The letter was written on good paper.
Kane of Stone Creek noticed this first — not the contents, not the signature at the bottom, not the unbroken circle pressed in black wax that sealed it when it arrived. The paper. Heavy, cream-colored, the kind that cost money to source in a world where most Alphas communicated by courier and most couriers didn't particularly care what they were carrying. Someone had spent money on this letter. Someone had understood that the weight of the paper would be felt before the words were read, and had made a deliberate choice.
He had been an Alpha for fourteen years. He knew the shape of deliberate choices.
He set the letter on his desk and looked at it for a long time without reading it. Outside his window, Stone Creek's training yard was running its morn
