Alle Kapitel von Sealed Wolf, Stolen Crown: Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 18

POV: Kade“Double the patrol on the eastern ridge. Don’t ask why.”Garrett looked at me like he wanted to ask exactly that, and had the sense not to. “Council’s official position was that the sighting wasn’t credible.”“I’m aware of the council’s official position.”“You want this run quiet, then. Off the books.”“I want it run competently.” I kept my voice even, the way I kept everything even these days, a habit I was starting to resent as much as I relied on it. “If it’s nothing, we’ve lost a few extra hours of sleep. If it’s nothing, I’d rather find that out before the council does, on my own terms.”Garrett didn’t push further. That was the advantage of a warrior who’d served under my father, he knew when an order wasn’t actually asking for discussion, and he went to arrange the extra rotation without making me explain the part I wasn’t planning to explain to anyone.I told myself the order had nothing to do with whose report the council had dismissed that afternoon.I had heard a

POV: Bree“She’s not just an embarrassment anymore. She’s a liability.”I said it to Marisol in the quiet of her study, no council present, no audience to perform for, because the version of this argument that mattered wasn’t the one I’d made in the training yard. That one had been for the pack. This one was for the woman who actually decided things.“You made your point this morning,” Marisol said, not looking up from the reports on her desk. “Loudly, and in front of half my warriors.”“I made a point I stand behind. An omega with no clear loyalty test on record, unsupervised access to sensitive territory, and a documented pattern of proximity to every incident we’ve had this week. If she were anyone else, security would already have opened a formal inquiry. The only reason she hasn’t is that half this council still can’t decide whether they’re protecting the pack or protecting their own guilt over how she was rejected.”Marisol’s pen stopped moving. That was the first sign I’d said

POV: Kade“Smile. You’re supposed to look happy.”My mother straightened my collar with more force than the collar required, standing close enough to keep her voice for me alone while the hall filled up around us. “The whole pack is watching tonight, Kade. Every flicker of doubt on your face becomes a rumor by morning.”“I’m aware.”“Are you.” She studied me a moment longer than I liked, something sharp behind her eyes that made me wonder exactly how much of yesterday’s clinic visit had already found its way back to her. “Because you don’t look like a man about to have his engagement formally presented to the entire pack. You look like a man bracing for something.”I didn’t answer that, because there wasn’t an honest answer I could give her that wouldn’t make things worse.The hall was already crowded by the time Bree found me near the front, dressed in Ashfall colors for the first time, a deliberate choice, and I understood exactly what it was meant to signal to everyone watching. Sh

POV: Wren"You've been called before the council."Bree said it from the clinic doorway, pleasant, composed, exactly the way she'd said everything in the training yard days earlier, and I felt my whole body go still the way it always did now when she found a reason to speak to me directly."About what.""You'll want to hear it from them." Something in her expression, careful and satisfied at once, told me she already knew precisely how this would go and had come to watch the first part of it herself. "Now, please. They're waiting."I followed her through the corridors with my cane finding the stone floor harder than it needed to, every step building the same dread I'd carried since the training yard, and by the time we reached the council chamber, my hands had gone cold in a way that had nothing to do with the weather.Reeve was already speaking before I'd fully crossed the threshold. "Given the ongoing security concerns along the eastern border, and your repeated claim to intimate kn