Chapter 22. Silence the Truth

The room was quiet and cold. The fire had gone out, leaving only gray ashes. Elder Dorian stood still, staring at the map on the wall. One hand rested on it, like he was trying to hold onto something solid—something real.

His other hand shook.

Inside him, his wolf growled, pacing like a caged beast. The veins in his neck pulsed like warning drums. His wolf clawed at the inside of his skin, agitated, pacing, snarling.

“She’s threading the Alpha like a puppet,” he muttered aloud, his voice hoarse with disbelief. “And no one sees it. No one wants to.”

He had seen what others ignored. The way the Alpha didn’t speak with his own voice anymore. The way the pack followed orders with empty eyes. The way the land itself seemed darker.

It was her.

Lila.

She wasn’t a healer. She wasn’t a friend. She wasn’t even a wolf.

She was something else. Something wrong.

And the—gods help him—he had waited too long to act. His lips already forming the