Raymond’s POV

The air inside the council hall was thick with tension.

I stood at the center, my fists clenched at my sides, my patience wearing thin. The surviving Alphas sat in a rough semicircle around me, their faces lined with exhaustion, grief, and something else—opportunism.

“She has not woken,” Alpha Magnus of the Bloodfang Clan said, his voice cool and measured. “We cannot afford to wait for the impossible.”

My jaw tightened. “She will wake.”

Magnus scoffed. “You keep saying that, but it has been weeks, Raymond. The werewolf world is without its leader. We cannot exist in this limbo any longer.”

I could feel the heat of my...