Jason's office was a fortress of quiet routine, tucked in the quieter north wing of the pack house. The alpha's beta had spent the last hour buried in paperwork—pack budget revisions, new warrior recruit files, and a particularly frustrating dispute over territory border lines with a neighboring pack's envoy who couldn't read a map to save his life.
He was mid-sip on his lukewarm coffee when a sudden, frantic pounding on his door nearly made him hurl the mug.
"What the hell!" he grunted, spilling coffee on his shirt before setting the mug down hard.
Before he could finish barking out "come in," the door burst open.
A young guard stumbled in, panting and red-faced. Jason raised an unimpressed brow, already loading a lecture about rudeness in his throat, but then he caught the look on the guy's face.
Frazzled, alarmed, serious.
"What is it?" Jason asked, instantly alert.
