POV: Jake

I have always been good at standing still while everything else moved.

That is what being Beta teaches you. You anchor, You absorb and You make space for louder men and call it balance.

Tonight, the land hums beneath my boots, restless in a way it never was before the boy spoke to the crowd. Power shifted, everyone felt it but some of us just pretended we didn’t.

I walk past the training grounds without stopping. Past the hall where Kael’s voice still echoes in the beams. Past the ...