After My Alpha Died, His Son Took Control of Me

Andrew Collins died the way he lived — performing strength he no longer had.

It happened during the shift. Three senior pack members were there. They said it was quick. They said it with the careful, neutral faces of people who had already decided what version of events the pack would receive. By the time the news reached me, it had already been shaped into something dignified: the Alpha had passed during a ceremonial shift, his wolf at peace, his legacy intact.

I stood at the funeral rites in the dress a Luna is supposed to wear. I kept my hands folded. I kept my face arranged. I had been practicing that face for two years — the composed, grateful, quietly grieving widow. I was good at it by now.

What I was actually doing, the entire time, was counting.

The vault. Eight digits. My grandmother's name on a transplant waiting list at St. Mercy's, with a bill attached to it that I had been watching climb for twenty-four months. Andrew had promised me the healer's treatment in exchange for the mark. The healer's treatment had kept her stable. But stable was not the same as saved, and the human hospital's transplant program required funding I did not have and could not reach — not without the vault.

Andrew had never given me the code. He had never needed to. The code was the last leash, and he had known exactly what it was worth.

I told myself: after the rites. After the mourning period. Then I go to the vault, I present the account documentation he gave me when I accepted his mark, and I walk out of Ironveil with enough to give my grandmother her life back.

I had been waiting two years for this moment. I could wait three more days.

---

The morning after the rites concluded, I went to the vault room in the lower level of the pack house.

It was a plain room. Stone walls, a single overhead light, a panel set into the far wall that looked almost like a hotel safe if you didn't know what was behind it. I had been in this room once before, when Andrew showed it to me as a demonstration of what I was being given access to. He had not given me the code that day either. He had just wanted me to see it.

I set the account documentation on the administrator's desk. The administrator — a middle-aged wolf named Corrin who had always been careful to look slightly past me rather than at me — reviewed the papers without touching them.

"The panel requires Alpha bloodline authorization," he said.

I already knew that. "Andrew authorized my access when he marked me. It's in the documentation."

"Alpha Andrew's authorization terminated at his death." Corrin's voice was professionally flat. "The system recognizes only living bloodline. There is currently one living Collins."

The room was very quiet.

"Alpha Zayne," I said.

"All treasury access belongs