The compound was nothing like the Ironclad Pack house.

Angelo's Summit preparation base sat in neutral territory, a sprawling complex of stone and timber that looked like it had been built to last centuries. High ceilings. Wide hallways. Windows that actually let in light. The guards at the gate didn't stare when we arrived. They nodded to Angelo, glanced at me and Buster, and stepped aside.

Angelo led us through the main hall without ceremony. No introductions. No explanations to the wolves we passed. Just a steady walk deeper into the compound until we reached a corridor in the east wing.

He stopped at a door and pushed it open. "Your quarters," he said.

I stepped inside. Private room. Real bed. A desk by the window with clean paper and pens already laid out. A attached bathroom I could see through the half-open door. Buster pressed against my legs, his nose twitching as he took in the new smells.

"The strategy room is two floors down," Angelo continued. "We meet at dawn. You'll have full access to all Summit intelligence files and tactical records. Your name will be listed on the partnership roster as co-strategist, not as a consultant."

I turned to look at him. "Co-strategist."

"Equal partner," he said. "That was the contract."

I pressed my thumb against my wrist. My pulse was steady. Sixty-two beats per minute. "Your people are going to have questions."

"My people adjust quickly." He glanced at Buster, who was now sniffing the corner of the room with intense focus. "The pup stays with you. If he needs anything, tell the kitchen staff directly. They answer to me."

He left before I could respond. The door closed with a quiet click.

I stood there for a long moment, looking at the bed. At the desk. At the window that overlooked a training yard where wolves were running drills in formation. Then I sat down at the desk and pulled the first stack of intelligence files toward me.

Buster curled up under the desk near my feet. Within ten minutes, he was asleep.

I read until my eyes burned.

The next morning, I walked into the strategy room at dawn and found eight wolves already seated around a long table. Maps covered the walls. Tactical displays glowed on mounted screens. The air smelled like coffee and old paper.

Angelo was at the head of the table. He gestured to the empty chair at his right. "Aria Brooks, co-strategist. She'll be leading tactical analysis for the Summit trials."

I sat. The wolves stared. One of them—a broad-shouldered man with grey starting at his temples—nodded slowly. "Reid," he said. "Future Beta."

"Aria," I replied.

Angelo slid a file across the table to me. "Semi-final trial parameters. Review and advise."

I opened it. Read the terrain specs, the team composition rules, the scoring system. It took me maybe three minutes to spot the trap—a clause about mind-link communication that most teams would miss until it cost them.

I looked up. "The mind-link restriction applies to the Alpha only, not the full team. Most strategists will assume it's universal and overcorrect. We can use that."

Reid leaned forward slightly. "How?"

I pulled one of the maps toward me and marked three positions with a pen. "Split communication. Alpha stays silent. Secondary guides coordinate through standard howl patterns here and here. The other teams will be operating half-blind. We won't be."

Silence. Angelo was watching me with that same unreadable expression. Reid studied the map.

"That assumes our secondary guides can read terrain faster than their Alphas can adapt," Reid said carefully.

I looked at him. "It does."

"And you're confident in that assumption?"

"I wrote the terrain analysis protocol the Ironclad Pack used for five years," I said. "It's the same framework three of the Summit teams are currently using. I know how they'll move before they do."

Reid blinked. Then he sat back. "Understood."

Angelo's mouth curved slightly. Not quite a smile. "Anything else?"

I flipped through the rest of the file. Pointed out two more adjustments. A supply cache vulnerability. A timing gap in the patrol rotations. By the time I finished, the rest of the table was taking notes.

When the meeting ended, Reid stayed behind. He waited until the room cleared, then walked over to the intelligence cabinet and started rearranging files. I watched him pull my analysis sheets from the bottom of the stack and move them to the top. Reorganize the terrain maps to match the system I'd referenced.

He didn't say anything. Just worked methodically until the entire cabinet reflected my organizational structure.

Then he looked at me. "The Prince doesn't make casual decisions," he said quietly. "If you're here, you earned it."

He left.

I stood there alone in the strategy room, pressing my thumb against my wrist. My pulse was calm. Steady.

I'd earned it.

Three days later, a new intelligence report arrived during the morning briefing.

Angelo set it on the table in front of me without comment. I picked it up and read.

Ironclad Pack. Alpha status update. Ivan's wolf showing signs of deterioration. Visible loss of sheen. Aura weakening. Pack healers unable to identify cause or provide treatment. Recommended monitoring.

I read it twice. Then I set it down and returned to the tactical maps I'd been reviewing.

Behind the locked door in my chest, something stirred. Not Sage. Not yet. But something. A recognition. A confirmation of what I already knew.

The bond's destruction had a cost.

And Ivan was paying it.

I pressed my thumb against my wrist and counted my pulse. Sixty beats per minute. Steady.

I picked up my pen and went back to work.

The training arena sat at the edge of the compound, a natural clearing ringed by old-growth pines where the morning light came in slanted and gold. Angelo was already there when I arrived, dressed in training gear that looked deceptively casual until you noticed how precisely it was tailored for movement.

He didn't waste time on preamble. "We're testing tactical guidance under constraint," he said. "Verbal commands only. No mind-link."

I nodded. Made sense. The Summit semi-finals restricted Alpha mind-link communication. If I couldn't guide him through spoken word, the strategy I'd outlined three days ago would collapse.

"Show me what you need," I said.

He moved into the clearing's center and shifted his stance slightly. Waiting. I walked the perimeter, checking sightlines, noting the terrain variables—roots that could trip, branches low enough to interfere with high strikes, the slight slope that would affect momentum.

"Three steps forward," I called. "Pivot left on the second step. There's a root at your four o'clock."

He moved. Smooth. Controlled. His body adjusted for the root before I finished the sentence.

We ran through basic drills. Strike sequences. Evasion patterns. Terrain navigation. He followed every command with a precision that made the process feel less like training and more like a conversation in a language we both already spoke.

Then he closed the distance between us.

Not threatening. Just closer. Maybe six feet instead of fifteen. Close enough that I could smell him—not sweat or exertion, but something deeper. Forest at midnight. Old wood and stone. Something ancient underneath it that I didn't have a name for.

My chest tightened.

"Again," Angelo said quietly. "From the top."

I opened my mouth to call the first command. The words didn't come. My ribs felt too small suddenly. Like my lungs were expanding against a space that couldn't hold them.

I pressed my thumb against my wrist. My pulse was racing. Ninety beats per minute. Too fast.

"Aria?" Angelo's voice, careful.

I tried to answer. My sternum cracked.

Not broke. Cracked. Like something inside was pushing outward with enough force to split bone. I staggered. Caught myself on one knee. The pain was white-hot and everywhere—shoulders, spine, hips, all of it breaking and reforming at the same time.

Angelo spun toward me. I saw his eyes go wide. Saw his aura flare—obsidian and massive, his Lycan wolf surging to the surface in alarm.

"Don't—" I tried to say. My jaw wouldn't form the word.

Fur erupted along my spine.

Silver. Bright enough to catch the morning light and throw it back like metal. I felt my bones reshape, felt muscles I'd forgotten I had come alive with a violence that knocked the air out of my lungs. My hands hit the ground—no, paws, massive and clawed—and the world tilted as my center of gravity shifted.

Sage.

Not dormant. Not locked away. Here. Fully present. Furious.

Her consciousness slammed into mine like a freight train. Weeks of suppressed grief and rage poured through the connection—every moment since the rejection, every night I'd reached for her and found nothing, every second of that empty locked room in my chest. She didn't speak in words. She didn't need to. I felt it all.

And under the grief, something else. Power. Raw and ancient and so overwhelming I couldn't process it.

I lifted my head and saw the clearing.

Every wolf present was on their belly.

Guards at the perimeter. Training wolves who'd been running drills on the far side. Reid, who'd been standing near the equipment racks. All of them flat on the ground, eyes lowered, necks bared.

My aura. I could feel it radiating outward like heat, pressing down on every wolf in range with a weight that demanded submission.

Alpha-blood.

Angelo was still standing. Barely. His Lycan wolf had taken over completely—obsidian fur, eyes gone full black, massive enough that he should have been the most dominant presence in the clearing.

He wasn't.

He lunged forward. Not attack. Recognition.

His eyes locked on mine. I saw his pupils dilate. Saw something in his expression shift from alarm to absolute certainty.

"Mate."

The word tore out of him. Raw. Involuntary. Like his wolf had ripped it from his throat before his conscious mind could form it.

My neck burned.

Not the old mark. Not the cold scar tissue where Ivan's bond had died. This was new. White-hot and searing, a brand forming in real-time on the left side of my throat. I saw Angelo's hand go to his own neck. Saw him flinch.

The bond mark. Appearing on both of us. Simultaneously.

Sage's consciousness flooded mine again. Not grief this time. Certainty. The same certainty I'd seen in Angelo's eyes. The Moon Goddess's design, undeniable and absolute.

I didn't move toward him. Neither did he. We just stood there, ten feet apart, both of us breathing hard, the new bond screaming at us to close the distance.

Angelo didn't close it.

He stayed exactly where he was. His expression was careful. Still. Asking nothing.

I felt the mind-link return.

Not the way it had been before. Not the single thread I'd used to guide Ivan through pack defenses. This was amplified. I could feel every wolf in the clearing—their fear, their awe, their confusion. I could thread them all simultaneously, touch each consciousness individually or weave them together into a unified network.

The precision was surgical. Instinctive. Effortless.

Reid was still on his knees at the edge of the clearing, eyes locked on the ground. But I felt the moment he understood. Not through words. Through the shift in his aura. The quiet recalibration of a Beta realizing what his Prince had come to the Summit to find.

Not a strategist.

A Queen.

I looked at Angelo. He looked back. Waiting.

I didn't speak. Neither did he.

The bond mark on my neck pulsed once. Hot. Undeniable.

I turned and walked toward the forest edge, my silver wolf moving with a power I'd never felt before.

Angelo let me go.