Page 55 of Never Submit

She’s strong, fierce, and kind in a way you’d never expect. I can see her now, standing in the kitchen, one hand cradling her belly while the other wrangles a mischievous toddler. My wolf stirs at the image and a low, possessive growl rumbles in my chest.

“Hey, Mathis?”

Flora’s voice pulls me back, and I realize I’ve been silent too long. Her eyes are on me. Curious but not unkind.

Dax is sick of my shit, and he’s crossed to the window and a much better view than my brooding self.

“Sorry,” I say quickly, shaking off the haze. “What were you saying?”

She raises a brow but thankfully she doesn’t push. “Justthat you need to figure this out soon. The pack’s counting on you. I’m sure you already know it but the reminder never hurts.”

Dax leans back against the wall with his arms crossed. “I agree, but Mathis is stillthinkingabout it,” he says with heavy sarcasm.

“Dax,” I warn, my voice low. He shrugs.

"Still thinking, huh?" Flora says. “Anything I can help with?”

Normally, if an omega pushed me the way she does, I’d send them out of the room with a snap of my fingers. Back to their homes and their places. Why I allow Flora such liberties…

Sighing, I shift and sink back down in my own chair, the wood creaking underneath me. "Andras is closer than we thought. He’s on our doorstep, somewhere on Grey Mountain. It accounts for how easily he’s been able to infiltrate our territory lines so easily."

“Which is why we need to take him out first,” Dax snaps.

“Which is why we need toprotectourselves,” I correct hotly. “If we go after him, it’s suicide. If we sit here?—”

“We’re all dead.” Flora doesn’t even flinch. "If we can’t go on the attack, and if we can’t stay here, there’s only one solution then.”

Dax rolls his eyes. “Bake cookies?”

She slaps him on the arm, and to my surprise, he actually rubs the spot as if the hit hurt more than he’d expected. Even he softens in her presence.

“Then we need to move."

She says it simply as though she’s meditated on the best course of action and simply waited for the right time to lay it on me. Even her brown eyes are knowledgeable and full ofcontentment. Flora might worry but she’ll never let me see it.

“Move,” I repeat, thinking it over. “Leave behind everything we’ve built?”

"You think we should run with our tails between our legs?" Dax asks her incredulously. "I’d rather die.”

“No one said you had to come,” Flora says.

“Then perhapsyou’dbe interested in taking up myposition, little fierce one?” Dax sneers at Flora with a lift of his lip, showing overly white teeth.

Anyone else who came face to face with Dax would note the expression and flinch.

Flora only chuckles under her breath, and I pinch the bridge of my nose.

There’s a headache building fast. Just the idea of leaving the home the Grey Valley pack has claimed for our own, grown up in for generations—where my parents raised me—twists an invisible knife in my gut.

A few weeks ago, I’d have said that picking up our roots and hauling out of here wasn’t an option.

Now, I wonder…

Andras is right under our noses. We’ll never be safe if we stay, not without the Moonstone.

Do we have another choice at this point?

“Mathis, every day, men are killed or women are taken. Soon I’ll be the only one left?—”

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