“That’s what I assumed.” Percy ducked a branch. “But there’s more than the physical. I think Thiago’s conditioning her.”
“Is it working?” I asked.
“The recruitment? No. Not quite. At least, I hope so.” He shook his head.
Lucian was quiet for several strides. When he spoke, the control in his voice was threadbare.
“Does she hate us?”
Percy stopped walking. Turned to face us both and the humor was gone.
“I believe she doesn’t hate you. She’s angry and hurt and she has every right to both. She told me she needs to figure out what she wants on her own terms.” He held Lucian’s gaze. “She told me to leave.”
He sighed deeply.
The guilt sat between us. Men who’d chosen a kingdom over a woman, standing in a forest and counting the cost.
“Distance is better for now,” Lucian said. “Until we neutralize harm to her on both sides. We need to take down the Order first to get the council off her back.”
We moved again. The terrain steepened, the incline pushing us toward the ridge Percy had mentioned.
A sound from behind broke the rhythm.
My wolf registered it a fraction before my ears, and my body rotated toward the source. A presence, stationary, set back roughly thirty meters.Watching.
I signaled. Lucian and Percival went still.
The presence didn’t advance or retreat. It occupied the forest with patience. The scent was wrong for a hunter.
I stepped forward. One foot, then another, closing the thirty meters between us. My wolf pressed at the surface, urgent, pulling me toward the source of that ache.
The scent was faint, buried under years of forest and soil, but my wolf strained for it. Then the presence shifted before retreating and moving through the trees without disturbing a single branch.
I stood in the empty space where it had been.
Nothing. No tracks, no broken foliage, no scent trail strong enough to follow. Whoever it was moved through this forest the way only a lycan could.
Percy’s low whistle pulled me back. He pointed east. A patrol, two guards, sweeping toward our position from the compound’s northern perimeter.
We moved. The ridge was closer than the alternative and higher ground meant cover. I filed the presence away. Unknown entity,northwest, non-hostile but observant. Another variable that didn’t fit.
My wolf paced.
The ridge opened ahead, and the view stopped all three of us.
The compound spread below.
Modern, fortified, lit by floodlights on automated sweeps. Guard towers at each corner, a motor pool with six vehicles including an armored transport.
“This isn’t what I expected,” Lucian said.
“No.” I cataloged entry points, blind spots, patrol overlaps. “This is a military installation. The funding alone suggests resources on a scale we didn’t anticipate.”
“I’ve been staring at it for weeks,” Percy said quietly. “It doesn’t get smaller.”
The wind shifted.
It rolled up from the compound, carrying concrete, gunpowder, human sweat. Standard scents of a military operation. And beneath all of it, buried under layers of contamination, a thread I knew better than my own name.
