The wolf had to be Pack, didn’t he? But no one had called to him about trouble.
His pack wasn’t the only one in the area, there were nomads and others with pass-through rights, but he was solidly on Pack territory. If a wolf from another pack had crossed the border, he would have sensed it. As Legate, his senses were connected with the territorial boundary. Not as well as Greene, the Alpha, but enough he would know. The magic veil that made the boundary line would ring in magical alarm if it was crossed by someone with no right to be there. The witches in his pack would know. The vampire. The Threshold magic itself would tell all that were responsible for its existence.
Running at full speed, he still reached out with his mind, telling Luke to come. He would need the physician skills of his best friend for whatever awaited him, that he knew.
This wolf, wherever he came from, was hurt. Once he could feel Luke answering the call, he reached out again with his mind. This time to the unknown wolf, trying to locate him.
Oddly, nothing was there.
His mind expanded as he ran, and although the direction of that howl, thatlamentbecame his North Star, he could not sense the shifter himself. Seath’s mind hit a . . .hell, what was that? A void? A blank space in the woods? A numbness where there should have been someone was maybe more accurate. He huffed as he ran, feeling his mind sliding over rather than pinpointing the location. Even as a void, he couldn’t use it as a guide, it wouldn’t let him.
The oddness of that made him run almost as hard as the lament.
And it made him call for the Pack’s Second, his reinforcements, if this was some sort of attack to answer. Maybe it was.
As a shifter, as the next Pack Alpha, his ways were old, ingrained into his young body. Uniqueness could always mean danger. But still, the lament called to him, following the echo of that sound that spurred him on.
His nose was no help at all, which was incredibly frustrating. But, snapping himself out of the irritation of not being able to use the sense he relied upon the most, Seath used his eyes—wolf form—to follow the broken branches, the trampled grass.
The blood that gave no scent.
His hackles raised. All of his instincts were in conflict.
The lack of scent meant danger. The low, barely audible whimpers meant someone needed help. Desperate help. It was the sound of someone who didn’t know they were making sound.
And that lament. No one could fake that lament.
Ignoring the potential for danger, and feeling Luke enter into the Pack-mind, closer now, Seath went forward, ears twitching and nose flaring as the whimpering stopped.
Seath could hear a heartbeat. It was faint. Not a human. Not a healthy shifter. Seath saw him under a tree, almost a ball of flesh rather than a form.
There was still no smell, but there was blood. Crushed grass and broken branches suggested the shifter had been running blindly. But where to? The Pack House? And where from? There was nothing but miles of woods between here and the coast.
The wolf had shifted to human form. Another oddity. The destruction of the forest was clearly caused by human movement, not wolf. And in human form, none of those sounds that reached Seath’s ears should have been possible.
Seath checked the destruction and blood again.
No, only one wolf. Only this one.
As soon as Seath got close enough to see the man, he reached with his mind for Luke’s presence; he was minutes away now. Luke’s path was straight from the Pack House, closer than Seath’s had been.
Scent or no, the man was a shifter. Seath’s wolf nature recognized him for what he was. But there was a lot of blood, the man’s skin was an unnatural grey color.
Seath took his human form and touched the man who looked malnourished and broken in ways beyond his bones.
Gently, Seath turned the man’s head.
Seath gave a sharp intake of breath. The man was probably gorgeous under the dirt and bruises and blood, an ethereal sort of beauty framed by what was likely blond hair and a long, lean body, much slighter than Seath’s own. He was too thin, bordering on malnourished. Blue lips against a pale face. The body was almost naked in the moonlight, the exposure to the elements wouldn’t bother a wolf. And looking him over, exposure seemed to be the least of the man’s worries.
Suddenly, green eyes opened wide, staring right into Seath’s amber ones.
They were glassy with pain, but also alert, as if the broken body hadn’t taken anything away from his mental faculties. Or maybe that the man was pushing the last bit of his mental faculties for this moment.
“Alpha,” the man said, his chest heaving with the effort to force the words through bloodied, cracked lips. Still, it was a broken whisper on a ragged breath.
A smile danced across the man’s mouth, but Seath didn’t like it. The smile was bitter, resigned—a visual representation of that last note of the lament Seath heard.
With great effort, the man turned his neck to Seath, exposing the most vulnerable place on his body like an offering.
