I'd said, "Can you fight?"

He'd said, "Better than you."

He was wrong about that. But he was good enough.

"They'll never accept us," I said. "Three packs, thirty packs — it doesn't matter. We're rogues. The system doesn't have a category for what we built here. We can't win legitimacy by being good enough, because the rules were written to exclude us."

"So what do we do?"

"We make them afraid to come."

Torren straightened. The conversation had shifted — he could feel it. We weren't talking about politics anymore. We were talking about survival.

"Start with the eastern corridor. It's our weakest approach — open ground for two hundred yards before tree cover. I want trenches. Not deep, just enough to break a charge. Line them with sharpened stakes."

"Silver?"

"No. We're not them." I moved to the map. Started marking positions. "Pull the outer sentries in to the second ring. We can't hold the perimeter against a real assault, so don't try. Concentric defense — let them push in, make them bleed for every yard, and keep our fallback lines clean."

Torren was already writing. "Supplies?"

"Three weeks' worth in the underground stores. Enough if we're careful. More if we hunt." I paused. "And Torren — the wolves who can't fight. The old ones, the children, the injured. I want a tunnel."

He looked up.

"We've got that dry creek bed that runs under the northern wall. I want it widened. Big enough for people to move through single file. Exit point at least a mile past our territory line, in unclaimed ground."

"An escape route."

"A guarantee. If this goes wrong, the people who came here for protection don't die for my war."

He nodded. No argument. That was Torren — he didn't waste time on bravery when practicality was available.

"One more thing," I said. "Lily stays in the inner compound. My quarters. Isla with her at all times. If anyone gets past our lines, anyone at all—"

"I know."

"No. You don't." I held his gaze. "If they breach the inner compound, you don't fight. You take Lily and you run. Through the tunnel, into unclaimed territory, and you don't stop until you're somewhere they can't find you."

"Rhea—"

"That's not a request, Torren. That's an order. You're the only person I trust to do it."

He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, "And you?"

"I'll be between them and her."

He didn't argue. He took the reports, folded them into his jacket, and left to start the fortifications.

I stood alone in the command room. The map table was covered in marks — trench lines, fallback positions, the tunnel route. The territory I'd built from nothing, drawn in pencil and defended in blood.

Three allied packs, four hundred warriors, and a coward who'd rather start a war than admit he'd tortured his own daughter.

I picked up a pencil and started planning.