Thalia’s POV
The council of allied packs convenes via secure video at noon. Six Alpha faces across three screens, and I'm about to deliver news that will either unite or fracture the supernatural community.
"Thank you for responding on short notice," I keep my voice measured, authoritative, stripped of the exhaustion I've been carrying for weeks.
"What I'm about to share requires immediate coordinated response from every pack in the Pacific Northwest alliance."
"This better be worth pulling me from a territorial dispute with the Cascade wolves," Alpha Reeves of the Puget Sound pack growls. Fifties, scarred, the kind of Alpha who measures value in immediacy.
"It's worth more than a border skirmish. Silvermoon has confirmed intelligence that vampire operatives have been conducting surveillance on wolf territories."
The silence that follows is dense enough to feel through the screen.
"Vampires," Alpha Chen of the Portland pack leans forward. "You're certain about this, Luna Thalia? Vampire activity hasn't been documented in the Pacific Northwest since—"
"1847, I'm aware of the history," I pull up the intelligence file Caroline helped compile.
"Over the past three weeks, Silvermoon sentries have documented six separate sightings at our northern boundary. Our pack empath—my daughter Luna—has independently confirmed the presence of ancient emotional signatures she describes as cold, patient, and predatory."
"Children's impressions aren't intelligence," Reeves dismisses. "Your girl could be picking up anything—hunter scouts, wildlife, her own fear—"
"My daughter distinguishes between wolf, human, and supernatural emotional signatures with clinical precision!"
I hold his gaze through the screen.
"Her assessment is that the entities watching Silvermoon are older than anything she's ever encountered. Centuries old, minimum."
"Even if the sightings are genuine," Alpha Morrison of the Olympic pack interjects, "vampires have maintained the truce for three hundred years. What makes you think they'd break it now?"
"Someone gave them a reason," I lay out Lia's confession.
"Your own sister sold you to vampires," Reeves's voice carries something between contempt and grudging sympathy. "That's a spectacular security failure, Luna."
"It is. One we've addressed—the traitor is imprisoned, the intelligence pipeline is severed, and we've launched counter-operations against the hunter network that served as camouflage for vampire reconnaissance."
I don't flinch from the criticism.
"But the damage is done. The vampire council now possesses detailed operational intelligence about Silvermoon, and by extension, about the alliance's southwestern anchor."
"Why would vampires care about one wolf pack?" Chen asks. "We're not threatening them. The truce benefits both sides."
"It’s when both sides maintain comparable strength. Silvermoon's Alpha can no longer shift. Our pack has sustained casualties from a prolonged hunter siege." I straighten my spine and continue:
"Our children possess abilities that vampires apparently find significant enough to warrant surveillance. We look like an opportunity, not an equal, and vampires don't waste it."
"Respectfully, Luna Thalia, this sounds like paranoia dressed in intelligence briefings," Morrison crosses his arms.
"You've been under siege for weeks. Your leadership has been challenged, your sister turned traitor. The stress of that could easily produce—"
"She's right."
Every head turns. Magnus speaks from his position at the edge of Silvermoon's camera frame, and the weight of his voice—former Alpha, years of pack service—commands attention that my Luna title alone can't.
"My father told me stories from wolves who survived the Blackridge massacre," Magnus continues.
"The pattern was identical to what Luna Thalia is describing: exploitation of internal weakness and attack only when the mathematical probability of victory exceeded ninety percent."
"Alpha Magnus, with respect, those are century-old stories—"
"Vampires don't forget tactics that work, Morrison. They refine them." Magnus leans forward.
"The truce held because wolves maintained strength through unity. But we've been fragmenting for decades—territorial disputes, leadership challenges, the gradual erosion of inter-pack communication."
"You're saying we've given them an opening," Chen says slowly.
"My daughter-in-law has identified a threat that most of you are too comfortable to recognize. The peace you've enjoyed wasn't guaranteed by vampire goodwill but enforced by wolf strength that we've been squandering through political infighting while an ancient enemy watched and recalculated."
The screens are quiet. Magnus's assessment carries authority none of the younger Alphas can match.
"What are you proposing?" Reeves asks, dismissiveness replaced with reluctant attention.
"Intelligence sharing across all territories." I pull up the framework Kieran and I developed.
"Coordinated defensive positioning along the northern corridor, where our sightings have been concentrated. And a communication network that allows any Alpha to alert the alliance within minutes if vampire activity escalates beyond reconnaissance."
"That's significant resource commitment for an unconfirmed threat," Morrison hedges.
"The threat is confirmed by sentry reports, empathic intelligence, and the confession of a woman who worked directly with vampire operatives for over a year."
I let steel enter my voice. "What's unconfirmed is their timeline. We don't know when they'll move from watching to acting. What I'm proposing ensures that when they do, none of us faces it alone."
"Silvermoon's proposal has merit," Chen nods. "Portland will participate. We've had our own unexplained sightings—I attributed them to poachers, but the descriptions match what your sentries reported."
"Olympic pack is in," Morrison says after a pause. "Conditionally. If three months pass without escalation, we revisit the resource allocation."
"Puget Sound will coordinate defensive positioning," Reeves uncrosses his arms. "But I want access to the full intelligence file, including Lia's confession transcripts. If we're committing resources, we need the complete picture."
"You'll have everything." I nod. "Every pack will receive the unredacted intelligence within twenty-four hours."
The remaining Alphas add their commitments with varying enthusiasm.
The alliance is fragile, held together by Magnus's credibility and the uncomfortable possibility that centuries of peace were borrowed time.
But it's real—six packs sharing intelligence and coordinating defenses.
"One more thing," Magnus speaks again as the council prepares to disconnect. "Silvermoon's Luna has grown into her role in ways that some of us—" he pauses, the admission costing him visibly "—did not anticipate. The alliance is stronger for her leadership."
The screens blink off. I sit in the empty conference room processing what just happened.
Coordinated defense. A network transforming Silvermoon from an isolated target into a regional coalition's anchor.
And Magnus acknowledging that I've become the leader he didn't believe I could be.
Caroline appears in the doorway. "That was impressive. Even Reeves looked convinced, and that man doesn't convince easily."
"Magnus helped."
"He recognized what was already there," she leans against the frame. "You made a room full of Alphas listen through sheer competence. That's not his support—that's you."
I close the laptop and stand, feeling the alliance's weight settling alongside everything else.
The hunter war and the vampire threat. My cubs, and my husband finding purpose through diplomacy. The sister in the cell.
The alliance is fragile. But when the vampires come—with the patience of immortals and the precision of predators who've been perfecting conquest since before Silvermoon existed—we won't stand alone.
This day was emotional enough for me to go to bed earlier.