By nine o’clock, I’ve met more people in one evening than I typically met in a month in London. The wine has softened the edges of the day, and the pub feels warm in a way that isn’t just about the fireplace. These people want me here. Not in the abstract, distant way that colleagues want you to succeed. In the immediate, practical way of a village that needs its vet.
I walk home in the dark with the hills rising on either side and the stars sharper than I’ve ever seen them. No light pollution up here. No noise pollution either, unless you count the distant bleating of sheep and the sound of wind in the trees.
But underneath those sounds, as I put my key in the lock and push open my front door, there’s something else. That strange, low call from the hills I heard last night. One voice at first, then two, then several, rising and falling in a pattern that isn’t quite random.
I go inside, close the door, and stand in my dark hallway and listen until it stops.
Chapter 4
Dangerous Territory
Roan
The rogues comein the dead hours before dawn, when the forest is at its quietest and the pack is at its most vulnerable. I pick up their scent half a mile from the logging road: three of them, male, none of them familiar. They stink of desperation and long travel, that sour undertone that clings to wolves without territory, without structure, without anything left to lose.
I’ve been running the northern boundary since midnight. Not because my father asked me to. Not because it’s my assigned patrol. Solo patrols are against pack protocol—pairs minimum, always logged with the Beta—but I stopped logging my movements with Rebecca two years ago, and nobody’s managed to makeme start again. Sleep wouldn’t come, and when sleep won’t come, running is the next best thing. The forest at night belongs to me in a way it never does during the day, when pack politics and family expectations crowd in from every direction. Out here, in the dark, with the earth cold beneath my paws and the canopy blocking out the stars, I can pretend I’m just a wolf. Nothing more.
The rogue scent cuts across my path. Fresh. Minutes old, not hours. They’ve crossed our boundary marker at the old stone wall and pushed deep into pack land, further than any of the previous incursions.
My hackles rise.
These aren’t the first rogues we’ve had sniffing around Mistwood. For the past three weeks, they’ve been testing our borders, leaving scent marks in provocative places, retreating before anyone can engage. My father treats it as a nuisance. I’ve been telling him it’s reconnaissance, that someone is mapping our territory and looking for gaps in our patrols, but Chris Mistwood doesn’t take tactical advice from his son when his son won’t even show up to meetings.
I follow the trail at a distance, keeping downwind. The scent leads along the logging road, then cuts north through dense bracken towards the village. That’s new.Previous incursions stayed well clear of the human settlement. Whatever these three are after, they’re getting bolder.
I find where they’ve marked a tree barely a mile from the first houses. The audacity of it makes my wolf snarl. This is a statement, not an accident. They want us to know they’ve been here.
The trail splits. Two sets of tracks continue north along the ridge. The third doubles back towards the logging road, circling wide. Flanking pattern. They know someone is following them.
Good. I was getting bored.
I chose the lone wolf first. Basic tactics: reduce the numbers before engaging the main group. I track him through a stand of birch trees, moving silently and low, until I spot him in a clearing ahead. He’s rangy and pale-furred, younger than I expected, pacing in tight circles with his nose to the ground. Looking for my trail.
I don’t give him time to find it.
The hit takes him square in the shoulder and sends him tumbling into the undergrowth. He yelps, scrambles upright, and bares his teeth, but I’m already on him. My jaws close on the scruff of his neck, and I pin him. Not hard enough to break skin, but firm enough to make the message clear. He goes limpbeneath me, submitting. Smart. I hold him for a count of five, then release and let him bolt. He crashes through the bracken towards the road without looking back.
One down. Two to go.
I circle back to pick up the other trail, and that’s when I catch it.
Something else on the air. Not rogue. Not pack. Sweet and warm, like honey left in the sun, threaded through with something green and alive that I can’t name. It drifts through the trees from the south, faint but unmistakable, and the moment it hits me, my wolf goes absolutely still.
Every hair on my body stands on end. My nostrils flare wide, pulling in as much of that scent as I can hold, and something deep in my chest responds with a low hum I feel in my bones.
I shake my head hard, trying to clear it. I’m in the middle of tracking two hostile wolves through pack territory. This is not the time.
The remaining rogues are close. I can smell them just ahead, through a thick stand of oak and hazel. They’ve stopped moving, which means they’ve either found what they’re looking for or they know I’m coming.
I push through the undergrowth and find them waiting in a natural clearing where a massiveoak has fallen across the forest floor. Two wolves, both bigger than the one I already chased off. The larger of the pair is dark-coated and heavy through the chest, with old scars criss-crossing his muzzle. The other is leaner, red-furred, watching me with the flat, patient stare of a wolf that’s done this before.
Three against one was always their plan. They just didn’t count on me finding the scout first.
Two against one. I’ve handled worse.
I step into the clearing and let them see me properly. I’m bigger than both of them. That’s not arrogance; it’s genetics. Alpha bloodline carries physical advantages whether I want them or not, and right now I’m grateful for every pound of muscle my father’s heritage gave me.
The scarred wolf lunges first. He’s fast but predictable, going for my throat with a head-on charge that works against smaller opponents. I sidestep, catch his flank with my teeth, and use his own momentum to throw him sideways into the fallen oak. He hits hard and scrambles to regain his footing.
