All Chapters of WICKED PROVIDENCE Book 2: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Stan’s predatory sneer dissolved into a mask of pure bewilderment. He shook his head, the fur on his neck bristling. “Is that truly your kin? But the scent... the age...”Even with the obsidian mask shielding Hudson’s features, his stance radiated the vitality of a wolf in his prime. He lacked the weathered musk of a male nearing his fortieth winter.Anna’s gaze swept across the high stone of the assembly, freezing and dismissive. The suspicious growls of the pack didn't make her flinch. “I do not owe a drop of proof to this rabble,” she stated with chilling authority. “This is my brother, the Lord Lando of the Wastes. Shall we draw blood for a lineage test now, or will you accept the word of a Watts?”The clearing fell into a tomb-like silence. No wolf dared to challenge the daughter of the North. Crossing Anna meant inviting the wrath of the black markets and the international heralds—a social death sentence for any pack.Hudson glanced at Anna, his brow furrowing beneath the leathe

Jenny’s feral snarl turned into a jagged grin. "Don’t test the patience of the Silver Ridge, stray. I’ve already retracted my claws once. You should be teaching your pup how to respect the hierarchy, unless you want her to grow up as stunted and cursed as you!" she spat, her voice carrying across the rocky shore.The surrounding Montgomery pack members began to huff in collective disapproval. "You're being an omen of discord," one Enforcer grunted at Avery."I can't believe a female with such high-tier furs could be so heartless to an orphan," a nursing mother whispered."Thank the Great Wolf that Jenny is here to protect the weak, or Craig would have been mauled by this outsider today."Avery absorbed the vitriol of the pack without flickering an eyelid. As the howling murmurs died down, she locked eyes with Jenny and the boy, her lips curling into a lethal smile. "Trying to scent-mark my daughter as a fraud? It so happens I recorded her shaping the silt with my communication crystal

Avery’s amber eyes narrowed, the golden flecks within them shimmering with a sudden, sharp calculation. Hudson? How was that possible? A thick fog of confusion settled over her. Given the Montgomery Alpha’s obsessive need for privacy and his current precarious standing with the High Council, why would he ever submit to a public broadcast? Was the pack in more danger than he let on?Without a word, Avery intercepted the communication tablet from Madison’s small paws to scrutinize the feed. She let out a long, shuddering breath of relief. It wasn’t a formal herald interview; it was a jagged, grainy live stream captured from a voyeuristic angle.Someone had hidden a recording crystal near the heavy oak frame of Hudson’s private study, covertly capturing the Alpha at his desk. Ferocious comments from sub-packs across the territory were clawing at the screen.“By the Mother Moon! Look at those shoulders... he smells of pure dominance even through a crystal. Such a shame he keeps his face b

The shadow of the Great Trial loomed over the Silver Ridge, and the scent of legal blood was in the air. News that Avery Monroe was taking Jenny Patterson before the Council of Elders spread through the territory like a wildfire through dry brush. Every wolf from the high peaks to the low marshes turned their ears toward the Turner Guild.Jenny, sensing the shifting winds, began broadcasting her essence through the communication crystals three times a day. She perfected the art of the "wounded omega," weeping before the glowing glass."My cycles of mercy were never easy," she whimpered, her voice a fragile reed. "I only sought to provide for the pack’s forgotten. I never imagined I would be hunted by a High-Blood capitalist. Avery Monroe uses her hoard of silver to muzzle me. The Council is already in her pocket. If she wins, I will be cast out—exiled from the Ridge to rot in the rogue wastes."With every sob, Jenny’s fanatical followers grew more rabid. They flooded the Turner Guild’

The digital scent-trail of the photograph was captured from a jagged, low angle, showing Ruth without her ceremonial war paint. In the brutal hierarchy of the Silver Ridge, her features had been heavily masked by illusion-charms and thick cosmetics before; her essence had shifted so thoroughly that Jenny hadn’t even scented her true lineage at first.Jenny snatched the image, casting it onto the territory’s communication crystals, and immediately began her "wounded omega" howl. “Cycles ago, this rogue devoured my intellectual kill for her own status, turning my years of tracking to ash. Back then, the Turner Guild punished her but shielded her from the exile she deserved. Now, this thief has crawled back into our sacred competition, and the pack remains silent to the injustice I suffered. Why does the Great Moon allow this?”The scandal of Ruth’s supposed theft had indeed caused a tremor in the pack years ago. Before long, the news gained a bloody traction; someone quickly scent-track