#Chapter 126: The Displaced Alpha

Ember The messenger arrives at dawn, a single wolf barely more than a pup, trembling at the edge of our camp's perimeter with a strip of white cloth tied around his foreleg like a surrender flag. I'm already dressed when the alert comes—first watch ended an hour ago and sleep has been impossible, my mind circling between the map pinned to Kaine's field table and the thought of Clara back at the palace with Alexander and Lila, settled and safe in a world that feels impossibly far from these cold borderlands. Jake has the boy on his knees before the wolf can shift all the way back to human form. He's skinny, maybe sixteen, wearing torn trousers and nothing else despite the cold that turns my breath to white plumes in the morning air. He smells like mud and pine sap and the sharp tang of fear that clings to someone who hasn't felt safe in a long time. "Ronan wants to talk," the boy says, his voice cracking over the words like he's rehearsed them a hundred times on the walk here. "He