Chapter 79

Aria's POV

The letter arrived on a Tuesday.

I knew before opening it that it was significant. Not through any particular intuition — the weight of it, the formal seal, the careful handwriting that suggested someone who understood correspondence as a form of respect. These were the signals of something that had been considered before being sent.

It was from Alpha Rendell of the Central territories.

The Central territories were not a single pack but a loose confederation of seven communities that had maintained formal independence from each other while sharing resources and governance structures in ways that made them functionally interdependent. Rendell wasn't technically an Alpha of...