Chapter 2

Ethan

We take our marks at the top of the steps and the PR lead counts down in our ears. On three, the crowd shifts, on two, the noise tightens and on one, we step out into the open, and the pack's attention settles like a tide.

I keep pace at the center because that's my job, Ezra to my left, Elijah to my right, both within reach and both unpredictable in different directions. We reach the lawn and move down the center aisle. People reach out and brush our sleeves. A small child leans into the aisle holding a paper flag, and Elijah bends to take it and hand it back, his eyes bright. I hear my father's soft exhale behind us at the detour and ignore it.

The scent hits a second later.

It threads through the rest of the night like a new line added to an old song. Not human, not wolf either. Bright and clean and wild in a way the forest understands and no one else does. It slips under the cologne and the food and the flowers and finds the part of me that has been waiting without admitting it.

On my right, Elijah's head lifts. His eyes shift, blue deepening toward black and back again, Ezra's jaw tightens but he doesn't break the stride. Neither do I. Everything in me wants to pivot, to triangulate and to locate. Everything I have been raised to be says hold your line.

It takes a second longer to realize what my nose already told me; she is not a wolf.

It isn't a surprise, not the kind that cracks you open in a rush. It's a click behind my ribs, a fact sliding into alignment with other facts. It is also a problem if I let it be one. My father believes in purity, and my mother believes in the matebond, but has no say in the matter other than she can't say no to her baby boy Elijah. The pack believes what it is told until it sees something that tells it otherwise. I breathe in and out once and keep walking.

We reach the front row and the elders rise. Beta Johnson shakes my hand, grip dry and firm, eyes skimming my face for tells. His son, Daniel, stands one step behind him with a folder tucked under his arm, taking in more than he says, as usual. Daniel's gaze flicks toward the tree line at the back of the crowd and then returns to me as he presses his mouth into a line.

"Elijah," mother murmurs without moving her lips, "do not bolt."

He nods without looking at her, but his shoulders are tight.

We take our seats for the opening remarks. My father steps to the mic, voice traveling well, all the right words about service and continuity and the Blue Ridge way. The comments on the stream scroll in my peripheral vision on a screen by the tech tent. The PR lead dims it to keep us from chasing distractions. My focus narrows and widens in pulses; my father's cadence, the weight of the pack's eyes, the smell of night and the thread of scent that keeps catching my attention and tugging.

Elijah lasts through exactly two paragraphs and then tips out of his chair with a smoothness that would be elegant if it weren't mutiny. Ezra and I rise with the same practiced motion, but we don't follow immediately. We can't because the optics matter and mother is right about not bolting. Elijah gives us a look only we can read, I'll be fast. I swear.

He slips along the outside of the chairs toward the trees and I also see Daniel start to move and stop himself with visible effort. My father doesn't break his flow. He will not interrupt himself for anything short of a fire.

I stay where I am because this is the point of leading with three Alpha's, someone has to keep the center. Ezra stays because he thinks he can keep both worlds from colliding by sheer will. The scent grows stronger, drifting to the edge of the field by the moving air and I resist the urge to look.

A buzz in our private channel is Daniel this time.

"He's headed for the east edge," he says, low and even. "I'll intercept before he makes a scene."

"Do not touch him," Ezra whispers back, not unkind, but the warning clear. "He's running hot."

"Understood," Daniel says.

My father shifts his speech into acknowledgments and the room relaxes an inch. The ward team sends a quiet ping across my screen to confirm the inner mesh is still down and the outer is holding. The drone glides across the treeline and a figure slips between trunks at the edge of frame, Elijah moving like he always does when he thinks the world is about to change.

"Ethan," mother says quietly, a smile fixed on her face as she claps for an elder's name, "if you have to go, go as if it was part of the plan."

It is as close as permission gets when the cameras are on.

I stand, smooth the line of my jacket, and lean toward the mic to tell the PR lead we're taking a brief interval before the oath. The script allows for it and no one argues with a break that will make a better moment later.

Ezra peels off with me, and we cut down the aisle at a measured pace. People reach out and we acknowledge them without stopping. I hear my father lift into a story from our childhood to cover the gap. He chooses the one about us turning the training field into a makeshift obstacle course and timing each other to shave seconds off records that weren't ours to break yet. He says it like a fond memory, but he forgets to mention the part where he was angry until we beat his time.

We reach the tree line where the air cools by a degree and the noise of the lawn softens. Elijah's scent weaves with something that hits me again, wild honey and water on stone. A voice comes from ahead, Daniel's Spanish roughened by urgency.

"No! Let her go."

The words pull me forward quick enough that Ezra's hand touches my arm as we step into a small opening at the edge of the clearing and find Daniel squared off with Elijah, who looks like a storm on two legs. Beyond them, a girl stands with her back to the trees, chin lifted, eyes fixed on the ground between them as if she can force it to hold steady.

She doesn't look at us. She steps out of Daniel's reach and turns, quick and clean, and then she runs, not out of fear exactly, but out of a decision that has nothing to do with us. Elijah surges after her on reflex.

Daniel grabs his arm. "Alpha.."

Elijah shakes him off hard enough to make the leaves pix at his shoes. Ezra and I close the distance and catch Elijah before momentum makes choices for him. He strains against us for a second and then stills, breathing sharp through his nose. Loki presses close enough to the surface that his eyes flash dark.

"What is going on?" I ask, voice low, because the field is not far and the last thing we need is an audience.

"He was hugging our mate," Elijah says, not shouting, not begging, just telling the truth like it is a fact and a crime. "And he stopped me from going after her."

I look at Daniel. He opens his hands, palms out, and doesn't try to defend himself with words he knows won't help.

"Who is she?" I ask, even though a part of me doesn't want the answer here where my father's speech still carries and the stream is still live. Even though I already know the only part that changes everything.

Daniel drops his gaze to the ground. "My best friend," he says. "That's all I can tell you."

The scent lingers like the last line of a song, not a wolf.

I keep my face arranged and my voice neutral. "Elijah, you have two minutes," I say, because if he doesn't go he will come apart, and if he does go he might anchor us to something we'll all have to face. "Go quietly. Do not pull attention."

He doesn't thank me. He nods once and breaks into the trees with speed he saves for when it matters. Ezra exhales and looks at me but I shake my head once. We turn back toward the lawn at the same measured pace we used coming in, as if we always meant to step into the shade and breathe for a while.

Onstage, my father is still talking. The crowd laughs at a place he chooses while the sky softens toward evening.

Behind us, the forest gathers the rest of the night's plan and rearranges it.