<b>Chapter </b>130


    <b>Xavier </b>


    “Alpha,” one of the guards said, chin dipping. “East gate. Alpha Zion, Beta Theo, and Felix request entry.<b>” </b>


    The kitchen shed its warmth in a single heartbeat and then put it back on like a coat. Dad didn’t look up from the pan. “Tell them we have coffee,” he said, which in our house means <i>bring </i>them <i>in</i>.


    “Escort them in,” I told Niall. “No weapons past the porch. Straight to the dining room.”


    He was gone before I finished the sentence.


    Envy’s hand brushed my arm. “I’ll move the kids to the sunroom,” she said. “Mum’ll make it a game<b>.</b><b>” </b>


    Mum was already moving, tes gathered, voices low, Macey bribed with the world’s tiniest muffin. Elliot looked at me, asking without asking if this was the kind of meeting he should worry about.


    “Boring grown–up talk,” I said. “Pirate ship after.”


    “Stealth pirate ship,” he reminded me, dead serious.


    “Obviously,” I said, and touched the back of his neck. He softened under my hand and let Macey tow him out, Fergus tucked like a loaf under his arm.


    We shifted the dining room to its war–table setting without changing a chair. Map rolled open. Pens. A carafe of coffee. Enough cups to make a point: we were expecting more than one conversation today. Levi took the head for a breath, read the room, then slid his chair half a space so I could sit where the paper creased. Noah poured. Tommy took the door, easy and watchful.


    Niall ushered them in a minuteter, Zion first, every inch the alpha without trying, Theo half a step behind at his left shoulder, Felix on the right, older and all edge, a man who’s seen too much and still shows up. They’d left their knives with Niall and he hadn’t had to ask twice.


    “Zion,” I said, standing. “Theo. Felix!” We sped forearms, no theatrics. “Coffee’s better thanst year.<b>” </b>


    Theo huffed. “Low bar.<b>” </b>


    They took seats. Felix stayed standing long enough to scan the corners; when he sat, he did it like a man who might need to stand fast.


    “What’s got you at our fence?” I asked. No sense circling.


    Zion’s mouth went grim. “Odd attacks,” he said. “Last three nights.” He traced a quick line along our eastern ridge on the map and then out beyond our border to his side. “Here, here, and at the old mill. They don’te to finish. Theye to look almost, but still


    attack.”


    Noah slid the coffee toward him. “Describe the wolves.”


    “Off,” Theo said, before Zion could temper it. “Eyes are wrong. They move like they’re listening to another room. Scent’s blunted, like river and ash over the top. We tagged two with paint, set them loose and they still peeled off at the culvert like they’d taken a


    wrong turn on purpose.”


    Felix reached into his battered satchel and set three things on the table, one by one, a cloth scrap streaked gray and gritty, a little ss vial with residue stuck to the sides, and a bone charm wired with rusty twist–tie. He didn’t look pleased to be carrying any of it.


    “Found under the bridge at Orchard Run,” he said. “Ash and mud, like the boys said. Vial smells like bitter, not sweet. Charm was tied low in the grass, wrong side of the wind. We snipped it off.”


    Aleisha slipped in quiet, passed me a look that said Haiden was still outside sweeping our circles. She took a seat, elbows on knees, eyes on the charm like it had told a bad joke in church.


    Levi nudged the vial with a pen. “We’ve pulled the same,” he said. “Empty bottles, ash rings, charms ced where a patrol head dips without thinking. We’ve been scrubbing culverts since dawn.<b>” </b>


    Zion exhaled like someone had let a notch off his chest. “So it’s not just us losing our minds<b>.</b>”


    “No,” I said. “You’re seeing what we’re seeing. We’ve had an envoy too. Not from the ones using wolves.” I let thatnd and kept it simple. “Different group. Came on foot asking


    about our boy.”


    Theo’s eyes flicked up, quick. “You weren’t going to tell us?”


    “I’m going to tell you <i>this </i>part because it touches your fences,” I said, and let the rest stay where it belonged, with Elliot. “The envoy said the ones pushing rogues call themselves


    Hands. They smear ash with river mud, hide under bridges, old drains. They like ces no one looks. That matches what you’re bringing me.”


    Felix grunted. “Calling them Hands gives them too much dignity,” he said. He tapped the charm. “This isn’t work thates from nothing. Someone taught them. The timing’s too


    neat.”


    “It is,” Levi agreed. “We’re rearranging patrols so there are no patterns to learn.


    Randomize gate checks. Walk under the bridge as often as you walk over. And tell your pups the drains are off–limits for a while, make it a game, make it aw, I don’t care


    which.”


    Zion nodded. “We’ve already pulled outdoor blocks closer in. But we’re spread thin. We lost three in thest year to Marcus’s fallout, and vacancies don’t fill themselves.”


    He didn’t have to say he hated asking for help. It was there, pressed into the shape of his


    shoulders.


    “Then we share a line,” I said. “Night rotations staggered between our ridges, your mill,


    and the service road that runs stupid between them. We’ll put two of ours on your east run tonight, and two of yours can walk our creek line. If the Hands are mapping habits, we


    erase the chalk.”


    Theo drummed a finger twice and stopped himself. “Signals?”


    “Three short whistles for eyes–on, one long for pull back, two long for copse–to–centre,” Tommy said from the door before I could open my mouth. “If the wind eats sound, gs. Red for stop, white for eyes–on, yellow for wait.”


    “Rys?” Zion asked.


    “<b>Boys </b>on bikes,<i>” </i>Dad said, appearing with more coffee like he’d been summoned by the


    14.02 Wed<b>, </b>Sep


    word itself. “We’ve got five. Yours can keep the helmets, they’re pack–painted.”


    92%


    Felix shot him a look that could have been gratitude if you squinted. “We’ll pay you back in fence–posts andbour.”


    “You’ll pay me back by eating a full te like a civilized man before you go back out,” Dad said, unbothered, and dropped a tray of scrambled eggs in the middle of the map like that was reasonable. It kind of was.


    We hashed the rest out in ten minutes the way packs do when the topic’s ugly and the fix is simple: who walks where, what time, which boys carry which gs, whose radio stays on at theundry room. Felix left the charm; I didn’t touch it again. We’d burn itter. Envy got a phonecall towards the end and excused herself and when they stood to go, Zion squeezed my forearm. “Thank you,” he said, and the words didn’t feel like a debt. They felt like a line thrown across moving water.


    Chapter Comments


    2


    Write Comments