The council chamber of Regina had always possessed a strange gravity that pressed quietly upon those who entered its tall stone doors, and though the room itself contained no throne and no crown the semicircle of carved wooden seats arranged beneath the high windows had witnessed generations of decisions that shaped the lives of wolves who would never even know the names of those who ruled them.
Two lines of low murmuring drifted across the chamber.
Council elders gathered slowly.
Their voices careful.
Their eyes watchful.
At the far end of the hall Victor Salazar stood beside one of the tall pillars with his arms folded across his chest while the restless energy of the gathering pack filtered through the doorway behind him, and the Beta looked less like a politician and more like a soldier waiting for a battlefield signal.
"Hmm," he muttered quietly.
"This is going to be a mess."
