“Soon.”
“I know that too.”
We lie in the dark, fingers clasped, listening. Outside the cabin, the compound is quiet. The mountains are quiet. The logging roads are quiet.
Too quiet.
Chapter 28
Brenna
The attack comes at dawn. I’m awake when it starts. I’ve been awake for hours, lying in the dark with Merric’s arm across my waist, sensing his restless half-sleep. My wolf has been pacing inside me since midnight, hackles raised, teeth bared at nothing. Something in the air. A change in pressure, like forest sounds shift when a large animal moves through the underbrush. Except this isn’t one animal. This is the absence of animals. The birds have gone still, the way they do before a storm or a predator.
I’m reaching for Merric’s shoulder when the first explosion hits the south gate.
The blast rattles the cabin windows. Glass cracks in the kitchen. The compound erupts into noise: shouting, running, the howl of wolves shifting mid-stride. My training takes over before my thoughts do. I’m on my feet, dressed in the clothes I laid out on the chair, boots in my hand.
“Merric—”
He’s up. Already moving. Already shifting. I see the silver fur ripple across his shoulders as he clears the bedroom door. Through the wall, I hear Cameron’s door slam open.
“Cameron, stay—”
“I’m here.” He’s in the hallway. Dressed. Shoes on. He sleeps in his clothes now. Ready to move at a sound. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know yet. Stay behind me.”
The second explosion hits as we reach the cabin door. Closer. The north side. I feel the concussion through the floorboards, and my field mind starts running the calculations: two strike points, south and north, simultaneous detonation. Classic pincer approach. Designed to split the defensive response, pull forces in two directions.
Outside, the predawn compound is a controlled scramble. Merric is already in full wolf form; silver, massive, blazing blue eyes cutting through the half-dark. Jonas appears at his flank, half-shifted, shouting instructions. Wolves pour from the cabins and the lodge in various states of readiness, some shifted, some human, all moving with the trained precision of a pack that drills for this. Frostbourne’s discipline holds. I’ll give them that.
I scan from the cabin porch. The south gate is burning, two vehicles rammed through, figures fanning out. North boundary breached. I can see movement in the trees, military formation, too organized for purists. Night vision. Suppressed weapons. The flat black gear of a professional extraction unit.
Syndicate.
Fuck!
The realization hits me in the chest. Not here. Not at Frostbourne, behind walls, inside a large wolf compound in the mountains. The Syndicate doesn’t hit targets this size unlessthey’ve already scoped every inch of the operation. Unless someone gave them the blueprint.
“Cameron. With me. Now.” I grab his arm and pull him off the porch. The lodge is forty yards south; stone foundation, heavy timber walls, the most defensible building in the compound. If I can get him inside, if I can get him behind stone—
Merric is already at the south gate, silver wolf tearing into the Syndicate line. I feel him: focused, lethal, the full force of an alpha defending his territory. He’s drawing the fight to himself. Pulling the south strike force away from the cabins, away from us. He doesn’t know yet that he’s doing exactly what they want.
The third strike comes from the east.
Not explosions. Wolves. A dozen of them in shifted form, pouring through a gap that shouldn’t exist—a gap I noted three days ago on my walk, the blind spot between the old pine stand and the equipment shed. Wild wolves, running without formation, snarling, savage. Purists. The lead wolf has Ashfall markings on his flank—dark slashes behind the shoulder that identify pack allegiance even in wolf form.
Syndicate from the south and north. Purists from the east. Three coordinated prongs, hitting simultaneously, using intelligence that could only have come from inside the political structure.
And they’re not attacking the compound.
They’re converging on the space between the cabin and the lodge. On the path I’m running with my son.
On us.
No! No, no, no!
I stop. Plant my feet. Push Cameron behind me.
