Chapter 116

"It's confirmed," the scout panted, face nearly blue from having sprinted so far in the punishing cold. "They're on their way here. Adrian is escorting them here as he said he would."

Anna would have wilted in relief if she weren't so conscious of the presence of her subordinates. She could show no weakness even if her actions until now had already proven she was incapable of acting independently. Appearances were everything in times like this when all that held back wholesale chaos was her wire-thin composure.

"Good. I'll take them in my tent and brief them here. They'll have questions, but refrain from answering any within earshot of anyone else."

"Yes, madam."

Madam, not Alpha. For a while, Anna had hoped the Iron Nation army would look to her as a true leader with the absence of her father regardless of her sex. But that had yet to happen. They were polite and respectful and listened to her orders, but there was no inherent trust: she was an interim occupant for a vacant space th