Weight of Duty

Lucas’s POV

The sun was high in the sky, casting a golden light through the tall windows of my office. Papers lay spread across my desk—border patrol reports, supply chain summaries, plans for expanding guard rotations along the kingdom’s northern edge. Each document felt heavier than the last, the weight of responsibility settling like an anchor in my chest. Strengthening our borders had been the main point of discussion in the last council meeting, and with the Alpha summit fast approaching, the pressure to finalize these plans was relentless.

Across from me, Derek was buried in a stack of papers, his brows furrowed in concentration as he skimmed through a particularly dense report. Loyal to a fault and as sharp as they come, he’d been my right hand since we were boys. Soon, he’d be my Beta, and there was no one I trusted more with that role.

“Derek,” I said, breaking the silence, “what do you think about adding a few more patrols around the eastern border? The neighboring pack ther