We lifted the young wolf between us, his weight distributed across our shoulders. He was lighter than he should have been, all lean muscle and bone with nothing extra. Like he'd been running on fumes and desperation long before this morning found him bleeding at our boundary.
Luke fell into step behind us, watching our backs the way a good Beta should.
The pack house loomed out of the mist as we walked, old wood and stone that had stood for three generations. It looked like something the forest had grown rather than something hands had built, and on mornings like this, with fog threading between the pillars and curling around the foundation, it felt ancient. Aware.
Inside, the isolation room waited at the end of the west wing. Claire's design. She'd thought of everything, my wife, planned for contingencies I'd never considered because she understood that protecting a pack meant preparing for the worst even when you hoped for the best.
I missed her most in moments like this. When the weight of decisions pressed heavy and there was no one to tell me if I was making the right call.
We settled the stranger on the narrow bed. His breathing came shallow and wrong, and up close the wounds looked worse. Deep gashes across ribs and shoulder and throat that should have killed him. Someone had wanted him dead. Someone with claws and coordination and the patience to make it hurt.
“Everyone out,” Gideon said. “Luke, stand guard. Daniel, stay. I might need your Alpha strength if this goes sideways.”
Luke nodded and stepped into the hallway, pulling the reinforced door closed behind him. Steel and silver. Another one of Claire's precautions.
Gideon placed both palms flat against the young wolf's chest, closed his eyes, and reached for his magic.
I'd seen Gideon work before. Countless times over the decades. But it never stopped being something to witness.
The air shimmered first, heat rising off his skin like summer pavement. Then the glow began, soft and green-gold, spreading from his hands into the wolf's ruined flesh. Not harsh. Not aggressive. This was the magic Gideon had shaped for himself, the kind that worked with nature instead of against it.
Leaves shouldn't have been inside the isolation room. But they lifted anyway, materializing from shadows like they'd been waiting for permission. They spun in slow circles around Gideon, caught in currents that had nothing to do with wind. Small stones trembled on the floor, rose, began orbiting him like planets around a reluctant sun.
The green-gold light intensified, sinking deeper into wounds that were three days old at minimum. Probably older. The wolf should have bled out long before he reached our boundary. Something had kept him alive. Something that wanted him to make it here.
Gideon's brow furrowed. His hands pressed harder.
The wolf's body responded, flesh knitting together in ways that shouldn't have been possible. I watched ribs realign themselves, watched torn muscle weave back into place, watched skin crawl across open wounds like water filling a cup. It was beautiful and unsettling in equal measure, that particular eeriness of watching impossible things happen with your own eyes.
The orbiting leaves spun faster. The floating stones hummed with contained energy. And underneath it all, the green-gold light pulsed in rhythm with the young wolf's heartbeat, steadier now, stronger.
Five minutes. Ten. Gideon worked without speaking, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold, jaw clenched tight against strain I couldn't imagine. His magic reached for the wolflike a living thing, wrapping around damaged tissue and willing it to remember what whole felt like.
Finally, the glow faded. The leaves drifted down. The stones settled back to the floor with soft clicks.
Gideon slumped, breathing hard. “He'll live. His natural healing factor wanted to kick in anyway. Just needed a push.”
“How bad was it?”
“Bad enough.” Gideon wiped his face with his sleeve. “Someone wanted him dead in the slowest way possible. Those wounds were meant to bleed out over days, not hours. Like whoever did this wanted him to suffer the whole way.”
The wolf's breathing had evened out, deep and steady now. Still unconscious, but the gray pallor was fading from his skin, replaced by something closer to life.
“Keep him sedated for now,” I said. “Weak enough that he can't shift, can't run. Not until we know more.”
“Agreed.” Gideon pulled himself upright, grimacing. “Now. Show me where you found him.”
The fog had thinnedby the time we made it back to the clearing. Five rogue bodies lay where they'd fallen, already starting to cool.
Gideon circled them slowly. His eyes moved in ways that suggested he was seeing more than dead wolves.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Nothing useful.” He crouched beside the largest one, the one that had spoken with someone else's voice. Examined the matted fur, the empty eyes. “Whatever was riding them is gone. Pulled out the moment they died, probably. Nothing left but meat.”
Luke stood at the clearing's edge, watching the tree line. “The one that talked. What did it sound like?”
“Wrong.” I joined Gideon by the body, studied the scars I'd noticed earlier. Up close, they looked deliberate. Geometric patterns beneath the fur, like something had been carved there and healed badly. “Like someone was using a broken radio. The words came out scratchy, distant. Not coming from the throat at all.”
