“I already do,” I tell her.
We head back toward the compound just as the scouts return, their faces grim.Max catches my eye from across the clearing and nods once.What Trinity said has been confirmed.
****
It’s hours before Cainecalls the pack together again, his voice calm but unyielding.“The old quarry to the south is a trap.There are heavy signs of preparation and baited silver traps have been confirmed.”
Darkness has settled over the compound, and everyone is ready to go, dressed in tactical gear and ready to take the Hunters down before they can harm anyone else.
A low growl ripples through the wolves.“We don’t rush,” Caine continues.“We don’t charge.We don’t lose anyone tonight.”
My gaze flicks to Trinity.Her eyes are fixed on the dark tree line, unblinking, like she’s listening to something none of us can hear.Whatever she’s not saying yet, it’s important.I can feel it pressing against the bond, straining to be acknowledged.
As the pack begins final preparations, I rest a hand briefly at the small of her back, offering support.“Stay close to me,” I murmur.
She nods.“Always.”
The word shouldn’t feel like a promise, but it does.And somewhere beyond the trees, the hunters wait with traps and silver and the certainty that wolves will come running.They’re right about one thing.We will.
Just not the way they expect.
Chapter Nine
Trinity
The quarry smells like death before we ever see it.
Not the clean, inevitable scent of a body returning to the earth.This is sharp and wrong, a mixture of metal, fear, old blood baked into stone and stirred up again like the land itself remembers what was done here.
My wolf presses hard against my ribs, hackles raised, a low snarl vibrating through my chest.She doesn’t want to be quiet.She wants to tear and burn and run.
I force her to heel.
We move through the trees in loose formation, not a line, not a charge.Most are still in human form, but some have already shifted.Wolves slipping between shadows, boots barely disturbing the leaf litter.No one speaks but no one needs to.The tension hums through us all, tight as a wire pulled too far.
The ghosts are already here.
