My Pack Gave My Sister My Alpha, So I Chose His Enemy

The first time, I told myself it was nothing.

Two days after the Moon Celebration, I was on the training field with the patrol roster, checking off names as the younger wolves ran drills. Caleb jogged over to grab a water bottle from the table beside me, and the wind shifted.

Vanilla and crushed jasmine. Ivy's scent, warm and fresh, clinging to the collar of his shirt like she'd had her face pressed there.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning." I kept my pen moving. "Tyler's late again. That's three times this week."

"I'll talk to him." He drank, tossed the bottle back, and ran off without looking at me twice.

The second time was Sunday dinner at my parents' house. Caleb came over the way he had for years, kissed my mother's cheek, and took the chair across from me instead of the one next to me. When he reached past me for the bread basket, his sleeve brushed my arm, and there it was again. Stronger this time. Not a passing hug. Hours of it.

Ivy laughed at something he said and bumped his shoulder with hers. My mother beamed at them over the roast chicken.

I cut my food into small pieces and didn't eat much of it.

The third time, I was alone.

Tuesday afternoon, I went into the council meeting room to set up for the elders' session and found Caleb's jacket draped over the back of his chair. I picked it up to hang it properly, the way I always did, and the scent hit me so hard I almost dropped it.

It wasn't on the collar or the sleeve. It was everywhere. Soaked into the lining like someone had worn it for a whole night.

I was still standing there holding it when Caleb walked in.

"Oh, good, you found it." He held out his hand. "I've been looking for that."

I didn't give it to him. "How much time are you and Ivy spending together?"

His hand stayed in the air a second too long. Then he dropped it. "What?"

"It's a simple question. Training field. Dinner. Now this." I lifted the jacket slightly. "Her scent is all over you, Caleb. Every single day."

"Because she's in Luna training." He said it slowly, like I was one of the pups who couldn't follow directions. "She's learning the ceremonies, the protocols, the territory lines. I'm the future Alpha. Of course I'm helping her."

"In your jacket?"

"It was cold on the ridge last night. I lent it to her." He took it from my hands, not roughly, but firmly enough that I let go. "Honestly, El, you've been weird about scents lately. Everybody's a little sensitive after the full moon, but you're reading into things."

"I'm reading into things."

"You're reading into things," he repeated, gentler, and that gentleness was the part that made my stomach turn. "Ivy's your sister. I'm your best friend. What exactly do you think is going on?"

I looked at him for a long moment. He looked back, calm and patient and completely unbothered, like he already knew I wouldn't say it out loud.

He was right. I didn't.

"The elders will be here in ten minutes," I said. "Your notes are on the table."

My mother was in the kitchen when I got home that night, wiping down the counters. I told her about the jacket. I don't know what I expected.

She sighed and folded the dish towel in half. "Elara. Sweetheart. You're jealous."

"I'm not jealous. I'm asking a question nobody wants to answer."

"Because it's a silly question." She reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, the way she used to when I was small. "Ivy has struggled her whole life to figure out where she fits. You've always known. You've always been the capable one. You should be happy Ivy finally found a place that suits her."

A place that suits her. My place.

"Goodnight, Mom," I said.

Luna training had been every Wednesday morning for two years. Nine o'clock sharp, in the east study of the pack house, with Elder Marion and her stack of leather binders and her lukewarm peppermint tea. I'd never missed a session. Not when I had the flu. Not when my grandfather died.

So I walked in at eight fifty-five with my handbook under my arm, and Elder Marion looked up from her desk with an expression I'd never seen on her before.

Pity.

"Elara," she said. "I thought someone would have told you."

"Told me what?"

She turned the attendance sheet toward me. The list was short, the way it always was. Two names at the top.

Mine had been crossed out. Ivy's was written below it in fresh blue ink.

"It's just for this week?" I asked.

"No, dear." Marion folded her hands. "It's official. The paperwork went through the council yesterday."

The door opened behind me before I could answer. My father walked in, then Ivy, carrying a brand-new notebook with a moon stamped on the cover in silver foil. She stopped when she saw me.

"Elara." She glanced at Dad. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"I'm always here," I said. It was the second time in a week I'd had to say that.

Dad cleared his throat and put a hand on my shoulder. "Let's step into the hall for a minute."

"We can talk here." I didn't move. "Why was my name taken off the list?"

He exhaled through his nose. My father was a practical man. He didn't like emotional conversations, and he especially didn't like them in front of elders.

"Your mother and I talked it over with Caleb and his father," he said. "We all agreed. Ivy's a better fit to stand beside the Alpha. She's warm. She's comfortable in front of a crowd. People respond to her."

"And me?"

"You're quiet, Elara. You always have been. That's not a flaw." He squeezed my shoulder like he was doing me a kindness. "You're better suited to internal pack affairs. Records, scheduling, the families. The things that keep the place running."

"The things I've been doing for three years," I said. "As Luna training."

"Exactly. You're good at them. That's why we've decided you'll help Ivy adjust to the Luna's duties. Show her the ropes. Nobody knows this job better than you."

Ivy stood by the desk, clutching her shiny notebook. She didn't look triumphant. She looked like she was waiting for me to cry, or yell, or storm out, so she could be the one to comfort me afterward.

For two years, I'd sat in this room and learned how to lead a pack. I'd learned that the Luna who argues for her own position looks weak, and the Luna who knows her worth doesn't need permission.

I thought about arguing. About listing every family I'd sat with, every shift I'd talked a pup through, every roster I'd fixed at midnight while Caleb slept.

Then I thought about Caleb's jacket, and my mother's dish towel, and the blue ink on the attendance sheet.

None of them were going to hear me. They'd already decided.

I walked to the desk and set my handbook down in front of Ivy.

It was thick, the spine cracked and taped in two places. Three years of sticky notes stuck out from the edges in every color I could find.

Ivy blinked at it. "What's this?"

"Everything you need." I stepped back. "You want to be Luna? Then learn."

Nobody said anything. My father's hand hung in the air where my shoulder had been.

Ivy pulled the handbook closer and opened the cover.

The first page wasn't a table of contents. It was a list of every family in Silverpine, written in my handwriting, small and tight to fit it all in. Names. Birthdays. Which grandmother was losing her hearing. Which pups were close to their first shift and what calmed them down. Patrol pairings that worked and the ones that ended in fights. A note in the margin, circled twice: *Alder, father's leg, don't ask him to stand.*

She turned the page. Then another. The ink never stopped.

Ivy's fingers went still on the paper, and for the first time since the Moon Celebration, she looked up at me without smiling.