Keith

The room settles into a low, expectant hush as Tessa rises from her chair.

She doesn’t need to raise her voice. She never does. The authority just lives in her bones.

“So,” she says, palms braced on the table, eyes sweeping over all of us, “first step down—we’re all here. The packs, the clans, the refugees. We need to flesh out what this is going to look like for the foreseeable future.”

My lycan lifts its head, alert. Structure. This is still our territory. We need to establish rules.

Jeb is the first to speak, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. “The problem is our people still only...