Dad had never expressly forbidden me to come in here, but it wasn’t a place you went to unless you were called. Too many secrets hidden in these walls, too many ghosts of justice since passed.
Which made it exactly the place where I needed to be.
I slipped into the room, relieved to see it empty, and closed the door firmly behind me. There were no obvious chests standing containing information, but I was the alpha’s daughter, and I knew where things were hidden.
A long table ran along one wall, ornate, heavy,ugly. With practiced fingers, I opened the latch and pulled out the hidden drawer. It took some work, as it ran the length of the table. Rows of thin files looked back at me, and I exhaled with relief that these were still here.
Wolfe was focused on Corrin, but I wondered if he knew this room housed more than elders. As I pulled patrol reports out and onto the table, I was starting to think that the rot in this Hollow didn’t begin with a rogue attack.
It started before.
The old records were kept in leather and cloth—leather long since cracked, but still marked with sigils of the Hollow’s founding lines. I pulled the reports for the last ten years of council meetings. Minutes. Decrees. Jurisdictional shifts.
It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. A report labeled Territorial Oversight: Border & Rogue Activity–Assigned Councils, 7-Year Rotation
Names. Dates. Duties.
And right there, tucked into the list like it wasn’t a damn bomb waiting to go off: Corrin—Rogue Border Oversight, Years 3–7.
I stared at it, bile rising in my throat.
Corrin.
Wolfe was right.
He’d been in charge of rogue relations. Not containment. Not eradication. “Relations.”
Monitoring movements. Logging contacts. Occasionally, negotiating for peace when rogue dens cropped up too close to our territory line. He would’ve known their hunting grounds. Their migration patterns. Their weak points.
He would’ve known how to use them.
More than that—he would’ve had the authority to bury anything that didn’t fit the narrative the council wanted to sell. My heart pounded in my ears. My hands curled around the edges of the parchment, nails biting into the paper.
Wolfe was right to be suspicious of him. He just hadn’t known why. But even he didn’t know how deep this went. This wasn’t just betrayal. It was calculated. It wasn’t just about undermining Wolfe. It was about controlling the future of this pack from the shadows—and using old alliances and rogue grudges to make it happen.
I folded the page, tucked it into my jacket, and closed the book slowly.
The Hollow wasn’t just fractured. It had been built on cracks we never saw coming, but I was going to be the one to rip the truth into the light.
My bed is empty, and so is my office.Are you hiding from me, princess?
I jumped when I felt him in my head, the smile on my face reflecting the warm teasing of his voice.Hiding?I teased him back.Maybe I’m recovering…
I felt his amusement.If you recover, I’ll just have to wear you out again.
Goddess, that didn’t sound like a bad plan. Instead, I finished putting the records away.Can you come to me?I asked him, my tone serious once more.Alone?
His humor was instantly gone, his alpha tone very much in place.Where are you?
I told him, warning him to be careful, knowing I had piqued his curiosity.
I’d barely restored everything back in place when I heard the door open, and Wolfe entered the room, his warm scent wrapping around me.
I didn’t look up. “Shut the door, lock it if it still has one.”
“It doesn’t.”
I looked up at the sound of his voice, being drawn to it,him, like a magnet. His T-shirt was a simple black one, his black jeans had frayed hems, and his boots were dull but clean. Jaw sharp, lips full, eyes focused and sharp, hair tousled like he’d just run his hand through it.
