had thought was wrong and Lucas himself had simply

She laid out Aldous's intelligence on the table — facility location, guard count, patrol timing, layout of the levels he had accessed — and waited while the three brothers and Bernard read it over. Nobody said anything for about two minutes. Then Kyson began asking questions and did not stop for forty.He was stress-testing the information, not doubting it. Miranda knew the difference. He asked Aldous the same detail in three different ways to see if the answer changed. It didn't. He asked about guard rotations twice from different angles. He pushed on the one gap Aldous had flagged himself — the lower levels, which Aldous had never had access to and could only estimate.By the end, Kyson had a single sheet of paper covered in his careful handwriting. He set the pen down and looked at Miranda."The suppression field is the problem," he said."I know.""The moment you cross the perimeter, your power goes dark. Whatever we do inside that facility, we do without your strongest asset.""I

Lyra's arms were around Miranda and Miranda's face was pressed against her mother's shoulder and the room was cold and old and none of that mattered at all. Lyra was thin — Miranda could feel it, the bones more present than they should be, years of insufficient care written into her body. But her grip was steady. Whatever they had done to her in this place, they had not broken her hold.When Miranda finally pulled back, Lyra looked at her face the way someone looks at a thing they have been imagining for a very long time and are now checking against reality."Twenty-seven years," Miranda said."I know." Lyra's voice was quiet. Not apologetic — something older than apology. "I have counted every one of them.""My father thought you were dead.""I know that too." Lyra reached up and touched Miranda's face briefly — just her fingertips, as though she needed to confirm the reality of it. "I sent word twice in the first year. Both times the message was intercepted. After the second time I