“I’ll need to see the coordinates,” she says, voice steady.
I don’t move. Don’t react. Just recalibrate everything around the fact that she just claimed me in front of the pack.
It shakes me more than seeing her disappear into that rift.
Marcus holds his position, face unreadable except for a single twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Fucking great.
Harper studies Nova with a calm, quiet weight.
“The pattern’s shifting,” Nova says, as if she didn’t just lay claim to me. “Same signature Caleb’s team tracked near Silverwood. If we don’t move fast, we’ll lose it.”
Harper nods. “Eight disappearances now. The original five—Jessica and Mark, plus Jensen, Kira, and Tomas. These three new ones bring the total to eight. All in the same zone. I’ve marked the coordinates.”
She hands over a folded map. Nova spreads it across a table. Lyanna joins her. Then Kari. Four women focused on the data, heads bent together. No one else tries to join.
“Here, here, and here,” Harper says, pointing.
“It’s a compression sequence,” Nova answers. “Fae hunting pattern. Herds its targets inward.”
“And something’s waiting at the center,” Lyanna adds. “It’s ... resonating.”
“With her,” Kari says. It isn’t a question.
Nova nods once. “He’s working off my signature.”
My hands tighten around nothing. She delivers the intel like it’s just facts. Like it’s not her body that paid for it.
I don’t interrupt. I don’t react.
She doesn’t look at me again.
The kiss sits between us like a landmine. She dropped it. Walked away. And hasn’t looked back.
I turn to the wolves still watching. “Back to your posts.”
They scatter.
Ben moves to coordinate supply runs. Lyanna murmurs something low to Nova about protective wards.
The four women stay locked on the map, discussing trajectories and energy signatures. I hang back, monitoring the compound—wolves carrying supplies, checking armor, continuing our work to make the existing buildings into a living space. Normal tasks performed with abnormal tension.
“The compression pattern mimics a spiral,” Nova says, finger tracing the points. “Each disappearance creates a vortex that pulls toward the center.”
“Like a funnel,” Harper adds. Her analytical gaze never wavers from the map. “Same as what happened at Shadow Peak’s eastern border last month.”
Kari leans in, arms crossed. “And what’s waiting in the middle? Another distortion like the one that almost ...” Sheglances at Nova, something shifting in her eyes. Not quite concern. More like recognition. “Like the one that nearly consumed you yesterday.”
Nova doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pause. Just nods once. “Similar signature. Different intention.”
Her right hand trembles—just once, just slightly—as she points to the central coordinate. Most wouldn’t notice. I do.
The tremor matches the pulse I felt through her skin when I dragged her back through the collapsing field. The moment her body struggled to decide which reality to keep.
“Silverwood sits at the convergence point,” Lyanna says. “These disappearances form an outer ring around the town. If it continues, the next victims will be closer to Main Street.”
“We need to get to Silverwood,” Nova says. Her tone stays flat. Clinical. But her scent spikes with something sharp and metallic.
