Chapter 40: The Wolves Behind the Door
"I don’t care if they’re nervous," Camille said, her voice clipped, low, and sharp. "Let them feel what we’ve been forced to live with."
Beckett stood in front of the eastern corridor gates, his arms folded, eyes locked on the mass of wolves filtering into the lower hall. "It’s not about fear. It’s pressure. They came to stand with you, not watch you burn."
"They’re going to get both," Camille said as she stepped down the final stair, the tap of her boots swallowed by the echoing chamber below.
The crowd was growing. Magnolia stood off to the left near the pillar line, her figure draped in charcoal black, braid wrapped tight like a crown. She watched Camille approach without speaking, her fingers toying with the wolfstone pendant at her throat.
Camille took her place at the center of the arched hall. The old stone circle beneath her feet had once borne the Alpha markings now dulled by time, scorched by fire, and softened by hundreds of footsteps.
Rhett entered through the opposite corridor, flanked by two guards who weren’t really guards they were bonded wolves, unmarked, stripped of their rank long ago. And now, returned.
"They’re watching from the upper gallery," he said, voice low as he approached her side.
"I hope they choke on the view," Camille replied without missing a beat.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t need to.
He knew.