“Briar. Yeah.”
“She found the surveillance position on the southeast ridge?”
He’s silent for a beat. “How do you know about that?”
“Because I found it two days ago. It’s part of a larger network. Whoever’s running it has been mapping Ravenclaw defenses.” I gesture at the downed wolves, three of them breathing, the rest either fled or not getting up again. “These aren’t connected to the watchers. Different operation. But the timing isn’t a coincidence.”
I’m talking tactics because tactics I can handle. Tactics don’t require me to look at the naked, bleeding man in front of me and acknowledge that my wolf is howling inside my skull and has been since his scent hit me on that ridge.
“You need to get that wound closed,” I say. “And we need to get Cameron inside the wards.”
“Brenna—”
The drawl is still there. Just a hint—the way his vowels stretch when he’s not guarding them. Eighteen years, and his voice still sounds like the last warm night before everything went cold.
“Don’t.” I practically spit the word out. “Don’t say my name like that. We’re not there. We’re not anywhere close to there. Right now, we have wounded enemy wolves on the ground who might have backup coming, and a seventeen-year-old who just blew a magic signature that anyone with the right equipment could track from three counties away. So we move. Now. The rest can wait.”
He closes his mouth. His jaw works once, twice. Then he nods.
Good. He can follow orders. That’s new.
One of Merric’s team, a barrel-chested male, is already handling the scene. He’s shifted back to human—they’re all naked, the whole lot of them, and nobody’s bothering with modesty because wolves don’t—and he’s binding the surviving wolves with rope that the big blond one apparently carries everywhere.
Practical man. I approve.
Speaking of the blond, he’s standing over the most injured purist, looking absolutely indifferent. Not cruelty. Just the total absence of concern for an enemy who picked the wrong fight.
And the auburn-haired woman—the one who lingers around Merric—is watching me.
Not with hostility. With something careful, assessing, and sharp enough that I revise my initial read. She’s not just a warm body at Merric’s side. She’s intelligent. And she’s trying to figure out what my resurrection means.
I’d respect that under different circumstances. Right now, I don’t have room for her either.
“Cameron.” I turn back to my son. “We’re going to the house. Stay close.”
He nods, and we start walking. He doesn’t let go of my wrist.
We’ve made it halfway across the south pasture when the sound hits. Wolves running, coming fast from the direction of the ranch. My hand goes up, magic gathering white and hot around my fist, and Cameron pulls close behind me. Reflex. His and mine both.
Willow comes through the tall grass at a dead sprint, two Ravenclaw fighters flanking her. She’s in human form, dressed, carrying a hunting knife in each hand. A red-haired kid is at her heels, hands on his knees, already spent from the run. Her eyes are wild and scanning for threats.
She sees the charred ground. The downed attackers. Merric’s pack. Cameron behind me.
Then she sees me.
Willow stops. Her whole body locks mid-stride, like she’s hit a wall made of glass. The knives don’t lower. Her face goes through something I can’t watch and can’t look away from—recognition, denial, recognition again, each one hitting her like successive waves, and underneath all of it a sound that doesn’t make it out of her throat.
“Hey, little bird,” I say. The old nickname. What I called her when she was ten and followed me everywhere, chattering and fierce and half the size she is now.
Willow’s face breaks.
Not the way Cameron’s did—confused and searching. Willow breaks clean. Joy and fury and grief all at once, and she’s crossing the distance between us before I can brace for it.
She hits me hard enough to stagger me. Arms locked around my neck, face buried in my shoulder, knives in her fists, and digging into my back. She doesn’t notice, and I don’t care. She’s shaking. Her whole body is shaking, and she’s saying something muffled that might be my name or might be a curse or might be both.
I hold her. One arm around her back, my other hand on her hair. I let myself have this for five seconds. Five seconds of my niece, alive and strong and so angry at me I can feel it vibrating through her bones.
Then I pull back. Gently. She resists, then lets go.
