"How many?" I asked.
"Twenty. Maybe more. Crossing the western boundary in formation. Scouts said all were in wolf form."
Twenty. More than twice what you'd send for a hunting party. More than you'd bring for a trade negotiation or a border dispute. Twenty was a statement.
"Karik?"
"Centre of the formation. Walking like he owns the ground."
Of course he was.
I'd known they would come. Since the night Cera had stumbled into our camp with blood on her paws and horror in her eyes, I'd known it was only a matter of time. Karik didn't leave loose ends. He didn't tolerate defiance, real or perceived, and I had taken something he considered his.
I'd just hoped for more time.
"Warriors to the boundary line," I ordered, and my voice came out steady despite the roaring in my chest. "Noncombatants tothe inner camp. Elders, children, anyone who can't fight, get behind the shelters. Now."
The camp erupted into controlled chaos. Wolves who had been lounging in the weak afternoon sun were on their feet in seconds, shifting and forming up with the instinct of a pack that had drilled for this. Mothers scooped up children and moved toward the caves without needing to be told twice. The elderly were shepherded by the adolescents too young to fight but old enough to be useful. Kessa appeared from somewhere, already organizing, her voice cutting through the noise with calm authority.
I shifted back to human form at the camp's edge. An alpha met a challenge standing upright, on two legs, where words carried weight alongside teeth. My father had taught me that too.
"Rivik." Ryke was beside me, already armed. "The travellers."
Ellie. The name hit me like a fist to the sternum, and my wolf spirit howled inside me, not in warning, but in raw, consuming need.Protect. Mine. Protect.
I shoved it down. Hard.
"Get them behind the pack line," I said. "All of them. Nathan, Megan, Dev, and…" I couldn’t even bring myself to say her name.
Too late. All four of them had joined the small crowd of wolves near the main fire pit. Dev was beside her, leaning heavily on his walking staff, and Nathan and Megan stood a few paces behind them.
She looked at me.
Across thirty metres of packed earth and moving bodies and barely contained chaos, Ellie looked at me, and everything in my chest pulled tight like a bowstring drawn to breaking point.
Not now. Focus.
"Ryke. Formation." My voice came out steady. Good. "Full defensive line at the western approach. I want every wolf wehave on that line. No gaps. Sila, Torin, and Jarak take the flanks. Miska, you're with me at the centre."
Ryke nodded and moved, already calling names, and the pack responded swiftly. Within minutes, the defensive line had formed. Twenty-three wolves in human form, armed and positioned across the western approach in a crescent that blocked the main path into camp. Behind them, another dozen in wolf form, hackles raised, teeth bared, a second line of defence that said very clearly:you are not welcome here.
I took my position at the centre. The place my father had always stood.
Daska appeared at my left shoulder, and I didn't need to look at him to know his expression. Calm. Steady. Dangerous in the way only a bear could be dangerous, not the flashy, snarling threat of wolves, but the deep, tectonic certainty that if this went wrong, someone was going to die badly.
He wasn't looking at me. He was looking behind us, at the cluster of noncombatants pressed against the inner shelters, and I knew without following his gaze exactly who he was looking for.
"She's behind us," I said quietly. "She's safe."
"For now," he said, and the weight in those two words told me he understood exactly what was coming.
I turned back toward the western approach. They were already visible. Broken Ridge wolves emerged from the treeline in a loose wedge formation, and the sight of them made something cold settle in the pit of my stomach. They moved with discipline. Not the ragged sprawl of a raiding party but the measured, deliberate advance of wolves who spent their lives attacking others, rather than hunting and spending their time with their loved ones in pleasurable pursuits. Grey pelts and dark brown, a few near-black, all of them large, all of them male. They fanned out as they cleared the trees, filling the open ground between theforest edge and our boundary markers with a wall of muscle and teeth that was designed to intimidate before a single word was spoken.
It was working. I could feel the tension rippling through my own wolves, the instinctive bristling of fur and baring of teeth as two dozen of my best positioned themselves along the boundary line. They were steady, but steady and comfortable were different things. These were my people. My pack. Every single one of them was here because they trusted me to keep them safe.
I could not fail them.
Karik walked at the centre of the formation. Human form. Of course. The same power play I'd chosen. His dark hair was pulled back from his face, and he wore a wolf pelt across his shoulders like a trophy, the dead animal's head draped over one shoulder with its jaws still fixed in a snarl. It was meant to convey danger, he’d killed an animal he shared a spirit with, therefore he was someone to fear. All it told me was that he had no respect for anything sacred. Everything about him was calculated for maximum effect—the unhurried stride, the way his wolves parted around him like water around a stone, the casual arrogance of a man who believed he had already won.
