Chapter 12 - The Shadow of the Northern Frost
Three hundred miles north, inside the towering, ice-encrusted fortress of the Northern Frost Pack, an emergency council was underway. Thorne Blackwater stood before his father, Alpha Garreth Blackwater, a massive man whose silver hair and scarred visage bore witness to half a century of brutal border wars.
"You knelt?" Garreth’s voice boomed across the frost-lined stone hall, vibrating the heavy chandeliers. "You, the heir to the Northern Frost, bowed your head to a wolfless girl?"
"She is not wolfless, Father," Thorne said, his tone dangerously calm as he met the elder alpha's furious gaze. "Not in any sense that matters. Her aura crushed our entire vanguard without her even raising a weapon. If we had challenged her, the Northern Frost Pack would have been wiped off the map before dawn."
Garreth slammed his massive fist onto the table, shattering a crystal goblet. "An anomaly cannot rule! The ancient pacts dictate that strength belongs to the beast, not a human shell!"
"The ancient pacts didn't account for what happened in Victor Thornclaw's labs," Thorne replied, stepping closer, his own amber eyes flashing with a mix of fear and strange fascination. "She didn't just break Crimson Moon; she rewritten the laws of our kind. If we want our pack to survive the coming winter, we don't fight her. We align with her."
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Garreth’s chest heaved as he glared at his son. "And what does she want in return for an alliance?"
"Nothing," Thorne muttered bitterly. "That's the terrifying part. She doesn't want our trade, she doesn't want our submission, and she certainly doesn't want me. She wants us to stay out of her way."
