The Tower rose out of the rain like something the city had been built around rather than for—fifty floors of glass and restraint.
Inside, the light was clean, the air conditioned into silence, and the people who moved through it were practiced at not breathing too loud in the Alpha's presence. Atlas Kael Cain
The Circle met in daylight now, though no one could say why. Old instinct said the night belonged to them, but the modern world preferred its predators in suits, not the shadows.
Atlas stood at head of The Circle, at the end of the boardroom, hands braced on the table, listening to the Heads of his Syndicate, pretending to be civilized.
Eight of them occupied the curved table: Thorne to his left, Elara to his right, and six others whose voices carried wealth, not power. Their perfumes disguised the scent of unease poorly.
"The attack was deliberate,"
Thorne said, voice dry as paper.
"Scatter Clan. Darren Vale."
"Confirmed," Elara replied.
"They've lost three since the Code tightened—exiles, not martyrs. But the boy wanted a reaction."
"And he got one,"
someone muttered from the far end.
Atlas didn't look up.
"He got attention. Not consequence. Not Yet." He speaks low, to the table…
He straightened. Tall, back strong and powerful.. The motion was small, but the room shifted, Heads adjusted around it. He'd spent years teaching the Syndicate that leadership didn't need volume. When used correctly…. Stillness, was louder.
"Vale broke the Code of Restraint in my city," Atlas said. "In open view. That's not rebellion. That's declaration."
"Then let us answer,"
Thorne said, his voice sharp
"Make it public."
"NO!!" Altas growled
the word landing like a weight.
He moved away from the table, to the glass wall, overlooking the city. His reflection followed: tall, severe, hair still damp from the morning's storm.
Beyond the glass, traffic pulsed like blood through steel arteries.
"They want us feral," …
"They want the world reminded of what we are... We give them patience instead."
A scoff cut through the quiet.
One of the lesser Houses—Ash, perhaps.
"Patience won't hide weakness forever. The Mortals are already whispering."
Threatened the House Head of Ash..
Atlas turned his head slightly.
"Let them whisper."
His eyes found Elara's reflection in the glass. She hadn't spoken since her report, but he could feel her attention, steady as breath against his back.
When she finally spoke, it was to him, not to the room.
"What do you intend to do?" Her tone, soft yet steady…
He looked back to the city. With a low, growl he replies…
"Remind the Scatter Clan that territory still means something."
"And the woman?" she asked…carefully
A pause.
"Civilian," he said.
"She'll heal. She'll Forget.
The human mind is merciful that way."
Elara didn't respond. She didn't need to. He could feel her skepticism the way a wolf feels rain before it falls.
He dismissed the Circle with a single nod. Chairs shifted, papers gathered, power rearranging itself in obedient silence.
When the doors closed behind the last of them, Atlas stayed at the window.
The reflection that met him was a study in contradictions—tailored control and the faint, traitorous throb of something older beneath it.
He'd seen the reports: elevated sensory response, partial resonance. None of that should have been possible from a transfusion. But he could feel it, a phantom rhythm under his own pulse, an echo that wasn't his.
He opened his hand and watched his fingers twitch in time with something he couldn't name.
Elara's voice broke the stillness.
"You're thinking about her."
He didn't turn.
"I'm thinking about control."
"Same thing, in your case." Her tone sharp with a hint of jealousy.
He let the remark stand. She crossed the room, the scent of cedar and cold air trailing with her, and stopped just short of touching him.
"The Vale boy?" she asked.
"Thorne's hunting him."
"Alive?"
"For now."
She exhaled, a sound between approval and worry. "You should rest."
He almost smiles.
"Ha!" He voice gravelly and rough with exhaustion…
"That's what you tell the dying."
"Then I'll change the wording," she said softly. "You should stop pretending to be untouchable."
He faced her then, and for a long moment neither moved. They'd known each other too long for pretense, too well for comfort. She didn't flinch from the look that could make lesser wolves fold.
"Elara," he said, her name more breath than word. "We are what restraint makes of us."
"Then restraint is killing you," she said, and turned away before he could answer.
Leaving him, alone with his thoughts, his worries and his urges.
Hours later, the city slipped into night again.
Atlas remained in his office, the only light coming from the monitor before him.
On his screen, muted and grainy, Lexa slept, beneath hospital fluorescents, her heart monitor tracing the slow rise and fall of green light.
Her vitals were steady. The doctors called it progress.
He called it noise, he couldn't silence.
The longer he watched, the clearer it became: the rhythm on the screen matched his own. He tried to convince himself it was coincidence. Machines were never perfect. Hearts were unpredictable.
Then the line spiked—her pulse rising in the space of a breath—and his chest answered before his mind did.
He shut off the screen. The silence afterward was louder than any alarm.
Across the room, the rain started again, a quiet percussion against the glass. Atlas leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and let the sound wash through the tight confines of his control.
Somewhere out there, a human woman carried his blood.
And the bond he didn't believe in had already started to believe in him.