Michael glanced at me, a question in his eyes. I just nodded. Some things couldn't be explained. They had to be experienced.
The silence stretched as we drove deeper into the mountains. The road grew rougher, pavement giving way to gravel, gravel giving way to dirt that had seen better years. Twice I had to navigate around fallen trees that no one had bothered to clear.
“Used to be well-maintained,” Rafe said quietly from the back. First words he'd spoken in an hour. “Alpha Warren was obsessive about the roads. Said a pack that couldn't move fast was a pack that couldn't survive.”
“He was right,” Evan said.
“Yeah.” Rafe's voice cracked, just slightly. “He was right about a lot of things.”
We crossed the river at a shallow point where ancient stones had been laid to create a ford. The water ran clear and cold, catching morning light in ways that should have been beautiful.
It wasn't.
The moment we crossed, something shifted. Like stepping from a warm room into a freezer, except the temperature hadn't changed. What had changed was the feeling. The sense of presence that Gideon had mentioned.
It was gone. Completely, utterly gone.
“Damn,” Michael breathed. His hand found mine on the gear shift, squeezed once. “It's like the air died.”
“The pack bond leaves an imprint,” I said quietly. “When wolves live somewhere for generations, their connection to the land becomes part of it. Protects it. Nourishes it. When that bond is severed violently...”
“The land mourns,” Gideon finished. “For a while. Then it just... forgets. Like the pack was never there at all.”
Nate made a small sound in the back seat. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him pressed closer to Evan, his face pale. His wolf would be feeling this more acutely than the rest of us. New wolves always did. The absence of pack presence hit them like a missing limb.
“We're close,” Rafe said. His voice had gone hollow. Empty in ways that matched the territory around us. “Turn left at the split oak. The main compound is another half mile.”
The compound came into view through a break in the trees, and I understood immediately why Rafe had stopped talking.
It looked like a bomb had gone off.
The main house had been a sprawling cabin once, the kind built by hands that knew how to work wood and stone. Now half of it was collapsed, walls torn open to expose rooms that still held furniture, still held the remnants of lives interrupted mid-motion. A child's bicycle lay rusted in the yard. Laundry hung on a line that had somehow survived, clothes faded to gray by weeks of sun and rain.
And the smell.
Even with the windows up, even with the truck's engine running, the smell hit like a physical blow. Death. Old death, weeks old, mingled with something darker. Something that made my wolf snarl and Gideon's hands clench white-knuckled on his knees.
I killed the engine. The silence that followed was absolute. No birds. No insects. No wind rustling through leaves. Just the hollow quiet of a place that had forgotten how to be alive.
“We go on foot from here,” I said. “Stay together. Don't touch anything until Gideon clears it.”
We climbed out of the truck. Michael stayed close to my side, silver blade drawn, and I felt something warm settle in my chestat his presence. At the fact that he was here, facing this, because he'd chosen to stand with us.
Evan shifted position to flank Nate, protective instincts bleeding through despite the fact that Nate was technically a wolf now too. Old habits. The good kind.
Rafe stood apart from the group, staring at the ruins of his home with an expression that made my chest ache.
“Rafe,” I said quietly. “You don't have to do this. You can wait by the truck.”
“No.” The word came out rough. Scraped raw. “I need to see. I need to know what's left.”
We walked into the compound.
Gideon stoppedat the threshold of the main house, hands raised, magic crackling at his fingertips.
“Wards are gone,” he said.
Rafe made a sound like he'd been punched. Michael moved toward him, hand outstretched, but Rafe flinched away.
