Hope

The pack hall hums with low voices and the clink of cutlery, a sound I’m still getting used to again. Long tables stretch from one end of the hall to the other, heavy wood polished by decades of elbows and shared meals. Today, every seat is filled—wolves, lycans, elders, warriors, healers. No separation. No quiet corners. The leaders decided meals together would help rebuild what was fractured, and for once, both my human heart and my wolf agree.

Food is trust, my wolf murmurs, content and watchful. Eating together means no one fears poison. No one fears attack.

She’s right. So is running together in our beast forms, baring...