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A few women laugh with her.

“You don't always have to like each other,” Luna Selena continues. “You don't always have to agree. You don't have to become best friends. But maybe we can start by deciding we don't have to harm each other.”

That opens the conversation again. An Omega talks about being afraid to speak when higher ranked shewolves mistreat her. A warrior admits jealousy made her cruel to another woman. A mother talks about friendships she lost after mating. A teenager asks whether something is wrong with her because she isn't sure she ever wants pups, and three women answer before Luna Selena can. They don't all give the same answer. Luna Selena lets them disagree.

She asks questions. She listens. Sometimes she offers advice. Sometimes another shewolf answers before she does. Once, Luna Selena simply says, “I don't know, but I'll find out.”

By the time the gathering begins thinning, conversations have broken out everywhere. Mothers gather sleepy pups while teenagers linger with friends. Some of the same shewolves who disagreed twenty minutes ago are still talking as they walk away.

Darlene yawns against me.

“Sleepy?”

“No.”

I smile and kiss the top of her head. “Of course not.”

Eventually, only a few shewolves remain nearby. Luna Selena watches them leave before turning toward me.

“Well?”

“I think you gave them something to think about.”

“I hope I gave them more than that.”

I study her. “Why does this matter so much to you?”

Luna Selena looks toward the departing shewolves, and something in her expression changes. “Because if the women in this pack ever truly come together, Arlene, we could be more lethal than the men.”

I stare at her. “That wasn't where I thought this conversation was going.”

She laughs. “We can be dangerous.”

My wolf perks up.

She's not wrong.

I bite back a smile. “Continue.”

“We can walk onto a battlefield and kill someone trying to murder our families, then come home and hold our pups when they're frightened. We can be soft, sweet, kind, nurturing. We can welcome someone into our pack, bring them into our homes, feed them, care for them.” Her expression hardens. “And those same women are capable of making sure a man who thinks he has the right to rape us, murder us, plunder what belongs to us, or kill our families doesn't live long enough to do it twice. Poison is a strong peacekeeper.”

My wolf gives a low sound of approval inside me.

Luna Selena looks toward the path the others took. “Women know how to survive. We strategize for survival. Our survival, our children's survival, the survival of the people we love. But if we spend all that strength surviving each other, what do we have left?”

I don't answer.

“If you're constantly standing with a knife against another woman's throat while she has one against yours, neither of you is thinking about building something together. You're both wondering who is going to strike first.”

“So you want them to put down the knives.”

“I want them pointed in the right direction.”

A laugh escapes me.

Luna Selena grins before growing serious again. “From the strongest warrior to the weakest Omega, I want them to understand they're stronger together. Some of these girls will stay in Silver Moon their entire lives. Others will find mates and leave us for another pack. I want them to take that with them. Maybe they'll help women somewhere else understand it too.”

Darlene shifts sleepily against my chest, and Luna Selena's gaze drops to her. “They're going to grow up, Arlene. Darlene. The other little girls we saw tonight. We decide what kind of example they grow up watching.”