Southern perimeter: energy spike 0300-0315. Pressure differential consistent with directed intention.
My finger hovers over the save icon.
Outside, a twig snaps.
I freeze.
I can’t see who’s there. Can’t hear them breathing. But for a breath too long, I wish they would open the door.
I stand in one fluid motion, gathering my gear with practiced silence. I slip the data pad into my inner jacket pocket and grab my small kit from beneath the flimsy cot.
No time for hesitation. Whatever—whoever—is out there has the advantage. They know where I am. I don’t know where they are.
Time to fix that.
I pull on leather gloves, check the knife sheath strapped to my thigh, and draw my blade. The obsidian catches what little light filters through the dirty window, edge gleaming black and hungry. The grip settles against my palm, familiar as my own pulse.
I scan the shack once more. Nothing worth protecting here.
The window latch sticks, but a firm push pops it open. Cold air rushes in, carrying scents that make my wolf strain forward. Pine. Frost. The metallic edge of coming snow.
And something else. Something deliberate.
I slide through the narrow opening, boots touching down on frozen soil without a sound. The night wraps around me, dark and crisp. My breath clouds over my shoulder as I press my back to the shack’s exterior wall, counting my heartbeats.
One. Two. Three.
The compound sleeps. Lights burn in only two cabins—the central lodge where Dane’s lieutenants gather and a smaller cabin at the eastern edge. Guard shift, probably.
The packs here run disciplined rotations, but they patrol the perimeter. Not the interior. Not the gap between my isolation and the heart of their territory.
Perfect hunting ground for someone who wants to slip between the cracks.
I move in a low crouch toward the treeline twenty yards to the west. Every step measured, each foot placed with intent. Testing the ground before I shift my weight. The forest floor is a patchwork of frozen mud and brittle grass that threatens to announce my movement.
The first line of trees offers shallow cover—mostly pines, their branches reaching upward instead of outward. I press deeper, following a depression in the land where water runs in spring.
A branch snaps somewhere to my right.
I freeze, becoming a shadow among shadows. My wolf coils tight under my skin, straining to catch whatever slipped through the night. Not a random animal. That sound was too discreet. Too controlled.
I count thirty breaths. Nothing moves.
The path curves, following the contour of the land as it slopes toward a narrow ravine. Water trickles somewhere ahead, muffled beneath a skin of ice.
My skin prickles.
There’s a pressure change. Subtle. A body moving through space, displacing air.
I duck behind a boulder, pressing my spine against cold stone, and wait. Three breaths. Four. Five.
Nothing.
But the feeling persists. A presence. Watching.
I reach inward, calling to my wolf. She rises, eager, our senses merging. Her vision is sharper in the darkness. Her nose is more discerning.
I catch it then—a scent that doesn’t belong. Not prey. Not predator. Something ... specific.
