After all, it was the Duskborne bloodline that had slighted her first.
Elara studied me for a long time.
"It stands."
On the first day of our mating bond, I secured the Alpha Trade Seal.
To repay Elara's trust, I threw myself into the work with even more drive than I'd had at the Crown Alpha's territory.
She told me that every moon-coin the territory earned would be recorded under my name.
"Princess, could it be that you actually like me?"
I was genuinely curious.
She only smiled and said nothing.
Elara was a pack princess who had never been favored by the High Council.
But I would make sure every she-wolf in Moonhaven envied mine.
Before long, Princess Elara's territory, once half in ruins, had a brand-new timber-and-stone wing rising above its walls.
Things at the Crown Alpha's territory, however, had taken a different turn.
Edric declared that the stench of commerce would no longer be allowed to corrupt any wolf's spirit.
Every servant's monthly wage was slashed to a single copper moon-coin.
Only without the temptation of wealth, he reasoned, could wolves stop obsessing over profit.
Only then could they preserve their noble integrity.
My portrait was even turned into a cautionary display.
The entire household was made to remember how vulgar and base life had been when I was in charge.
The Crown Alpha's territory was renovated from top to bottom.
Crane motifs carved in moonstone and ceremonial howl-scrolls adorned every wall and corridor.
The place looked like something out of an old moon-singer's ballad.
You could smell the night-blooming flowers from halfway down the path.
Wolves passing by marveled: "The elder Duskborne truly is remarkable. Look how refined he's made the Crown Alpha's territory!"
Even the Supreme Alpha heard about it and brought the Supreme Alpha Female for a personal tour.
But nobody seemed to realize
that all this elegance
had been bought with the fortune I'd built for the Crown Alpha's territory.
It wasn't long before the territory ground to a halt.
A crowd gathered at the front gates.
They were demanding their back pay.
Edric had burned through nearly every moon-coin in the pack vault on his little vanity project.
And even if there had been moon-coins left, it wouldn't have mattered. Edric had already decreed: one copper coin per wolf, per moon cycle.
Enough to kill any illusion that work here would ever pay.
The territory guards didn't truly try to stop the crowd.