Focused.
Then he said my name.
Quiet.
Low.
“Sienna.”
I looked up sharply.
His eyes weren’t on the valley anymore.
They were fixed on the tree line behind me.
Something moved.
Something big.
And this time…
It wasn’t a bear.
Chapter Twelve
Carson
The moment I heard the rustle behind us, everything in my body went still.
The trees on the far side of the ridge flexed with movement—soft at first, almost like the shift of wind—but then it came again.
A low, rolling growl.
Growls. Plural
It wasn’t bears or cats.
It was wolves.
“Sienna,” I said quietly.
She turned, just enough to catch the change in my posture, and her eyes widened.
A dark shape stepped from the trees.
Then another.
Then a third.
A small pack, four, maybe five wolves, stood twenty feet away, emerging from the shadows like living ghosts. Their winter coats were thick, silvered, and flecked with dampness. Their breath rose in white spirals. Their eyes caught the weak sunlight in pale yellow flashes.
Wolves rarely attacked humans in the wild. But a pack this size, this visible, this curious, it meant one thing.
They hadn’t encountered people here in a while.
And they weren’t sure what to make of us.
I stepped in front of Sienna without hesitation. It was like this primal need to protect her.
