"This isn't justice," Ronan said, his voice rising despite Sarah's warning look. "This is murder. Cold-blooded assassination of kids who probably don't even know why our packs hate each other."
"Watch your tone, boy." Elder Marcus's eyes flashed gold with his wolf. "You're speaking about pack security to wolves who've bled for this territory."
"I'm speaking about right and wrong to wolves who've forgotten the difference."
The silence that followed was deafening. Ronan could hear his own heartbeat, could smell the spike of aggression from every council member. He'd crossed a line, but there was no going back now.
Marcus slowly rose from his chair, every inch the dominant Alpha. When he spoke, his voice was soft as silk and twice as dangerous.
"You think I've forgotten the difference between right and wrong?"
Ronan's wolf whimpered, recognizing the threat in his father's tone. Every instinct screamed at him to submit, to bare his throat and apologize. But his mother's voice whispered in his memory: Stand up for what's right, baby. Even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard.
"I think grief has made you forget what Mom would have wanted."
The crack of Marcus's palm against Ronan's cheek echoed through the chamber. The Alpha's slap carried enough force to snap a human's neck, but Ronan took it without flinching. The sting was nothing compared to the look of disgust in his father's eyes.
"Your mother," Marcus said quietly, "would want her son to have the strength to protect his pack. Not the weakness to defend our enemies."
"She'd want me to find another way."
"There is no other way!" The Alpha's control finally cracked, his voice booming through the chamber. "There is only strength or death! Power or submission! You can choose to be the Alpha this pack needs, or you can choose to be responsible for the next funeral!"
The words hung in the air like a challenge. Around the table, the pack elders watched with predatory interest. This was the moment, Ronan realized. The test that would determine his entire future.
He thought about the three young Capulets on the map. Thought about his mother's gentle hands teaching him guitar. Thought about the leader he wanted to become versus the one his father demanded.
"I won't be party to murder," he said quietly.
Marcus nodded once, as if Ronan had confirmed his worst fears. The disappointment in his father's eyes was somehow worse than the slap had been.
"Then you won't be party to leadership." Marcus's voice was flat, emotionless. "Beta Sarah."
Sarah straightened, her face carefully neutral. "Yes, Alpha?"
"Contact Moonrise Academy. Our heir requires... education in proper Alpha priorities."
Ronan's stomach dropped. Moonrise Academy was where pack leaders sent their children to be molded into proper little politicians. It was exile disguised as opportunity.
"Marcus," Sarah said carefully, "perhaps we should discuss—"
"The decision is made." Marcus turned back to his son, and Ronan saw something that might have been grief in those golden eyes. "You'll leave next week. Learn what it means to be a real Alpha, or learn what it means to be replaced."
The threat hung in the air between them. Ronan's cousin Derek had always been ambitious, always ready to step into the heir's role if needed. One word from Marcus, and everything Ronan had been raised to inherit would disappear.
"I understand," Ronan said, though he understood nothing except that his world had just shattered.
His father nodded curtly. "Council dismissed."
As the elders filed out, murmuring among themselves about the heir's shocking display of weakness, Ronan remained seated. Sarah lingered, her eyes full of sympathy and something that might have been pride.
"Your mother would be proud," she whispered as she passed his chair.
But as Ronan sat alone in the empty chamber, staring at the map that marked three young lives for death, he wondered if being right was worth losing everything.
-----
That night, Ronan sat on the roof of the estate, his guitar cradled in his lap as he watched the stars wheel overhead. The September air carried the scent of pine and approaching winter. In one week, he'd be gone from everything he'd ever known.
The sound of footsteps on the fire escape made him turn. Sarah climbed onto the roof with the careful movements of someone who'd done this before, back when he was younger and the world made more sense.
"You know," she said, settling beside him, "your mother used to come up here when she was upset with your father."
"Did she ever think about leaving?"
Sarah was quiet for a long moment, her breath visible in the cool night air. "She thought about it. After particularly bad council meetings. When the pack politics got too heavy." She looked at her nephew's profile in the moonlight. "But she stayed because she believed she could change things from the inside. Make the pack better."
"Fat lot of good it did her."
"She saved a lot of lives, Ronan. Wolves that would have died in pointless border wars. Families that would have been torn apart by blood feuds." Sarah's voice was soft but firm. "She made the pack better just by being in it. Just by being kind."
Ronan's throat tightened. "Dad doesn't want me to be kind. He wants me to be a killer."
"Your father wants you to be strong enough to survive in a world that killed the woman he loved." Sarah reached over and squeezed his hand, her warmth anchoring him to something real and good. "But strength doesn't have to mean cruelty. Leadership doesn't have to mean fear."
"Try telling him that."
"I did. For six years, I've been trying to remind him of the man he used to be. The man your mother fell in love with." She sighed, and the sound carried all the weight of their family's broken pieces. "Maybe some distance will help. Maybe Moonrise will give you both time to remember who you really are."
Ronan looked down at his guitar, at the small inscription his mother had carved into the wood: Music heals what words cannot touch.
"What if I'm not strong enough to be what they need?"
"What if you're exactly strong enough to be what they need, just not in the way they expect?"
The question hung between them like a promise. Sarah stood to leave, then paused with her hand on the fire escape railing.
"Your mother would be proud of you tonight. For standing up for what's right, even when it cost you everything."
After she left, Ronan played until his fingers bled, pouring all his grief and fear and desperate hope into melodies that only the stars could hear. The music flowed from his soul—his mother's lullabies, his father's war songs, and something new. Something that belonged only to him.
In one week, he'd walk into Moonrise Academy carrying the weight of his father's expectations and his mother's dreams. He'd face pack politics more complex than anything he'd experienced at home. He'd meet wolves from families that had been enemies for centuries.
He just hoped he was strong enough to carry both legacies without breaking under the pressure.
But first, he had to figure out how to be an Alpha in a world that seemed determined to teach him that leadership meant choosing between love and survival.
Maybe there's a third option, he thought as the last chord faded into silence. Maybe there's a way to be both strong and kind.
His mother had believed it was possible. Sarah believed it was necessary. And somewhere deep in his heart, beneath all the grief and anger and fear, Ronan believed it too.
He'd have to find it at Moonrise Academy.
Or die trying.
But as he sat under the stars with his mother's guitar in his hands, Ronan Montague made himself a promise: he would not become the killer his father wanted him to be. He would find another way to be strong. Another way to lead.
Even if it meant walking away from everything he'd ever known.
Even if it meant facing his destiny alone.