The forest stays quiet.
Too quiet.
I close my eyes, just for a moment, and listen. Somewhere deep in the woods, a branch snaps. I open my eyes, headlamp off, and wait.
Nothing.
I count my breaths, slow and steady, and keep my hand on the bear spray.
The night stretches long.
2
ALDEN
The calf's been dead less than four hours.
I can tell by the blood—still tacky, not fully congealed. The flies haven't found it yet. Just crows circling overhead, waiting for us to leave.
Sam stands to my left, arms crossed, jaw tight. Tomas and Kelsey flank the carcass, both in a half-crouch, reading the scene. Kiren stands idly by. All enforcers are wound tight, waiting for my call.
I move closer, boots silent on pine needles.
The throat's torn clean through—one strike, deep enough to sever the windpipe. But the body's intact. No feeding marks. No drag pattern. The kill happened here, and whoever did it walked away.
"Message kill," Tomas says.
"Yeah." I crouch beside the carcass, press two fingers to the exposed muscle. Still warm. "Recent."
Kelsey circles the perimeter, nose in the air, tracking scent trails. She stops ten feet out and looks back at me. "Three different paths leading away. All wolf."
"Converging or diverging?"
"Diverging. Like they split up after."
I stand, wipe my hand on my jeans, and lean in close to the wound. The scent hits me before I'm ready for it—familiar, layered beneath the copper tang of blood.
Pack-born. Not a rogue. Not an outsider. One of ours.
Sam steps closer. "Alden?"
"It's pack." My voice comes out flat. Controlled. "Male. Young, maybe mid-twenties."
Silence drops like a stone.
Tomas swears under his breath. Kieran goes still, his hand drifting toward the knife at his hip.
Sam doesn't move. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
He exhales through his nose, slow and deliberate. "What are your orders?"
I straighten, scan the tree line. The forest is too quiet—no bird calls, no rustle of smaller prey. Everything's gone to ground.
"Burn it. Now. Before a hiker stumbles across it or the scent carries downwind." I turn to Tomas. "How far are we from the boundary?"
"Two miles, maybe less."
