Kieran's POV
The leather chair behind the desk where I've made every significant pack decision for the last years sits empty.
Thalia suggested I take it—tried to position me at the head of the table as wolves filed in for the war council—but I waved her off and chose the armchair in the corner instead.
An Alpha commands from the front of the room. Whatever I am now, it isn't that.
Fourteen wolves crowd the space. Senior pack members, patrol leaders, Elara the healer, and my brother with his human mate hovering near the door. The room smells like fear and aggression and the acrid tang of wolves who haven't slept in days.
Thalia stands behind my desk. My desk. She doesn't sit in the chair either—stands with both palms flat on the surface, maps and patrol schedules spread beneath her fingers, and when she speaks, the room goes silent in a way it never did for my father.
"So we have coordinated strikes. Two wolves killed, Alpha's residence destroyed, our home breached while our children were sleeping upstairs…"
Her voice carries the steel I used to provide—the authority that comes from absolute certainty in a crisis.
"Every attack demonstrated knowledge that should be impossible for anyone outside this pack. Patrol routes changed hours before the ambush. Safe house locations known to senior leadership only. Security codes to our home that haven't been shared beyond family."
"What exactly is your point, Luna?" Darren, one of the younger patrol leaders, shifts in his seat. "That one of us is feeding them information?"
"The evidence points to a leak inside Silvermoon. Whether that's active collaboration or careless communication, the result is the same: our people are dying because the enemy knows our every move before we make it."
The silence that follows is suffocating. I watch wolves who've known each other for decades exchange glances loaded with suspicion.
Pack bonds—the invisible threads of trust that hold a community together—fracture in real time under the weight of Thalia's accusation.
"Could be intercepted communications," offers Marcus, head of perimeter security. "If they've cracked our radio encryption—"
"They knew which bedroom the children sleep in," Thalia's voice goes quiet, which is worse than shouting. "That's not intercepted radio traffic. That's someone who's been inside our home describing it to the enemy."
The room absorbs that. I watch it land differently on each face—horror, denial, the dawning recognition that their Luna is right and everything they trusted is compromised.
"So what's the plan?" Lysander leans against the wall near the door. "We can't operate if we assume everyone's a suspect."
"We restructure everything," Thalia pulls a document from beneath the maps. "All patrol routes are randomized daily by a three-person rotation. Only the wolves running the patrol know the route, and they receive it thirty minutes before deployment. No advance scheduling, no written records, no radio communication of positions."
"That's logistically insane," Marcus protests. "Coordinating defense without advance planning—"
"Is the only way to ensure the traitor can't pass along information they don't have."
She cuts him off with a precision that reminds me she spent years dismantling arguments in courtrooms.
"Additionally, I'm implementing communication blackouts. All non-essential information sharing stops today. Security codes rotate every six hours. Access to this house is restricted to family and the senior wolves in this room, and even that list may shrink depending on what the investigation reveals."
"You're putting the entire pack under surveillance," Darren says, and there's an edge to his voice that makes my chest tighten. "Treating us all like suspects when we've bled for this territory."
"Two of us bled to death not long ago because someone in this room—or someone they trusted—sold their location," Thalia meets his stare without blinking. "I understand this feels like punishment. It isn't. It's survival, and I need every wolf here to accept the difference."
I should be the one saying this.
A few days ago I would have been the voice in this room—the Alpha whose commands carried the weight of destiny and biology. Now I'm watching my wife do it, and the pride tangling with the pain is so complex I can barely breathe.
She's magnificent. Watching her command frightened wolves with calm certainty—watching her become the Alpha that my injury demands—is simultaneously the most beautiful and most devastating thing I've ever witnessed.
"I'm assigning investigation teams," she continues. "Three pairs, each reporting directly to me. You'll examine communication records, financial transactions, and access logs for every pack member. No exceptions, no rank privileges, no protected status."
Her eyes sweep the room. "Including mine and Kieran's. If you find something suspicious, you bring it to me regardless of who it implicates."
"And if the traitor is someone senior enough to know about the investigation?" Lysander asks carefully.
"Then the communication blackouts limit the damage they can do while we close in." Thalia rolls up the maps. "This pack has survived betrayals before, so we will survive this too, but only if we're willing to do what's uncomfortable and look at ourselves with honest eyes."
Wolves file out to their assignments. Darren lingers, jaw working around words he doesn't say, before following the others into the hallway.
The room empties until it's just Thalia, Lysander, Caroline, and me.
My wife looks at me across the study—across my desk, my maps, the room where I used to be everything this pack needed—and holds my gaze. She doesn't speak.
Find the traitor. Before they destroy what's left of us.
"I'll start with the access logs," I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I expect. "I may not be able to shift or fight, but I can still read patterns. And nobody in this pack knows our security architecture better than I do."
"I was counting on that," her expression softens for a fraction of a second—wife looking at husband rather than Luna addressing her crippled Alpha.
"Lysander, take Caroline through the compound. She offered intelligence from her father's files—let's see what Montgomery operational records look like from the inside."
Lysander nods and guides Caroline out. The door closes, and it's just us.
Thalia moves around the desk and stops in front of my chair. She doesn't kneel, doesn't reach for me, just stands there close enough that I can smell her—the wolf beneath her skin, the shampoo she uses, the exhaustion bleeding through her pores.
"The pack follows you now," I tell her. "They listened in there the way they used to listen to me. That authority is yours, Thalia. You've earned it."
"I don't want it," her voice cracks on the last word. "I want my mate and the bond back. I want you standing behind that desk making impossible decisions while I handle the legal briefs and the school pickups and the normal life we were supposed to have."
"I know."
"But wanting doesn't change reality," she straightens her spine, and the Luna slides back into place over the wife. "Nobody is above suspicion, Kieran."
Her eyes hold mine, and the message beneath the words is clear as glass.
The hunt begins now. And wherever it leads—however deep the betrayal runs, however close to home the traitor sits—we follow it to the end.