"I don't need Iron Fang's endorsement," Neve says.She says it immediately, before I have finished my opening sentence, and she says it without sharpness, just the plain statement of someone who has been clear with themselves about what they want and what they don't want and has had the conversation in her head many times already.I liked her immediately.She is twenty-eight years old and she is on the video call in what appears to be an office in the eastern management building, practical space, no decorative effort, a stack of boundary maps visible on the desk behind her. She has the kind of face that reveals nothing by default and reveals everything when it chooses to.I am not offering an endorsement, I say. I wanted to meet you.She looks at me for a moment.Why, she says.Because the Crest Pack Alpha will be my daughter's closest pack neighbor for her entire life, I say. And I would like to know what kind of person holds that position.Something shifts in Neve's expression. The
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