Sunlight
POV: AIDEN
Aiden had always thought sunlight was wasted through glass.
It belonged on skin. In hair. Warm across closed eyelids while the world woke slowly around you. A cool breeze pushed his thick chestnut hair away from his forehead, and he breathed in until the clean scent of pine filled his lungs.
That was why, despite the polished floors and wide windows of the packhouse, he had slipped outside before breakfast with no shoes on and no particular destination in mind. For a few quiet minutes, no one needed an answer from him. He did not have to be the Alpha who noticed every problem before it grew teeth. He could simply be Aiden, barefoot in the morning sun.
The grass was still wet with dew. It bent cool beneath his bare feet as he crossed the meadow, leaving a trail of darker footprints behind him. Beyond the training fields, the Silverpine forest climbed towards the mountains in deep green layers, the upper ridges washed gold by the rising sun. Somewhere below them, hidden by the pines, the lake caught the light and threw it back in brief silver flashes.
The territory was waking.
A door opened behind the pack school. Someone laughed in one of the family homes scattered beyond the meadow. The kitchen had begun preparing breakfast, and the scents carried easily on the morning air. Farther away, a pair of wolves ran the northern trail, their presence brushing lightly against the edge of the pack bond.
His wolf stirred beneath his skin, content with the open space, the clean air and the familiar lives surrounding them. The quiet satisfaction of it settled through Aiden, warm and steady. He lifted his face to the sun for one more moment.
Then a sharp, irritated mutter drifted from the path near the memorial garden.
He opened his eyes, already fighting a smile.
Elder Miriam stood beside a wooden handcart piled far beyond any reasonable limit with split firewood. One wheel had sunk into a patch of soft earth. She had both hands wrapped around the handle and was glaring at it as though the cart had offended her family.
Aiden changed direction. He knew that particular glare. The cart had already lost the argument. It simply had not accepted it yet.
She heard him before he reached her. “Don’t.”
He stopped beside the cart and raised both hands innocently. “I haven’t said anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to wish you good morning.” His tone was solemn enough to be unconvincing.
Miriam gave him a look over one narrow shoulder. Her white hair had been twisted into a loose knot, and three silver pins were losing the battle to contain it. “You were going to tell me that load is too heavy.”
Aiden studied the cart, pressing his lips together as though the answer required serious consideration. “I would never question the judgement of an elder.”
“Good.”
A smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth. “I might question the judgement of whoever stacked wet pine above the side rails.”
Her mouth tightened, but he caught the beginning of a smile.
He moved beside the cart and took hold of the frame. Miriam immediately slapped his forearm.
“I can manage.” Her chin lifted in warning.
“I know.” He softened his voice, because he did know. Helping her was not the same as doubting her.
“Then let go.”
“No.”
She turned fully towards him, which brought the top of her head somewhere below his shoulder. “Alpha or not, I changed your nappies.”
Aiden sighed with all the patience of a man carrying a lifelong burden. “So you keep telling me.”
“I have proof.”
He glanced towards the packhouse as though checking for witnesses. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It is.”
Aiden laughed under his breath and, before she could protest again, lifted the trapped side of the cart just enough for the wheel to clear the mud. Miriam pulled. Together, they rolled it back onto the path.
He did not take the handle from her. He only walked beside the cart, one hand resting lightly against the overloaded stack to keep it steady. Miriam would have hated being rescued from a task she had already decided to finish. He could respect that while making certain the firewood reached its destination without crushing her toes.
After several steps, she glanced at him. “You have a council briefing.”
“In an hour.”
“Forty minutes.”
Aiden frowned, genuinely puzzled. “How do you know that?”
“I listen when people speak.”
“I do that too.”
“No, you wait for them to finish so you can solve whatever problem they brought you.”
His amusement faded. He looked at her, caught between denying it and wondering how often she had watched him do exactly that.
Miriam’s expression softened, but only slightly. “There is a difference.”
Aiden rubbed a thumb over the rough edge of the cart. She was probably right, which was inconvenient. He filed the thought away for later, knowing perfectly well that later might arrive only when someone forced him to sit still.
Before he could answer, she pointed towards the small woodshed beside the garden. “Put those under the awning. Not inside. They need another day to dry.”
Aiden obeyed, unloading half the cart while she carried the smaller pieces herself. When he reached for the last bundle in her arms, she turned away from him.
“I am not helpless.”
“I know.” This time he held her gaze so she could hear the truth in it.
“Stop saying that as though you are humouring me.”
“I’m not.” He stacked the final piece and brushed bark from his palms. “You got the cart out of the storehouse, loaded it, dragged it halfway across the grounds and nearly freed it before I arrived. That isn’t helpless. It is, however, stubborn.”
Miriam sniffed. “A quality Silverpine has always valued.”
“Usually in moderation.”
“Your father never understood moderation either.”
The words landed gently, but Aiden still felt them in the centre of his chest.
He looked towards the memorial garden, where the first light touched the smooth stone bearing his father’s name, Alpha Jonathan Rowan. The ache was old enough now to live quietly inside him, but not old enough to be gone. Some mornings he could smile at a memory of his dad. On others, the absence felt newly cut. Today it was both.
Miriam followed his gaze. “He would have taken the whole cart from me.”
Aiden’s mouth curved despite the tightness in his throat. “I know.”
“And I would have shouted at him too.”
“I know that as well.” His voice came out softer than before.
Her hand closed briefly around his wrist. She did not offer comfort in words, and he was grateful for it. Then she released him and nodded towards the training fields. “Go. Someone else is trying very hard not to need your help.”
Aiden followed the direction of her glance.
A young warrior stood alone beside the outdoor ring, attacking a padded practice post with far more anger than technique. His shirt clung damply between his shoulder blades. Each strike came faster than the one before it, until his footing slipped and he stumbled hard enough to catch himself against the post.
Miriam clicked her tongue. “He lost his assessment bout yesterday.”
Aiden remembered. Caleb Hart had done well through every stage of his warrior training. Yesterday, under the eyes of Gamma Marcus, Delta Grant and half the senior guard, he had frozen.
“I thought he went home,” Aiden said, watching Caleb reset his stance before anyone could offer help.
“He did. Then he came back before dawn.”
Of course he had. Aiden recognised the fierce, miserable need to erase a failure before anyone else could remember it.
He thanked Miriam and crossed the field.
Caleb saw him coming and straightened so quickly that his shoulders nearly reached his ears.
“Alpha.”
“Caleb.” Aiden kept his tone easy, refusing to make the moment feel like another assessment.
The boy looked at the churned dirt rather than at him. No, not a boy, Aiden corrected himself. Caleb was eighteen now and hated being treated like a child. Yet the shame rolling from him was young and raw enough to make Aiden want to shield him from it.
He stopped outside the ring. “You’re dropping your right shoulder.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened. “I know.”
Aiden tipped his head towards the practice post. “Do it again.”
He did. The first two strikes were clean. The third was too hard, too fast, and the same shoulder dipped.
Aiden stepped into the ring and stopped opposite him. Caleb’s stance tightened as though the Alpha himself had become another assessment.
“You’re trying to beat yesterday,” Aiden said.
“I should have passed.”
“Yes.” Aiden answered without softening the truth.
Caleb finally looked at him, startled.
Comfort would have been kinder for a breath, but Aiden had never believed kindness required a lie. “You were ready. Then everyone watched you be ready, and you decided you could not afford a mistake.”
Caleb’s shoulders curled inwards. “I made more than one.”
“You did.” Aiden’s voice remained calm. “That does not mean yesterday gets to decide who you are today.”
The shame in Caleb’s scent sharpened, then wavered.
Aiden folded his arms loosely. “Do you know how many assessment bouts I lost?”
Caleb hesitated. “You?”
Aiden lifted an eyebrow. “That question is dangerously close to insulting.”
A flush crept up the young warrior’s neck. “I did not mean it that way.”
“Seven.”
Caleb blinked. “Seven?”
“Seven.” Aiden leaned closer, lowering his voice as though sharing classified information. “Beta Liam says nine. Beta Liam lies.”
A laugh escaped Caleb before he could stop it. The sound was brief, but some of the rigid tension left his shoulders.
“Alpha Jonathan made me repeat the second level twice,” Aiden said. The memory of his dad standing at the edge of the ring, arms folded and utterly unmoved by pleading, warmed something beneath the old ache. “Gamma Marcus put me on my back so often during defensive training that I started recognising clouds by shape.”
Caleb stared at him as though this information had never occurred to him. Perhaps it had not. Packs preserved the victories of their Alphas more faithfully than their failures. Aiden understood why, but he did not want Caleb measuring himself against a version of him that had never existed.
He stepped back and nodded towards the padded post. “Yesterday was bad.”
Caleb swallowed. “Yes, Alpha.”
“It was also yesterday.” Aiden held the young warrior’s gaze until Caleb stopped trying to look away.
“What if it happens again?”
“Then you learn something else and try again.”
Caleb looked down at his hands. “Delta Grant said a warrior who freezes gets people killed.”
Aiden’s expression sobered. “He’s right.”
The young man’s face fell.
Aiden rested a steady hand on his shoulder. “Which is why we find out what makes you freeze here, on a training field, while the worst thing you can lose is pride. Delta Grant was warning you about the cost. I am reminding you that you still have time to prepare for it.”
Caleb breathed in slowly. Aiden felt the tension beneath his palm begin to ease.
“You are not being punished,” he said, his tone quiet but firm. “You are being prepared. There is a difference.”
For a moment, Caleb said nothing. Then he squared his shoulders and adjusted his stance.
Aiden stepped behind him and nudged his right shoulder into place. “Again. Slower.”
The first strike landed squarely.
“Again.”
The second did too.
By the sixth, Caleb’s movements had stopped looking like a fight with himself.
Aiden backed away, a small smile pulling at his mouth. “Better.”
Caleb frowned at the practice post. “Not good.”
“Better comes first.”
Caleb took his stance again, but some of the desperation had left it.
A familiar voice slid into Aiden’s mind through the mindlink, carrying the dry patience of a man who had already waited too long.
Are you aware that breakfast is a meal traditionally eaten in the morning?
Aiden glanced towards the packhouse. Even at a distance, he could picture Liam leaning against the kitchen doorway with a mug in his hand and an expression of deep personal suffering. His mouth twitched.
I’ve heard rumours.
Your mother has asked where you are.
Did you tell her?
I value my life.
Coward.
Barefoot coward, Liam replied. Also, the council briefing begins in twenty two minutes.
Elder Miriam said forty.
Elder Miriam spoke to you eighteen minutes ago.
Aiden looked towards the sun, as if it might defend him from both time and his mother.
It did not.
He turned back to Caleb. “Ten clean strikes, then breakfast.”
Caleb nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”
Aiden took two steps, then paused. “And Caleb?”
The young warrior looked over his shoulder.
Aiden gave him a firm nod, letting the confidence show in his voice. “You’ve got this.”
Something eased in Caleb’s face. He stood a little straighter. “Yes, Alpha.”
Aiden left him to it, resisting the urge to remain until all ten strikes were done. Trusting someone to continue without him was also a kind of help, even if it never felt as useful.
He had almost reached the path beside the playground when the pack school doors opened and released a flood of children into the morning. Their teacher called after them to stay away from the wet grass.
They ignored her with impressive unity.
A small girl spotted Aiden first.
Her entire face brightened. “Uncle Alpha!”
Every head turned.
Whatever remained of his council thoughts disappeared beneath a rush of small feet. Aiden had enough warning to brace himself before six children charged across the meadow. One seized his hand. Two wrapped their arms around his legs. A little boy with one shoelace undone skidded on the dew and would have gone down if Aiden had not caught him beneath the arms.
Behind them, two embarrassed parents hurried from the school path.
“I’m so sorry, Alpha,” the boy’s mother said, breathless with mortification. “Noah, you cannot just throw yourself at the Alpha like that.”
“But it’s Uncle Alpha,” Noah protested, as though this settled all laws of rank, manners and personal space.
Aiden set him on his feet and crouched to tie the loose lace. He arranged his face into solemn agreement. “He makes a compelling argument.”
He grinned as he looked up, dimples cutting into his cheeks.
The mother pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. “You encourage them.”
Aiden widened his eyes with exaggerated innocence. “I have no idea what you mean.”
A child climbed onto his back with the confidence of someone who had never once considered that he might object.
Aiden glanced over his shoulder. “Tessa.”
She wrapped both arms around his neck. “You were too tall.”
“For what?” he asked, already knowing the answer would make sense only to her.
“For me to talk to you.”
“Of course.”
Another child tugged his sleeve. “We made a fort.”
“It’s not a fort,” Noah said, offended by the inaccuracy. “It’s a council room.”
“It has pinecones,” Tessa informed him solemnly.
Aiden rose with her still on his back. Warmth spread through him at the absolute faith with which they assumed he would follow. “Then it sounds official.”
The teacher reached them, breathless and apologetic. “Alpha, I promise we do teach boundaries.”
Aiden looked at the children gathered around his legs, at Noah’s newly tied shoe and at Tessa’s small chin resting on his shoulder. Their trust was not something he took lightly, but neither was it something he wanted them to fear offering.
“They know the important ones,” he said gently.
Noah frowned up at the teacher. “See? Uncle Alpha said.”
Aiden’s laugh broke free before he could stop it, warm, full and helplessly amused.
The children and adults around him began laughing too, caught by the warmth of it. Aiden tightened one arm around Tessa’s legs and let himself be pulled towards the pinecone council room.
The sound travelled across the bright meadow.
For one golden morning, all of Silverpine seemed to laugh with him.
